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Neuromancer (Sprawl #1)

3.79 of 5 stars 3.79 · rating details · 114,101 ratings · 3,178 reviews

SPECIAL 20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION —THE MOST IMPORTANT AND INFLUENTIAL SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL OF THE PAST TWO DECADES

Twenty years ago, it was as if someone turned on a light. The future blazed into existence with each deliberate word that William Gibson laid down. The winner of Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards, Neuromancer didn't just explode onto the science fiction...more

Hardcover, 384 pages

Published November 2nd 2004 by Ace Hardcover (first published 1984)

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Nov 28, 2011 Stephen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: award-nominee-campbell, award-nominee-hugo, award-winner-hugo, multiple-award-nominee, multiple-award-winners, award-nominee-nebula, award-winner-nebula, award-nominee-philip-k-dick, award-winner-philip-k-dick, award-nominee-british-sf, locus-all-time-science-fiction-poll, award-nominee-locus, cyber-punk-prep-and-post, science-fiction, world-in-the-shitter, audiobook, 6-star-books, all-time-favorites

Eureka!...Hallelujah!...I've had a wondrous epiphany!
I finally get it...I have seen the light and understanding has dawned. Gibson’s manifest brilliance has revealed itself to me and I am left humbled and quivering in AWE.

After a rocky, tumultuous courtship that oscillated between respect and frustration through my first two readings of Neuromancer, number 3 became the CHARMing, rapturous awakening into a hopelessly devoted, head over heals love affair that I’m confident will last a lifetime....more

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Nov 21, 2011 mark monday rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: futuristik

the following is a Reverse Exquisite Corpse Review, brought to you by the good folks at Sci Fi Aficionados.
______________________________________

I first read Neuromancer about 20 years ago. Writing with strokes instead of details is an interesting way to describe Gibson's writing. That's how I feel about some of the performance art I saw in my art school days. The strokes were far too numerous. I found it impossible to tell what was detail, what was colour, what was clue. I get bored with things...more

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May 08, 2013 Richard rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Rating: 4* of five

The Book Report: The seminal work of cyberpunk, the novel was published in 1984 as a mass-market paperback original. It's the story of a twenty-first century dominated by Japanese corporations, feeding off American talent, and dominating a planet only recently recovered (if one can call it that) from the most recent pandemic as well as a horrific war between the USSR and the USA. So far, Reality 1, Gibson 0...but wait.

Molly, Case, and Armitage are a weird little unit, chasing a...more

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May 26, 2007 Keely rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, novel, reviewed, american, cyberpunk

A lozenge is a shape. Like a cube, or a triangle, or a sphere. I know that every time he types it, you are going to imagine a cough drop flying serenely by, but it's a shape. It's from heraldry for god's sake. You may want to look up some synonyms to insert for yourself when he uses it, here are a few: diamond, rhombus, mascle.

Now that the greatest obstacle in Gibson's vocabulary has been dealt with, I can tell you that he writes in one of the finest voices of any Science Fiction author. His ab...more

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Dec 18, 2011 s.penkevich rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone who needs an escape from the Sprawl

Recommended to s.penkevich by: Drunkkidcatholic

Shelves: sci-fi, times-100-best

I was watching Jeopardy a few weeks ago when I first heard of Gibson (Technology for 200: “I coined the term ‘cyberspace’”) and the next morning on my commute to work I heard another allusion to the Canadian author on NPR. A few days later, someone recommended I read Neuromancer so seeing as the stars were seemingly aligning to place a Gibson novel at the top of my ‘to-read’ list, I went out and bought this novel. I am glad I did. Not only did it remind me that I needed to read more sci-fi from...more

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Jan 30, 2013 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In hindsight, it seems that Neuromancer was a triumph of style over substance, a fact which might go some ways in explaining its enduring relevance as an ur-text of modern (science) fiction: that particular quality serving in meta, perhaps paradoxical fashion by both establishing a trend that was to become progressively more discernible while yet commenting on what was and, more impressively, that which would prevalently come to be. At the time I read this, though, such artsy-fartsy pondering wa...more

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Jul 28, 2010 K.D. Oliveros rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Aaron who currently reads a lot of dystopian novels

Recommended to K.D. by: TIME Magazine 100 Best Novels; 1001 Must Read Books Before You Die (2006-2010)

Shelves: 1001-core, 501, sci-fi

A mind-bender of a read. It has all the elements of a top rate science fiction and a post-industrial dystopian novel. First published in 1984, it was ahead of its time. It coined the term "cyberspace" which Gibson, long before the internet and other virtual technologies were integrated into everyday life, described as "a three-dimensional representation of computer data through which users communicate and do business, alongside a whole host of more dubious activities." In fact, this book said to...more A mind-bender of a read. It has all the elements of a top rate science fiction and a post-industrial dystopian novel. First published in 1984, it was ahead of its time. It coined the term "cyberspace" which Gibson, long before the internet and other virtual technologies were integrated into everyday life, described as "a three-dimensional representation of computer data through which users communicate and do business, alongside a whole host of more dubious activities." In fact, this book said to have inspired a generation of technophiles.

