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Neuromancer

(Sprawl #1)

William Gibson

3.90 · Rating details · 267,870 ratings · 9,759 reviews

Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards

Case 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's ready for the silicon-quick, bleakly prophetic a ...more

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Mass Market Paperback, 271 pages

Published July 1st 1984 by Ace Books

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· 267,870 ratings · 9,759 reviews

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Mar 04, 2012 Lyn rated it it was amazing

Shelves: all-time-most-favorite-books

Wow.

This is a wild ride. If you like Philip K. Dick’s writing and wondered what would happen if you extended his vision into the not too distant future, if you liked Bladerunner, if you liked The Matrix … and even if you like all the film and fiction that has made an attempt to be any of the above, you will love Neuromancer.

William Gibson said that while writing Neuromancer he went to see the Ridley Scott film Bladerunner and thought that his ideas for the book were hopelessly lost, that everyo ...more

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Oct 12, 2008 Stephen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: award-nominee-campbell, all-time-favorites, award-winner-hugo, award-nominee-nebula, award-winner-nebula, award-nominee-british-sf, audiobook, award-nominee-hugo, award-winner-philip-k-dick, multiple-award-nominee

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 lifetim ...more

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Jan 21, 2008 Sandi rated it it was ok

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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May 13, 2007 J.G. Keely rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, reviewed, america, novel, 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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Jan 30, 2008 Loren rated it it was amazing

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. 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 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. ...more

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Jun 18, 2018 Evgeny rated it it was ok · review of another edition

DNF at 61%.
DNF graveyard

I am sorry, I really am. I tried really hard to finish it and made an attempt to resume reading after a break. I understand the huge influence the novel had on science fiction practically creating cyberpunk genre and introducing several words now in mainstream use. I fully acknowledge it. Let me say what was wrong with it - in my opinion.

If there was ever a victim of its own success, this book is it. It was so successful lots of people began developing the same theme and often much be ...more

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May 04, 2008 This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, nebula-award, science-fiction, hugo-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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Mar 01, 2008 E.B. rated it did not like it

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 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. ...more

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Nov 12, 2018 Leonard Gaya rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Towards the end of this novel, the protagonists, Case and Molly, are walking down the rooms of the Villa Straylight, which looks like an abandoned and labyrinthine library or museum, spinning in orbit around the Earth. At one point, Molly passes by the shattered glass pane of Marcel Duchamp’s masterpiece, La mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même. Gibson’s reference to the cubist and dadaist artist, at this point of the novel, might look casual and unsubstantial; but to me, it implies a lot Towards the end of this novel, the protagonists, Case and Molly, are walking down the rooms of the Villa Straylight, which looks like an abandoned and labyrinthine library or museum, spinning in orbit around the Earth. At one point, Molly passes by the shattered glass pane of Marcel Duchamp’s masterpiece, La mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même. Gibson’s reference to the cubist and dadaist artist, at this point of the novel, might look casual and unsubstantial; but to me, it implies a lot about the whole novel’s lineage.

In Neuromancer, as in Duchamp, there is this massive display of artefacts and dehumanised techno stuff: on the one hand, computers, artificial intelligence, cyberspace, ROM modules, augmented ninjas, razorblade-fingertips, cyberspies, stealth aircraft, orbital space habitats (Gibson); on the other hand, a urinal, a staircase, a bicycle wheel, a bottle rack, a waterfall and illuminating gas, a box in a suitcase, lumps of sugar in a birdcage (Duchamp).

There are also, in contrast to this, many graphic displays of organic and anatomic parts: on the one hand, blood vessels, drug addiction, pancreas and liver, reconstructive surgery, cryonic clones, disembowelled skulls and sexual intercourses (Gibson); on the other, a spread-legged female holding a gas lamp, a descending nude, a stripped bride and a switching from virgin to bride, Mona Lisa’s hot arse, and whatever could be exposed at the fountain (Duchamp).

The junction of these two contradictory movements, dirty bodies and hallucinatory objects, is precisely what defined surrealism in the 1920s. It is, too, what defined Ridley Scott’s masterpiece, Blade Runner (which references Un Chien Andalou in subtle ways) and William Gibson’s debut novel in the early 1980s — around the same time as Atwood's Handmaid's Tale, when “cyberspace” wasn’t even a reality outside of Gibson's imagination. Even the very first sentence, “The sky above the port was the color of television” has the flavour of surrealism, redolent of Paul Éluard's “La Terre est bleue comme une orange”. Gibson's novel is in turn a seminal work, ahead of Ghost in the Shell, Akira, The Matrix, Snow Crash, the whole pop culture movement labelled as “cyberpunk”, and down to Nolan's Inception in recent years, as well as mainstream sheer entertainment works, such as Ready Player One.

