Neuromancer by William Gibson

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Neuromancer is a formative novel, perhaps creating and certainly popularizing the cyber punk genre. It has an excellent opening line which decades later people can’t stop talking about, and it’s also the key to the novel. Visuals are Gibson’s bread and butter. Everything we encounter is described in beautiful and excruciating detail—except of course for the main character through whose eyes we experience everything. Description of the environment is much more important to Gibson than plot or characterization (which is not to say that there isn’t a plot or character development or mystery).

 

I’ve read the book several times now and even though I know where we’re going to end up, I still find the journey remarkably fresh and often don’t really know how we’re getting between points in the story. It’s an experience that’s worth having, not only because it’s one of the modern classics that has really influenced the way the cyberpunk genre developed but because it is a beautiful, thought provoking, piece of literature.

 

Now I’ll have to reread Count Zero.