Since it coined the term cyberspace, this novel also created a genre in literature called "cyberpunk" which is science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life". Cyberpunk works are well situated within postmodern literature. Cyberpunk plots often center on a conflict among hackers, artificial intelligences, and megacorporations, and tend to be set in a near-future Earth, rather than the far-future settings or galactic vistas found in novels such as Isaac Asimov's Foundation or Frank Herbert's Dune (Source: Wikipedia).

So, having thought of something that were not existing during the time of its writing is only the reason why this is a mind-bender of a read. Yes? The answer is no. It also has the most imaginative and edge-of-the-seat science fiction thriller that I've read in my life.

The story revolves around Case who is top-notch hacker (Gibson's equivalent term is "computer cowboy" or a data thief) who "hacks into" the virtual world until his brain was maimed by a client he has double-crossed. Since he lost his ability to hack, he decides to live in seclusion until he an ex-military businessman Armitage arrives and offers to help him for unknown reason. I will not tell you the reason as it is too much for a spoiler but it is one of the more complex but still believable (as it does not insult your intelligence) plot for a sci-fi novel. It combines the pace and urgency of the best thrillers with scope, invention, and intellectual rigor of Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World but it added a lot more of creativity and inventiveness that I think it is even better on each of those aspects than its predecessors.

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Jan 30, 2008 Loren rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Adapted from ISawLightningFall.blogspot.com

The first time I tried to read Neuromancer, I stopped around page 25.

I was about 15 years old and I’d heard it was a classic, a must-read from 1984. So I picked it up and I plowed through the first chapter, scratching my head the whole time. Then I shoved it onto my bookshelf, where it was quickly forgotten. It was a dense, multilayered read, requiring more effort than a hormone-addled adolescent wanted to give. But few years later, I pulled the book do...more Adapted from ISawLightningFall.blogspot.com

The first time I tried to read Neuromancer, I stopped around page 25.

I was about 15 years old and I’d heard it was a classic, a must-read from 1984. So I picked it up and I plowed through the first chapter, scratching my head the whole time. Then I shoved it onto my bookshelf, where it was quickly forgotten. It was a dense, multilayered read, requiring more effort than a hormone-addled adolescent wanted to give. But few years later, I pulled the book down and gave it another chance. This time, William Gibson’s dystopic rabbit hole swallowed me whole.

Neuromancer is basically a futuristic crime caper. The main character is Case, a burnt-out hacker, a cyberthief. When the book opens, a disgruntled employer has irrevocably destroyed parts of his nervous system with a mycotoxin, meaning he can’t jack into the matrix, an abstract representation of earth’s computer network. Then he receives a suspiciously sweet offer: A mysterious employer will fix him up if he’ll sign on for a special job. He cautiously agrees and finds himself joined by a schizophrenic ex-Special Forces colonel; a perverse performance artist who wrecks havoc with his holographic imaginings; a long-dead mentor whose personality has been encoded as a ROM construct; and a nubile mercenary with silver lenses implanted over her eyes, retractable razors beneath her fingernails and one heckuva chip on her shoulder. Case soon learns that the target he’s supposed to crack and his employer and are one and the same -- an artificial intelligence named Wintermute.

Unlike most crime thrillers and many works of speculative fiction, Neuromancer is interested in a whole lot more that plot development. Gibson famously coined the word “cyberspace” and he imagines a world where continents are ruled more by corporations and crime syndicates than nations, where cultural trends both ancient and modern dwell side by side, where high-tech and biotech miracles are as ordinary as air. On one page you’ll find a discussion of nerve splicing, on another a description of an open-air market in Istanbul. An African sailor with tribal scars on his face might meet a Japanese corporate drone implanted with microprocessors, the better to measure the mutagen in his bloodstream. When he’s not plumbing the future, Gibson dips into weighty themes such as the nature of love, what drives people toward self-destruction and mind/body dualism. It’s a rich, heady blend.

That complexity translates over to the novel’s prose style, which is why I suspect my first effort to read it failed. Gibson peppers his paragraphs with allusions to Asian geography and Rastafarianism, computer programming and corporate finance. He writes about subjects ranging from drug addiction and zero-gravity physics to synesthesia and brutal back-alley violence. And he writes with next to no exposition. You aren’t told that Case grew up in the Sprawl, which is the nickname for the Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis, a concreted strip of the Eastern Seaboard, and that he began training in Miami to become a cowboy, which is slang for a cyberspace hacker, and that he was immensely skilled at it, et cetera, et cetera. No, you’re thrust right into Case’s shoes as he swills rice beer in Japan and pops amphetamines and tries to con the underworld in killing him when his back is turned because he thinks he’ll never work again. You have to piece together the rest on your own.

Challenging? You bet. But it’s electrifying once you get it.