If it were not for the science fiction setting and Gibson’s rather outlandish ideas, the overall plot would probably sit alongside the espionage and spy thrillers of John Le Carré, Tom Clancy, Ken Follett or Ian Fleming. However, Neuromancer’s messy, fast-paced plotline is a bit secondary and, quite frankly, silly and hard to follow.

William Gibson’s writing, despite his regular use of slang, jargon and ironical repartee, has a surprising rhythm throughout, a sort of syncopated prosody, ending most of his sections with the recurring line “He flipped” or “He jacked in/out”. His musical style makes Gibson a prominent prose writer, tied with American authors such as Philip K. Dick, Kurt Vonnegut (remember “So it goes”) or Thomas Pynchon — I would even venture to say that Pynchon’s last novel, Bleeding Edge, is indebted to Gibson’s debut novel. ...more

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Nov 12, 2011 Catie rated it really liked it

Shelves: series, audio, classics, read-in-2011, sci-fi, 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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Apr 20, 2015 Fabian rated it it was ok

A bit of an embarrassment on the canon's part, really. Oooh Harsh! This one's "a landmark novel" that was actually ripped off by thousands of other sci-fi endeavors afterwards, like a chunk of meat devoured by the ever-hungry idea-challenged.

And it has explosive sentences with new and often-inexplicable lingo that ends making one feel alienated by the entire lit. crowd, this being a perennial favorite of theirs. It is a messy concoction thats too cool to let you ever, well, absorb. To allow you ...more

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Nov 20, 2011 s.penkevich rated it liked it

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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Nov 13, 2015 Matthew Quann rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, penguin-galaxy, sff-award-winners

Neuromancer is a most peculiar novel that deserves a peculiar review. So,

THREE PEOPLE WHO WILL (PROBABLY) NOT LIKE Neuromancer AND THREE PEOPLE WHO (PROBABLY) WILL :

THREE PEOPLE WHO WILL (PROBABLY) NOT LIKE Neuromancer

1. The Reader With Delicate Sensibilities

Does swearing, violence, lots of sex, and drug use sends a shiver of disgust down your spine? Then this is likely not the book for you. Though it rarely veered into territory that made me uncomfortable, Neuromancer refuses to be censored an ...more

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Jul 21, 2013 Manuel Antão rated it really liked it

Shelves: 1996

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

Unhook the Modem: "Neuromancer" by William Gibson

“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 the 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 light ...more

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Jun 24, 2010 Richard Derus rated it really liked it

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: The Matrix is a world within the world, a global consensus- hallucination, the representation of every byte of data in cyberspace . . .

Case had been the sharpest data-thief in the business, until vengeful former employers crippled his nervous system. But now a new and very mysterious employer recruits him for a last-chance run. The target: an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence orbiting Earth in service of the sinister Tessier-Ashpool business clan. ...more

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Oct 21, 2009 K rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: cyberpunk fans

Recommended to K by: Dena Udren

Shelves: couldntfinish, 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 ...more

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Oct 01, 2019 J.L. Sutton rated it liked it · review of another edition

Reminding me of both hard-boiled detective novels in the style of Dashiell Hammett and the cyber punk genre it spawned (yeah, it definitely reminded me of the Matrix movies), though groundbreaking when it was published in 1984, to me William Gibson’s Neuromancer was more attitude and atmosphere than substance. The plot is very thin and predictable and I felt almost no connection to the characters. It wasn’t unenjoyable to read. There was some interesting use of language and it was quite possibly ...more

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Jun 28, 2015 Apatt rated it really liked it

This is my third reading of Neuromancer, the first time was while in my teens decades ago, I hated it then and was not able to read more than 50 pages. The second time was around five years ago, I liked it better then but still found much of it inaccessible. This third reading was inspired by The Three-Body Problem which is only partially a cyberpunk book. I keep coming back to this problematic book not because I love it, but because the story and its iconic status interests me and I really wan ...more

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Jun 14, 2007 mark monday rated it really liked it

Shelves: scifi-60s-70s-80s, new-wave

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 being laid out t ...more

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May 14, 2015 Andrew Smith rated it did not like it

Shelves: science-fiction, not-finished

The thing is I just didn’t get it. I like my SF near future and close enough to present day reality for me to be able to translate what we do now into what we’re supposed to be doing (or able to do) in the future. If it’s too wild, or just too big a leap, my mind doesn’t seem to allow me to make the jump.

