Neuromancer (Sprawl #1) in The Alternative Worlds

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

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

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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May 26, 2008 Brooke rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008, science-fiction

I find myself at a loss to describe how I felt about this book. In some ways, it wasn't really that great - the characters are 2D at best, the first third of the book lacks any explanation or definitions to help acclimate the reader to the new world (for a while I was convinced I was going to read the whole book without having any idea what actually happened), and the whole thing seemed vague (who was doing what and why?).

By the end, though, things cleared up, I felt more comfortable with the v ...more

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Feb 25, 2008 Michelle rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, 1001-books, award_winner, rereads, dtb-own, book_club_irl

Once upon a time in college, I sat down to watch 'Citizen Kane' after the AFI 100 Movies list declared critical consensus to be that it was the best movie of all time. I was lost for the first half hour - it was rambling, boring, and I just did not get the fuss. A friend of my roommate's excitedly sat down to watch when he saw what was on, and then kept up a running commentary of how *this shot* was the first time anyone had done that and why it mattered. The film was ultimately far more interes Once upon a time in college, I sat down to watch 'Citizen Kane' after the AFI 100 Movies list declared critical consensus to be that it was the best movie of all time. I was lost for the first half hour - it was rambling, boring, and I just did not get the fuss. A friend of my roommate's excitedly sat down to watch when he saw what was on, and then kept up a running commentary of how *this shot* was the first time anyone had done that and why it mattered. The film was ultimately far more interesting with its far-reaching historical impact than it was solo.

Once upon a different time in college, I read Neuromancer with a sci-fi lit class. Even though it was more than a decade old at that time, it was exciting and fresh and wildly different (to be fair, that whole class was excellently curated). A punky-ass early 20s deeply flawed protagonist! A grunged-up, lived-in, dirty-around-the-edges reality! With money and computer skills, the world is your oyster! I remember it as fast-paced and take-no-prisoners, and it launched an incredible discussion in class about the nature of reality and the future of science fiction.

It's now been 35 years since the ideas and style of Neuromancer made waves in the sci-fi pool. It was the recent Pick for my IRL book club, and I was both very interested to see how the first-time readers in the group responded to it, as well as how it held up over the years. And, well, Citizen Kane strikes again. The book is written largely in the trade jargon of its hackers and street rats, and while I actually enjoy a book that makes me work a bit to get everything, several other folks found it needlessly opaque. The ideas of "the matrix" and "cyberspace" and "noir down on his luck dead end has-been + badass femme fatale" that were so fresh and new 20 years ago felt clichéd to more than one reader. And for me, the punky drug addict with zero character growth despite some major life events now feels more pathetic than anti-establishment. Neuromancer's place in the canon is well-deserved - a thousand ships of concepts were launched here - but at this point, it might be best appreciated with a solid dose of historic/literary context. ...more

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Jul 31, 2011 John Montagne rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Most literary critics attribute this work to bringing the cyberpunk sub-genre back in the spotlight, and rightfully so. Others (wrongfully) go so far as to declare Gibson as the father of cyberpunk, no... he's one of its greatest contributors true, but the founding father is none other than Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and others works). Gibson's approach to a post-modern writing style in the futuristic world is a tour de force, and though the reader may not know exactly w ...more

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