I’ve worked by paperback copy until the spine and cover have split, until the pages have faded like old newsprint. Echoes of its diction sound in my own writing. Thoughts of Chiba City or BAMA pop into my head when I walk through the mall and hear a mélange of voices speaking in Spanish and English and Creole and German. Neuromancer is in me like a tea bag, flavoring my life, and I can’t imagine what it would be like if I hadn’t pressed on into page 26.(less)

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Aug 23, 2011 Kat Hooper rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, favorites

4.5 stars
ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

audio version
Henry Dorsett Case is a washed up computer hacker. He used to be one of the best, traveling cyberspace and sneaking through computer defenses, stealing money and information for his employers. But after he got greedy and embezzled some money, his employers damaged his brain so he can’t jack into cyberspace anymore. He spent the stolen money trying to get his ability back, but it didn’t work, and now he’s suicidal and wandering the squ...more 4.5 stars
ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

audio version
Henry Dorsett Case is a washed up computer hacker. He used to be one of the best, traveling cyberspace and sneaking through computer defenses, stealing money and information for his employers. But after he got greedy and embezzled some money, his employers damaged his brain so he can’t jack into cyberspace anymore. He spent the stolen money trying to get his ability back, but it didn’t work, and now he’s suicidal and wandering the squalid streets of Chiba City, Japan... Until Molly the razorgirl shows up. She wears tight black leather, has mirrored glasses implanted in her eye sockets, and has retractable razors embedded under her fingernails. She delivers Case to her boss, Armitage, who says he can fix Case if he’ll hire on as his hacker. Case’s new hacking job turns out to be a lot bigger and a lot stranger than he and his new colleagues expected.

There’s very little exposition in Neuromancer and it’s got its own slang and culture. So when William Gibson drops us off in degenerate and dystopian Night City with its neon lights, holographic arcades, drug dealers, meat puppets, black market surgeons, and silvery sky, you’ll want to either hide in the nearest alley, or start running... and hope you don’t bump into any of Gibson’s characters. Once you meet them, you won’t forget them, but you’re unlikely to fall in love with any of them because, like their city, they’re cold and criminal (“Towns like this are for people who like the way down”).

The unfamiliar language and setting and the aloof characters will be a turn-off for some readers, but those who think it’s exhilarating to be dumped into new and unknown territory will find that Neuromancer is fast-moving, flashy, decadent, and sexy (think The Matrix and Ghost in the Shell). For a novel written in 1984, it feels surprisingly stylish, its cultural issues are still modern, and it has accurately anticipated some of our 21st century technological developments.

The most obvious thing that Neuromancer anticipated — and this is what makes it classic science fiction and the seminal cyberpunk novel — is the internet, which Case calls “cyberspace.” In his afterward to Neuromancer, Jack Womack suggests that Neuromancer didn’t just foresee the internet, but that the novel may have actually created the internet (or at least influenced how we use it) because the people who developed it read Neuromancer back in 1984.

As a product of the 1980s, a fan of dystopian science fiction, a neuroscience researcher, and a denizen of cyberspace, I’ve been waiting years for Neuromancer to be released on audio, so I was thrilled to see that Penguin Audio finally produced it this summer. The audio version is excellently read by Robertson Dean and includes Jack Womack’s afterward in which he discusses the novel’s influence and his friendship with William Gibson. There’s also an introduction by Gibson in which he talks about how Neuromancer has aged — pretty well except for the mention of modems and the lack of cell phones (something I’ve noticed that most old SF novels are missing).

One thing I’d like to alert audio readers to: Neuromancer is not an easy read because of the lack of exposition, which makes it even more difficult on audio. If you’ve not read the novel before, it will require full concentration and occasional rewinding, but it will be rewarding. No science fiction fan should miss the first novel to win the Triple Crown of SF awards: the Nebula, the Hugo, and the Philip K. Dick awards. And for audiobook readers, now is the perfect time to enjoy Neuromancer.(less)

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Oct 23, 2011 Shovelmonkey1 rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people who really like geometry

Recommended to Shovelmonkey1 by: 1001 books list

Shelves: 1001-books, read-in-2011, my-my-its-myth-and-sci-fi, bookcrossing-books

This book should be so covered in shiny, spangly stars to indicate all the sci-fi awards it has received that the cover should look like the milky way and possibly be shinier and brighter than the sun. I just had the plain old paper back version with no spangles. Very sad. I like a nice bit of shiny.

Any goodreaders who have already perused my shelves will note that I am not someone who has read a great deal of science fiction. Is this a glaring oversight on my part? Hmm maybe.

I was persuaded t...more This book should be so covered in shiny, spangly stars to indicate all the sci-fi awards it has received that the cover should look like the milky way and possibly be shinier and brighter than the sun. I just had the plain old paper back version with no spangles. Very sad. I like a nice bit of shiny.

Any goodreaders who have already perused my shelves will note that I am not someone who has read a great deal of science fiction. Is this a glaring oversight on my part? Hmm maybe.