Then there’s the language thing. The use of a new vocabulary left me befuddled and confused. I honestly didn’t know what was going on most of the time. And when I did glean a bit of the narrati The thing is I just didn’t get it. I like my SF near future and close enough to present day reality for me to be able to translate what we do now into what we’re supposed to be doing (or able to do) in the future. If it’s too wild, or just too big a leap, my mind doesn’t seem to allow me to make the jump.

Then there’s the language thing. The use of a new vocabulary left me befuddled and confused. I honestly didn’t know what was going on most of the time. And when I did glean a bit of the narrative it just seemed to have been too much like hard work to get there. So that’s another thing, I like my fiction easy. Well no, not easy but understandable. I’ve coped with most of Murakami’s surreal tales and I love time travel books, so escape from reality isn’t a problem for me – in fact it’s a joy – but everyday life lived in an environment so alien, so different and (for me) so unbelievable is just a switch-off.

A quick synopsis for anyone who hasn’t read the book:
Case is a hacker who has been ‘altered’ so he can’t hack any more. He lives life as a hustler in Japan until he gets an offer from a mysterious type who offers to restore his hacking ability in exchange for undertaking some work for him. Case is suspicious and, having teamed up with a modified female, he sets out to find out more about the man. The rest (as far as I could tell) was a sort of hardboiled detective tale but set in the netherworld of cyberspace. It also had a touch of The Magnificent Seven about it. Though, in truth, I gave up at half way – my mind fried by terminology I couldn’t comprehend and a story that had jettisoned me and left me behind some time ago.

On the up-side, I like Case who I found to be the archetypal street-smart hardass who is on his uppers but has sufficient moral compass to keep him from straying too far from the straight and narrow. I also enjoyed some of the brilliant descriptions – mainly of the cyberspace world – that pepper the book.

Not my cup of tea but note my rating simply reflects the fact I didn’t finish it. ...more

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Feb 25, 2011 Ian "Marvin" Graye rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: my-sci-fanta-side, re-read, read-2014, reviews-4-stars, reviews, gibson

To Call Up a Demon, You Must Learn Its Name

As punishment for a business indiscretion, Case, who lives for the "bodily exultation of cyberspace" (one of many neologisms first used in "Neuromancer"), is injected with a wartime Russian mycotoxin and hallucinates for 30 hours, only to suffer damage that is "minute, subtle and utterly effective".

He falls into a "prison of his own flesh". After some fringe medical treatment in Siberia reinvents him, he emerges debt-ridden and physically compromis ...more

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Jun 26, 2010 Shovelmonkey1 rated it liked it

Recommends it for: people who really like geometry

Recommended to Shovelmonkey1 by: 1001 books list

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

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

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Mar 24, 2019 Markus rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

"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..."

A modern classic, as archetypal as they get. Quite a few thoughts were explored, but not a lot of fun ...more

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Nov 20, 2008 Manny rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts

The book that launched the whole cyberpunk genre... well of course it's brilliant. If you like SF at all, put this on your must-read list. ...more

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Nov 30, 2013 Carmen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: fiction, he-says, science-fiction, traditionally-published

NO SPOILERS

This is one of the most beautifully written books I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Gibson has a real gift.

Think of Blade Runner - the movie with Harrison Ford. This book has the same kind of slick, urban, grimy, futuristic feel to it. It has aged wonderfully. Written in 1983, it has done nothing to date itself and still feels fresh and new and possible, even now.
...

Case is a hacker, it's what he lives for - being jacked in and connected to the matrix. But he loses that ability ...more

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Jun 16, 2012 Clouds rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, hugo, science-fiction-series, read-in-2013, reviewed, nebula, pub-1980s

Following the resounding success of my Locus Quest, I faced a dilemma: which reading list to follow it up with? Variety is the spice of life, so I’ve decided to diversify and pursue six different lists simultaneously. This book falls into my HUGO WINNERS list.

This is the reading list that follows the old adage, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". I loved reading the Locus Sci-Fi Award winners so I'm going to crack on with the Hugo winners next (but only the post-1980 winners, I'll follow up w ...more

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Sep 23, 2017 Michael Finocchiaro rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: american-20th-c, novels, classics, sci-fi

