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Originally Posted by adam
William Gibson's Neuromancer (just finished it, was impressed with how current it seemed considering it's 20 years old).
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Great book. I had to read 'Pattern Recognition' right afterwards. I'm planning on reading Sagan some time, after/inbetween Asimov.
Did you try Clarke? I admire his ability to describe impersonal surroundings as well as people and atmosphere; his (short) stories are so unbelievably visual to me. What's more, he's unsurpassed at predicting future developments. And there's again the timelessness, as in Gibson, Bradbury, Wells, Huxley, Orwell, ...
Back to topic: I agree that the question of datedness arises in other genres the same way. For example, I couldn't care less about social upheaval around 1900, however extensively, boringly depicted it might be. But then, I've always hated history classes.
A difference in science fiction, however, is that often enough a specific year is chosen for the plot to take place. That way, it's easy to laugh at manually altering newspaper articles and handing them back in by tube in 1984, or at funny, clumsy, ridiculously large machines computing obscure formulae and spitting out tons of indecipherable paper.
I'm 100% with King of Snake in that I like science fiction for its somewhat distanced (more objective?) reflection on today's life. Plus, robots are so wikkitly cool.
P. S.: Do too many of my sentences start with 'I' (above, a ration of 1/2)?