Neuromancer (Sprawl #1) in The Alternative Worlds

Nov 08, 2016 Terry rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, canadian, mirrorshade-y

3.5 stars

_Neuromancer_: a name to conjure with. Arguably (actually? I’m not 100% sure) the first cyberpunk novel and therefore great-grand-daddy of a genre that revolutionized science fiction (and is also therefore indirectly responsible for every single sub-genre in the speculative fiction field apparently needing to be called “something-punk”, WTF is that about anyway?!) Despite being a card-carrying nerd and genre fan at the time it was published I managed to miss this one the first time arou 3.5 stars

_Neuromancer_: a name to conjure with. Arguably (actually? I’m not 100% sure) the first cyberpunk novel and therefore great-grand-daddy of a genre that revolutionized science fiction (and is also therefore indirectly responsible for every single sub-genre in the speculative fiction field apparently needing to be called “something-punk”, WTF is that about anyway?!) Despite being a card-carrying nerd and genre fan at the time it was published I managed to miss this one the first time around and am obviously rather late coming to the party. Not that I’ve been unaware of what cyberpunk is, or been a complete stranger to many manifestations of its influence, but I must admit that this particular flavour of sci-fi was not a favourite of mine when it first hit the streets and so many of the ‘approved texts’ of the genre never made their way onto my reading list (especially, it must be admitted, after I bounced hard off of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash and had a fairly ‘meh’ reaction to Gibson’s short story “Johnny Mnemonic” set in the same universe as _Neuromancer_).

This novel has everything that would soon come to define the cyberpunk genre: the ‘consensual hallucination’ or alternate reality that is cyberspace (with the corollary that people have the ability to fully interface with computers and truly inhabit this strange new world), the merging of the human and the technological even in the ‘meat’ world of physical reality, the Japanization of culture and economics tied to an apprehension bordering on paranoia when viewing authoritarian political and economic structures, and a basic fear that as things speed up more and more we are moving closer and closer to ultimate anarchy and chaos even as big brother tries to tighten his grip and enforce order.

The story revolves around Case, a ‘Cowboy’ or computer hacker who is adept at ‘jacking-in’ to the matrix and getting data for those that are willing to pay for it. As we open Case, now an ex-cowboy ever since his brain was chemically damaged due to attempting to double-cross the wrong clients, is visited by an unlikely guardian angel: a man going only by the name of Armitage. This mysterious and humourless stranger has the whiff of the military about him, but he wants Case to do a job for him and manages to do the impossible: he gives Case back his abilities by undoing the damage done to his nervous system, but holds over him the damoclean threat of having this gift revoked at the least sign of non-compliance. The team is rounded out by Molly, a ‘Razor-girl’ whose attitude and body modifications make her the perfect lethal enforcer, and Riviera a psychotic drug addict and con-man able to manifest life-like holographic images. Welcome to the hard-boiled world of cyberpunk. Of course none of the team trusts their ostensible boss Armitage (or each other really) and this is only exacerbated by the fact that none of them truly know what their end goal is. Armitage strings along his team with tidbits of ‘need-to-know’ and the promise of a payout worth any effort (but is he really pulling the strings or is he merely a puppet to a higher force?) The plot allows us to follow this rag-tag group of miscreants on a tour of the post-cyber world and we are introduced to several of the major players in the game of politics and intrigue, as well as seeing some of the more interesting ways in which humanity has modified itself to suit this brave new world of technology and decay.

Given the time when it was written it isn’t surprising that I found myself getting a decidedly 70’s and 80’s vibe from this book. The tech itself is often depicted by Gibson in what might now be considered ‘retro’ ways: clunky hardware, landline phones, old school modems with scratchy handshake signals, and wires and cables to ‘jack-in’ to computers definitely all contributed to this. Even the descriptions of the matrix itself, that vast cyber world made up of code and data, are given in terms that brought to mind (to me at least) the bright primary colours and geometric shapes of an old vector graphics game. One could even argue that the iconic first line of the novel, “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel”, while still striking and apposite, is ultimately a dated allusion, calling to mind something that most youngsters these days will have little to no frame of reference for given the advent of digital TV. Aside from the apparent technological anachronisms there were also a few specific cultural references that definitely brought the 80s back to mind for me (oh the heady days of youth!)

Of course this is perhaps following the wrong scent. There is no doubt that the concerns and ideas of the 70’s and 80’s are bone-deep in the text, not only in the realm of technology, but politics as well. The book is ultimately concerned with working through the problems raised by the technological and political issues of its day: what do we do when the line between humanity and technology becomes less and less distinguishable; when we see technological implements not just as tools, but as indispensable extensions of ourselves? What happens when globe-spanning multinational corporations start to dictate public policy to the nations under whose protection they ostensibly operate? What is the meaning of ‘culture’ in a world becoming more and more a global village? Of course these concerns are not specific to the 80's and are certainly just as relevant today and in the end I think that Gibson’s fluid way with prose, the quick pace of the story, and the immersive world he depicts all do a great job at uniting the era-specific elements of his story with those that are more universal in their depiction. In many ways the use of what might be seen today as ‘outmoded’ technology combined with a society whose use of these scientific tools far outstrips our own (to the point of having both an extra-planetary society and nascent AIs) actually adds to the flavour of the novel. You really get a feel for the grimy, cobbled together, anything-that-works attitude of this bootstrap world. Add to this the menace of international corporate conglomerations that have more or less subsumed nation states as humanity’s default political structures with anarchy peeling at the edges of a society that is both rising with a wave of high technology and falling into chaos as it seems to be coming apart at the seams and you have a recipe for some great sci-fi.
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Jun 18, 2013 Nicky rated it really liked it

Shelves: speculative-fiction

I didn't think I was going to like Neuromancer. There's not much by way of characters -- not to hang onto, at least: I mean, your main character is addicted to drugs, not just physically but psychologically, and I don't think any of them have a sense of morality. Not in an interesting way, but just... a blank. And starting to read Neuromancer, it takes a while to get into the world, to understand what's going on.

But it does come, and there's something lyrical about it all, some beautiful phrases ...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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Sep 01, 2014 Michael Meyer rated it liked it

One of those books where you don't have to fully absorb every detail that's going on in order to enjoy it, which thank god because a lot of the fancy, futuristic fluff stuff I found impossible to keep track of. But it certainly had an elegance and grace in terms of its fusion of violence and technology. I kept visualizing Blade Runner in terms of the aesthetics of the settings. Even though I wasn't really sure of what the heck was going on about 50 percent of the time, I still found the writing ...more

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