I was persuaded to read Neuromancer because it is one of the 1001 books to read before you die and therefore is probably worth a punt, although that said, some of the books on that list are god-awful (Kathy Acker's Blood and Guts in High School being a case in point) but no pain no gain and it all feeds into my OCD book list reading so whatever.

If anyone came up to me and told me that they could explain definitively what Neuromancer was all about I would not believe them. Not for one second. Gibson rockets right off at the deep end with this one and you are left trailing in the wake of a spew of what amount to descriptions of geometry while trying to figure out what the hell is going on. (Hint: it's something to do with being in cyber space and stealing information by making yourself into some sort of human mass storage device in a post-modern industrial espionage way).

Does this make this a bad book and a piss poor read? No, actually it doesn't. It makes it a confusing read, but then Gibson chucks in a few sentences which do make sense and that sort of fortifies the nerves and allows you to plough ever onwards. Overall it was oddly jarring, too full of geometrical jargon and tricky to focus on in place - like reading while jumping on a trampoline - but Gibson should be awarded top marks for daring to be different and for churning out future-fabulous phrases such as cyber space, microsofts and the matrix when even Bill Gates and his future megacorp were still in metaphorical short pants.(less)

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Feb 25, 2009 Sandi rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008, sci-fi

For well over 20 years, I have seen copies of William Gibson’s “Neuromancer” on the Sci-Fi/Fantasy shelves of nearly every bookstore I have gone into. I recently decided to pick up a copy and read it. I figured a book that’s been continuously in print for over twenty years and is considered a ground-breaking work in Science Fiction had to be good. I figured wrong.

“Neuromancer” is a very convoluted novel. It jumps from local to local and situation to situation in a very jerky way. To add to the...more

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Dec 24, 2009 Richard rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Richard by: SciFi & Fantasy Group 2008-12 SciFi Selection

Shelves: classic, scifi, bookclub, series

I had the strangest sense of deja vu throughout this book. Possibly because Gibson tends to recycle ideas, but I also suspect I may have read it twenty years ago. The whole Ninja shooting blind thing was just too familiar. But perhaps he'd used that in a short story previously?

While I agree that this was a foundational book for the cyberpunk subgenre, that doesn't really help it as a book. Time has just passed by his early take on cyberpunk (the contrast with the immersive experience in Neal Ste...more

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Dec 04, 2008 This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, fiction, hugo-award, nebula-award, cyberpunk

Context. Sometimes the key to understanding something is context. And never is that more the case than with the book Neuromancer. Neuromancer is a very famous, genre creating/changing book, winner of many awards. I’m reading Neuromancer for the first time; while not quite done, I find the story to be decent and the writing to be ok. As just a book that I am reading, I would call it fair. But that is an evaluation without context.

Under what context does my evaluation change? Well, one of the firs...more

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Dec 08, 2007 Monk rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, required_reading

This book is one of the relatively few 5-Star books I can rate. On a scale of 1 to 5, one means stay away from this book. Five is something that changes your life after you read it. Gibson's Neuromancer is a definite five.

Neuromancer is the story of a burned-out hacker named Case. Having performed the one unforgivable crime of his shadowy business - stealing from his employer - he has literally been burned out. A Russian mycotoxin has destroyed his nervous sytem so accutely that he is no longer...more

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Nov 18, 2011 Anthony Vacca rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An interesting novel. It's interesting to see the (humble?) beginnings of the cyberpunk genre. You can tell this is a first novel: characters could use more fleshing out, the descriptions of setting could be a bit more lucid, the plotting a little less opaque; but these complaints can be argued against, I suppose. Mr. Gibson does well at getting the neo-noir feel right: everything is dark, lurid and dangerous. And I must admit that I can never complain about anything having a noir-esque feel to...more

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Jan 11, 2008 James rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In the era of Blade Runner, Music Video, Cold-War Endgame, and skyrocketing crime rates; in the time of the very beginning of the digital revolution, Neuromancer hit like a ton of bricks. It took both trends and said, "here is what the future could be like." And while it wasn't pretty, it was interesting. It was cool. It was sexy. It even sounded like fun, in a short-lived, stimulant fueled sort of way.

The book's flaws are well documented. Case, the main character, is such an ass that by the end...more

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Nov 17, 2011 Catie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, read-in-2011, sci-fi, series, speculative-fiction

I am going to have to admit that I was utterly confused by the majority of this book. I mean,

“His eyes were eggs of unstable crystal, vibrating with a frequency whose name was rain and the sound of trains, suddenly sprouting a humming forest of hair-fine glass spines.”

How’s that again? Eggs…of humming rainforest glass? No?

