A comprehensive and specific fictional model for virtual reality was published in 1935 in the short story "Pygmalion's Spectacles"[1] by Stanley G. Weinbaum.
Stanisław Lem's 1961 story "I (Profesor Corcoran)", translated in English as "Further Reminiscences of Ijon Tichy I",[2] dealt with a scientist who created a number of computer-simulated people living in a virtual world.
These include William Gibson's 1984 Neuromancer, which defined the concept of cyberspace, and his 1994 Virtual Light, where a presentation viewable in VR-like goggles was the MacGuffin.
Other examples are Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, in which he made extensive reference to the term avatar to describe one's representation in a virtual world, and Rudy Rucker's The Hacker and the Ants, in which a programmer uses VR for robot design and testing.
Other recent examples include Conor Kostick's 2004 children's novel Epic[3] and Louis Bulaong's 2020 sci-fi book Escapist Dream.