William Gibson's Neuromancer is considered a classic in the cyberpunk genre and, indeed, as I read it, I could definitely feel the influence it had other iconic cultural landmarks such as the film The Matrix. The book itself is confusing to say the least: all the characters are jacked up on drugs most of the time and the language becomes confusing as a result. The descriptions of cyberspace are also complex and, of course, visionary - how Gibson could have foreseen some of the insidious ways tha William Gibson's Neuromancer is considered a classic in the cyberpunk genre and, indeed, as I read it, I could definitely feel the influence it had other iconic cultural landmarks such as the film The Matrix. The book itself is confusing to say the least: all the characters are jacked up on drugs most of the time and the language becomes confusing as a result. The descriptions of cyberspace are also complex and, of course, visionary - how Gibson could have foreseen some of the insidious ways that technology would ineluctably enmesh itself with our 21st century lives is truly amazing. The dystopian future that is described - a powerful, mob-ruled Japan, an ambiguous USA referred to as simply the Sprawl, decrepit Istanbul, and the Freeside space station (along with the entertaining rasta guys) - is one in which central power seems to have been passed to organized crime and a sort of cyber-anarchy reins. There do not seem to be any normal (un-modified, undrugged) people - at least none in the story. As for the plot, we follow Case through his Neo-like experiences surfing cyberspace and hacking alongside Flatline - a dead conscience with a redneck accent who lives in a circuit board - as he proceeds on a mission against the powerful (and perverse) Tellier-Ashpool family. He is also able to channel the feelings and experiences of his lover and ersatz altergo Molly while plugged into cyberspace. Overall, the book is mind-blowing in terms of the flipping between difference levels of cyber-reality as Case continues his fight. I have to say that I did not feel much affinity to Case - he is less charismatic than, say, Neo, but Molly was nearly as interesting and attractive as Trinity (although - spoiler alert - things between Case and Molly do not end as they did for Neo and Trinity.) Despite the confusing descriptions and the somewhat flatness of the protagonist, this is still a well-written and fascinating sci-fi book which was immensely influential. I just hope the world we are creating does not end up resembling the anarchic, criminally led world of Case and Molly.
...more

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Apr 25, 2020 L.S. Popovich rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2020, dystopian, science-fiction, 3-star, american

There is much to enjoy about Neuromancer, and as we all know, its influence reaches far in film and literature. But there was a lot about it that rubbed me the wrong way.

Its patina gloss shimmers at first, but soon sours, like sleek leather jumpsuits blurred by a g-force simulator. Gibson is a clever writer, and I will read more of his novels in the future. He writes with a stylized fervor that is rarely matched, the obsessive glossolalia of Nabokov and Ballard, but he transmogrifies his vision ...more

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Apr 13, 2019 Claudia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

This is the bible of cyberpunk. Everything I ever read which was written after this story, has something from it. This isn’t a novel to read for its plot or characters, but for the worldbuilding and the references. It comes to mind a thing I only said once about Heinlein’s All You Zombies, and that is: ‘this story is like a neutron star: small but with a weight beyond one's imagination.’

It’s too dense to be a light read and confusing most of the time if you don’t pay close attention to it; also, ...more

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Nov 29, 2020 Bernardo rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopian, science-fiction

Neuromancer was the book that started the cyberpunk movement. It was also in this book that William Gibson coined the term ‘cyberspace’. From cyberspace came the matrix and Neuromancer ended up becoming an influential science fiction book. Besides that, it was the first book to win the three big awards of science fiction: the Nebula, the Hugo and the Philip K. Dick awards.

This book isn’t as accessible as some other science fiction books. You are thrown right into the action of Night City, with i Neuromancer was the book that started the cyberpunk movement. It was also in this book that William Gibson coined the term ‘cyberspace’. From cyberspace came the matrix and Neuromancer ended up becoming an influential science fiction book. Besides that, it was the first book to win the three big awards of science fiction: the Nebula, the Hugo and the Philip K. Dick awards.

This book isn’t as accessible as some other science fiction books. You are thrown right into the action of Night City, with its drugs, crime, slang and culture. From the start of the book there’s barely anything that even comes close to exposition and you might become a bit bewildered with the dystopian world of Neuromancer. Sometimes, when I wanted something to be clearer it actually became more obscure. This may be due to the fact that the world Gibson is presenting is so different, ever changing and full of new definitions and terms. And similarly, his language and style are also different.

The plot is full of intricate features and will keep you interested with its twists and turns, becoming clearer as the story goes on. Speaking of the plot, it’s always moving forward with momentum, especially in the first chapters, as we are introduced to the world and characters of Neuromancer. But what really sets this plot apart from other books is the setting created by Gibson, along with his use of language and style. In particular, I thought his descriptions of cyberspace to be the highest point of his writing. At times the book’s style actually reminded me of the movie Blade Runner and I’m fairly convinced that it influenced Gibson. By now, it may seem that at first I’m complaining about Gibson’s style, only to praise it later. It’s actually a bit of both.

Neuromancer may not be everyone’s coffee and it might cause some kind of bewilderment with many new terms and definitions that keep on being introduced, but if you accept the ride you will eventually get used to it, understand it and be rewarded with a great book. ...more

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About William Gibson

William Gibson

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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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Quotes from Neuromancer

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” — 734 likes

“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...” — 311 likes

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