Normally I would read a sentence like that and just throw in the towel. But for all its trippy, surreal, dense prose, this book still manages to convey so much. Reading it fee...more

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Feb 12, 2012 Emanuela rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: narrativa-straniera, sci-fi

Questo romanzo è la "cosa" più fantascientifica che mi sia passata tra le mani. Sfiora l'incomprensibile.
Provo a dare una mia umile interpretazione per uscire dal nero notte, attingendo a tre parole chiave del testo.
E' la perfezione del WYSIWYG, Quello che vedi è quello che ottieni. Sono continui flash di sinestesie,frullati percettivi, che schizzano fuori dall'interazione tra il Sistema Nervoso, il cyberspazio ed attivatori chimici, che creano proiezioni mentali senza riferimenti cartesiani, me...more

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Jan 12, 2013 David rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: street samurai, cyberspace cowboys, RPG addicts

Shelves: cyberpunk, science-fiction, audiobook, near-future, japan, classic, 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die

This is a book that, if you are approaching it for the first time, suffers from having been imitated so much that it seems derivative of its own successors. Neuromancer was genre-defining and it blew a million little geeky minds back in the day, but reading it in 2012, I failed to be enthralled by the goshwow factor. 'Cyberspace' is mainstream now, and stripped away of the novelty that made fans back in 1984 say "This is so fucking cool!" the book is kind of a techy-tech high concept thrill ride...more This is a book that, if you are approaching it for the first time, suffers from having been imitated so much that it seems derivative of its own successors. Neuromancer was genre-defining and it blew a million little geeky minds back in the day, but reading it in 2012, I failed to be enthralled by the goshwow factor. 'Cyberspace' is mainstream now, and stripped away of the novelty that made fans back in 1984 say "This is so fucking cool!" the book is kind of a techy-tech high concept thrill ride with cardboard characters.

So, Case is a 'cyberspace cowboy' who used to "jack in" to the Matrix and go on 'runs' (stealing data from big corporations, governments, etc.) in a near-future where the U.S. has fragmented into tribal/corporate nation-states, but the USSR is still around. (In the foreword to this edition, Gibson comments on his own prescience or lack thereof, acknowledging also all the other things he didn't get right which will strike modern readers, like the existence of payphones and the lack of cell phones.) He tried to steal from one of his employers, and in retaliation they poisoned him in a way that left him unable to jack into the matrix again. Now he's a down-and-outer in Chiba City (yes, there's a taste of 80s "Japan is so fucking cool!" weeabooism here) when he gets recruited for a job by a mysterious guy named Armitage who says he can fix him up. Case also meets Molly, a "razor girl" street samurai. With the rest of his motley crew, Case goes on an adventure that takes him into high orbit to the playground of the super-rich. There are futuristic ninjas, artificial intelligences, and your basic cyberpunk RPG adventure. Again, not really fair to dismiss it like that, because this book invented cyberpunk RPGing and cyberpunk everything else, but unless you really love all things cyberpunk and/or Gibson, you may find, as I did, that Neuromancer just doesn't quite live up to the hype it earned in 1984 with its Hugo and Nebula awards.

William Gibson's writing is superbly clever and descriptive, and boy does he spin ideas. But this is the third book of his I've read, and while I appreciate his craft on a technical level, his stories just don't do much for me. I don't care about his characters.

For SF fans, this may be a good book to read to be familiar with, you know, the "seminal" works of the genre, but I just don't feel compelled to go read the rest of the Sprawl trilogy.(less)

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Oct 25, 2009 Khaya rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: cyberpunk fans

Recommended to Khaya by: Dena Udren

Shelves: scifi-fantasy-magicrealism

True Confessions

1. I am a nerd.

(I know this is a shocking revelation from someone who spends most of her free time reading and writing book reviews for pleasure).

My overall personality, compounded by my sheltered religious background (as in, I spent most of my life going to school, marrying and having kids early, and being a homemaker with periodic stints in the workplace), makes it difficult for me to relate to characters who frequent bars, regularly use drugs, sleep around, and pepper their d...more

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Dec 28, 2011 Richard rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Richard by: Michael Economy

Shelves: science-fiction, recs-by-friends, reviewed, books-i-d-like-to-punch-in-the-face, 2011

This novel was recommended to me by several friends both inside and outside GoodReads as a classic in the genre. Well, with apologies to said friends, I read it, and I was singularly underwhelmed. I was confused through much of it. I was mystified by the description of technology (including microsofts--did Bill Gates read this thing before he sat down to start a multi-kazillion-dollar corporation)? And I didn't find myself engaged in the story or caring for any of the major characters until quit...more

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Jan 12, 2009 Jon rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Jon by: SciFi & Fantasy Book Club December Selection

Shelves: fiction, science-fiction, read-in-my-40s, award-winners, hugo-winner, nebula-winner

It was difficult to stay focused on this novel, it's story and it's characters. If I could, I would probably give this 2.5 stars rather than 3 stars, but I'll be lenient since was a triple award winner in the 80s.

However, it really hasn't stood the test of time well. If I had read this when published, which would have been my first year in college as an engineer/math/computer science college student, it would have been cutting edge, or more appropriately, bleeding edge.

But the character develo...more

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Feb 26, 2008 Dxarmbar06 rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone bored with scifi

I HATE contemporary scifi. I can't stand how everything at BN and Borders under "scifi" is little more than genre fiction, carved down into meaningless bad story telling that's layered with technological fluff and ramblings written at a sixth grade level. And cliche characters! Can't forget the Cliche Characters. I'd just about given up on science fiction....until I picked up Neuromancer.

