Hacker News has partnered with Firebase to create a real API. This is a .NET client to that API. With this API, you can get top stories, lookup items, and lookup profiles. I'll add to it as the API expands.
One word of caution: if you choose to load all 100 top stories, it will take a while as it has to be done one at a time.
HackerNewsApi client = new HackerNewsApi();
IEnumerable<int> ids = client.TopStoryIds().Result;
HackerNewsApi client = new HackerNewsApi();
IEnumerable<HackerNewsItem> ids = client.TopStories(2);
HackerNewsApi client = new HackerNewsApi();
HackerNewsItem storyItem = client.NewsItem(12345).Result;
HackerNewsApi client = new HackerNewsApi();
HackerNewsUserProfile userProfile = client.UserProfile("jl").Result;