The name itself called to me, and then I read the first sentance...

"The sky above the port was the color of t...more

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Johnnyh73 It IS getting so hard to find real sf in a place like Barnes & Noble. Not much new stuff gets published these days without already belonging an es...more It IS getting so hard to find real sf in a place like Barnes & Noble. Not much new stuff gets published these days without already belonging an established author. But how do you get established without someone to put you on the shelves? I'm hoping that the internet will soon start bringing me to the new writers I want to read without all the crap getting in the way!

But about Neuromancer:
Well, I read it a long time ago when I was a kid far, far away. I was maybe 13 or 14; late half of the 1980s. I remember certain feelings and images from it, but not a lot of understanding. I remember that the writing was differently styled. I'd started in on some of the more easily accessible Zelazny by then, and I paid a lot of attention to science.

A couple years ago I started reading some more Gibson. It started with the short story "Up In Skinner's Room." (I think that's the name of it...) Then I read The Difference Engine. I started thinking, "Oh yeah, this guy wasn't just popular, he was GOOD!" I got all the Gibson I could find at the local used bookstores. (They are the place to shop!)

So in the last 8 months or so I re-read Neuromancer and read about 5 other books by Gibson. I really love his style.

Gibson also does what a good sf writer should: he makes you THINK!!! If an SF writer doesn't make you think they aren't very good, are they? Isn't the "specualative" part of speculative fiction supposed to be about how speculative you can get after reading it?

*USED BOOKSTORES: in Oregon there are 3-
1)I don't even know the name; Gary's Used Books? He's good enough that he doesn't feel the obnoxious need to mark every book that comes in. It's on Hwy 99 in Talent,OR, just north of the Valley View intersection. (If anyone lives in the Rogue Valley and wants to go there, respond to this and I'll tell you how to get there more specifically.) He'll buy lot's of books. ...I'm just too attached to let go of any of my old stuff...
2)Another place near Medford is Village books, next to the Harry and David Store. They have a lot of books, although their sf section has become visibly smaller this year. Good selection of things but you might pay more because it might be "rare". (This is the place my wife proposed to me.....) (less)
Jan 06, 2010 01:58am

Johnnyh73 oops- I was saying there were 3 cool used bookstores I knew about in Southern Oregon, BUT-
There are is a 3rd- at Gold Beach. They still claim over 50...more
Jan 06, 2010 02:03am

David Rugge I agree with you about the first sentence. I read this book about 15 years ago and it was the only thing I remembered!
Aug 04, 2011 10:19am

Jul 01, 2007 Aerin rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, well-that-was-terrible, urban-bizarre

This book went way over my head when I read it in high school. Either that, or it was just bad. Part of me wants to go back and read it again to find out what I missed. Part of me thinks, it was probably just bad.

7 likes · like · see review

Mar 16, 2013 Brad rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read SPOOK COUNTRY several years ago, based on the recommendation of a friend, and had a hard time getting into it. I think I had to restart it four times before I could finally get myself to read it. So when I saw NEUROMANCER in the sale bin at my used books store, I hesitated. Only after reading the back cover and being reminded that NEUROMANCER was Gibson's break-out book in the early 80s and that it won the Philip K. Dick and Hugo awards, I decided to give Gibson another try.

I do not regr...more I read SPOOK COUNTRY several years ago, based on the recommendation of a friend, and had a hard time getting into it. I think I had to restart it four times before I could finally get myself to read it. So when I saw NEUROMANCER in the sale bin at my used books store, I hesitated. Only after reading the back cover and being reminded that NEUROMANCER was Gibson's break-out book in the early 80s and that it won the Philip K. Dick and Hugo awards, I decided to give Gibson another try.

I do not regret the decision to read NEUROMANCER, but I did not like the book. Gibson's narrative style is confusing. It is possible that he cultivates a bit of that to lend a futuristic and alien quality to his science fiction. Perhaps, he does not want his readers to be too comfortable in the violent, computer-driven world of the future that he envisions for us. If so, then he executes his plan well. I never felt at ease reading NEUROMANCER and frequently had to re-read sections to assure myself that I had not missed something key that would make the action more intelligible. Though it may have been Gibson's goal to invoke such feelings in his readers, I cannot say that I enjoyed it.

NEUROMANCER is a heist story at an unspecified time in the future. Case, Gibson's protagonist, is a has-been computer hacker of former glory. He is recruited, by force, into the service of an unnamed and mysterious entity for the purpose of a serious hack into a computer system protected by the most sophisticated security. It is unclear when this is taking place, but by this time computer security has advanced such that computers can literally kill ("flat line") a hacker when one is detected. To enhance their skills, hackers undergo brain surgery and take drugs to speed up their reaction times. Case is a junkie of sorts, which does not add clarity to the narrative.

As the story unfolds, Case figures out that he is in the service of an AI ("artificial intelligence") that is seeking to extricate itself from limits on its freedom of action and thought that were built into it by the programmers who created it. One imagines that this is something like SkyNet, in the Terminator movies, becoming self-aware. It can't be a good thing for humans.

This sounds ominous and it should make for some drama, but that was lost on me. It's difficult to feel the drama when it is a struggle to follow what's happening. Plus, the story does not pay off in the end. I do not mean that the heist is unsuccessful, which is often true of good heist stories. I mean that it all just gets weird and there is nothing clever or memorable as Gibson wraps up his story. I think the book's success was due mostly to the mood he creates and his prescience about the role that computers will play in the future -- which for many of us was an uncomfortable thought in the early 80s.

I do not recommend NEUROMANCER. Gibson is not my cup of tea.
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Jun 13, 2012 Jonathan rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die, popularity-contest

This novel I wanted to like once I heard about the idea. It sounded cool, it sounded great. After all it is considered one of the better science fiction novels and defined the idea of cyberspace. Perhaps it was simply me or perhaps the novel is more dated than others of its type. I simply could not enjoy it. However I will admit that the idea is potent and that Gibson's ideas about the future were highly interesting.

However what I did not like stood out most strongly in this work. What I did not...more
This novel I wanted to like once I heard about the idea. It sounded cool, it sounded great. After all it is considered one of the better science fiction novels and defined the idea of cyberspace. Perhaps it was simply me or perhaps the novel is more dated than others of its type. I simply could not enjoy it. However I will admit that the idea is potent and that Gibson's ideas about the future were highly interesting.

However what I did not like stood out most strongly in this work. What I did not like was the classic issue I have with all books that attempt to be dark and gritty: 1. overuse of swearing/sexual references and 2. the cluttered language.

1. The novel certainly overused many swear words in my opinion. And whenever that happens I honestly dislike it. I personally won't use any with sexual connotations simply because while they are accepted nowdays I have not forgotten what people really mean by them. In this book the overuse of such words merely makes them lose impact. I personally don't mind authors using those words (it is a personal choice) but can they at least use them relevantly? If everything from a goat to a book is 'damned' then the word has no more meaning than totally in the phrase "totally cool man." All I'm saying is please don't overuse them because it is a waste of language really and it just clutters the novel with unnecessary words. The best gritty work I have read used language with potent impact (read for instance Ludlum's Bourne novels and the way he handles language. It is gritty without overexertion.

2. The novel also used too many cluttered phrases for me. It didn't flow for me and felt disjointed. As a result I had a hard time following the plotting. I got there in the end of course but it didn't connect with me in the way say the gothic brilliance of Edgar Allan Poe would. Perhaps it was just my fondness for flowing, classic language but I really didn't appreciate the compact style of Gibson as I might have. And there was also a lot of unexplained technical jargon, again getting in the way of the story.

Anyway while I may not like this others will. Certainly from among my friends who have read this it appears hit and miss with more hits than misses. But for me this is a miss that will become number seven on my one star list. And I do hate to give any book I finish one stars... But to quote Ned Kelly (apparently) "such is life."(less)

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Sep 03, 2009 Ben Babcock rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: english-3950, own, 2009-read, deliciously-quotable, science-fiction, artificial-intelligence, hugo-winner, nebula-winner

The trouble with reading good books is that any review one writes feels insufficient. It's not just finding the right words to describe how such books make one feel that's the challenge ... it's organizing those words in such a way to convey the breadth and scope of moving literature. Neuromancer poses such a problem. Writers trade in stories and ideas; while a case can be made that Neuromancer is deficient in some respects of the former, few books are as packed full of ideas as this book.

Neurom...more

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Mar 30, 2012 Eric rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Cyberpunk fans

Recommended to Eric by: Manny Citron

Shelves: science-fiction, cyber-punk

I had never read a cyber punk novel before Neuromancer, but I figured if I was going to read one, I should start with the one that started the genre. It didn't hurt that Neuromancer won the Nebula, Hugo and Philip K. Dick awards.

The story was interesting enough, but what really impressed me about Neuromancer was the language. First, the jargon and dialect really help to sell the premise and enhance the otherwise formulaic plot. Second, and more importantly, Gibson seemed to understand where the...more

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Oct 13, 2008 E.B. rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Cyber Goths, Computer Programers, IT Pros

Wow. What a terrible book.

First, let me just say that I read for entertainment value. Anything else that happens is gravy. That being said- the biggest reason this book is so awful is that Gibson's characters are completely hollow. Gibson makes it up as he goes along. He'll introduce a character, barely describe him and then 10 chapters later toss in another description. As if to say "Oh, yeah did I mention his hands were chainsaws? Yeah, they were totally chainsaws. Cool right?"
The reason this...more Wow. What a terrible book.

First, let me just say that I read for entertainment value. Anything else that happens is gravy. That being said- the biggest reason this book is so awful is that Gibson's characters are completely hollow. Gibson makes it up as he goes along. He'll introduce a character, barely describe him and then 10 chapters later toss in another description. As if to say "Oh, yeah did I mention his hands were chainsaws? Yeah, they were totally chainsaws. Cool right?"
The reason this is such a headache is that once your mind's eye has cast the characters, as shallow as they are, all of a sudden there's a new dimension tossed in. He doesn't just do this with characters, he does it with locations as well. Never giving you a chance to really place the characters in a setting. Other than "a dark city street." I mean, Try a little harder Gibson. I'm not a writer, but isn't that a sign of BAD WRITING?

The second reason this book is so bad, is Gibson's writing "style". I hate writing "styles". Stop trying to show off and just tell me a story. The "style" makes Neuromancer a very difficult book to read. I'd read 2 or 3 chapters and literally have no idea what was going on. Gibson will write a whole page with four lines of dialog and the rest of the page will describe absolutely nothing. Reminds me of the Mark Twain quote: "Don't say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream."

Now- for the positives. Gibson clearly just wanted to write a string of action sequences and techno-babel. Being a computer nerd myself, I found all of that interesting. Towards the end the characters actually have dialog with each other and as things come to a head it actually get's entertaining here and there. Another huge plus is that this book is considered the first true Cyberpunk work and has been heavily mined by Hollywood, Anime and pop-culture in general. Coining phrases like Matrix, Cyberspace, etc. For me, this was probably the first book I ever read just to say I read it. I don't regret it, but believe me, I'm glad it's over because I literally forced myself through it. Just wait for the movie. It'll probably make more sense.(less)

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Jan 26, 2008 Martine rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: sci fi fans

Shelves: science-fiction, modern-fiction, north-american, blokey-books, dystopia, postmodern

I'll confess I had a hard time getting into Neuromancer, the book that started the cyberpunk craze back in the mid-eighties. The first few chapters were so disjointed and deliberately obscure that I wasn't sure what was going on, nor whether I actually cared. Then things gradually started to fall into place. Seventy pages into the story I got the hang of Gibson's style, one hundred pages in I actually began to enjoy it, and now that I've finished it, I actually look forward to reading it again a...more I'll confess I had a hard time getting into Neuromancer, the book that started the cyberpunk craze back in the mid-eighties. The first few chapters were so disjointed and deliberately obscure that I wasn't sure what was going on, nor whether I actually cared. Then things gradually started to fall into place. Seventy pages into the story I got the hang of Gibson's style, one hundred pages in I actually began to enjoy it, and now that I've finished it, I actually look forward to reading it again at some point. I'm not sure if that makes Neuromancer a good book, but it's certainly interesting.

As the blurb has it, Neuromancer is about Case, who was the sharpest data thief in the matrix, until an ex-employer crippled his nervous system. Now a new employer has recruited him for a last-chance run against an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence. With a mirror-eyed girl street-samurai riding shotgun, he is sent on an adventure in a futuristic world where the lines between fantasy and reality are blurred and where nothing is quite what it seems, to fight an enemy he doesn't know. On the way to the final showdown, the reader is taken to Japan, America, Turkey and a few imaginary places, gets to meet quite a few bizarre people (if they are even human) and generally wonders what the f*** is going on.

You have to give Gibson credit for the virtual reality world he created over twenty years ago, long before the Internet and virtual reality as we know it were a fact. His futurama is a pretty fantastic and well-realised place, with characters of its own, a vernacular of its own, the works. The reader is thrown headlong into this world and is not given any explanations along the way, which makes the first few chapters hard to get through. After a while, though, you start getting a feel for the patois, and the book becomes much easier to read. However, it still has a few major flaws, which only become more obvious as you continue reading. For one thing, the characters aren't developed nearly as well as the world in which they live. They are interesting, but Gibson doesn't give them an awful lot to do or feel, which is a great shame. The same is true for the story as a whole. While there are plenty of interesting ideas floating in there, somehow they won't gel into a proper story, as Gibson is so busy focusing on the cool world he has created that he forgets to add such basic things as backgrounds, emotions, story arcs and smooth transitions. Even more damagingly, he fails to provide his heroes with a clear quest. While their actions and adventures are quite exciting, it is not clear exactly who or what they're up against or what they're trying to achieve or prevent, which makes it hard to identify with them or root for them. Throw in a rather vague bad guy (or bad guys?) and you have quite a few examples of bad story-telling -- things that any creative writing teacher would warn his students to steer clear of, and which have no business being in a book as famous and acclaimed as this one.

And yet... For all its flaws, Neuromancer IS pretty cool, and I genuinely look forward to re-reading it at some point. I just wish Gibson had made better use of the superb ingredients he's working with. Neuromancer could have been a brilliant book; as it is, it's merely interesting.
(less)

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About William Gibson

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

William Ford Gibson is an American-Canadian writer who has been called the father of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction, having coined the term cyberspace in 1982 and popularized it in his first novel, Neuromancer(1984), which has sold more than 6.5 million copies wor...more

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“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” — 228 people liked it

“Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding...” — 85 people liked it

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