Neuromancer (Sprawl #1) in On Paths Unknown

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 anymore. 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 halfway – 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 upside, 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.

It's not my cup of tea, but note my rating simply reflects the fact I didn’t finish it. ...more

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

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

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.
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Sep 27, 2021 Michael Finocchiaro rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: american-20th-c, novels, sci-fi, nebula-award-winner, first-novels, fiction, hugo-awards-winner, dystopian

One of the true scifi classics that inspired so many blockbuster movies. A cyberpunk extravaganza with drugs, sex and lots of tech. A very fun read. I don't know why I didn't write a review immediately after reading it, so to be fair I'll have to reread and write a proper review!

I do recall that it gave me a good visual for listening to Sonic Youth’s song “The Sprawl” on their extraordinary Daydream Nation album. ...more

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Jun 10, 2010 Kamakana rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: aaa-favoritefiction, read-twice-or-more, multivolume-lit, all-five-star, masculinismlit, speculative-fiction, aa-canadalit, gibson-william, hugo-novels, nebula-novels

if you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com

030219 from 1984 (first): i am surprised i have not written a review of this. all of gibson is very important to me, in first moving from genre, without abandoning it for ‘literature’, but finding new value in what i most enjoy reading. starting with this i read when i am nineteen. this is years (decades...) past. the ace paperback cover got me, when i see it in sf section of major bookstore. riley suggests sometimes you can jud if you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com

030219 from 1984 (first): i am surprised i have not written a review of this. all of gibson is very important to me, in first moving from genre, without abandoning it for ‘literature’, but finding new value in what i most enjoy reading. starting with this i read when i am nineteen. this is years (decades...) past. the ace paperback cover got me, when i see it in sf section of major bookstore. riley suggests sometimes you can judge book by its cover, this is sometime. some weird, pixelated, vague face. and then saying it had won three awards in sf. cool...

there is an argument that true sf should be a story that has to be 'science/speculative' fiction: possible if not plausible, that requires that 'novum' (new thing) to make the story work The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction but this is more tech than science, more street, less lab. all flash, all style, built on crime fiction that i had not yet read, built on ws burroughs life of drugs, crime, killers etc. i had also not yet read. and came out when blade runner arrived. so maybe this is not true 'science fiction', this is just cool future criminals...

now ‘cyberspace’ is the internet and is nowhere as exciting and impressive as this book suggests, but then try to remember when this is written: personal computers just coming online, no internet, no tablets, no laptops, no multitasking phones, no photos, no texting, no youtube, no social media, no twitter, no total interconnected digital world... it is said all sf is actually of the world when it is written, so really this is only cool style and rampant tech use rather than the usual sf big dumb idea/object, instead a morphing flotilla of many dumb and/or smart ideas/objects and many integrating / disintegrating changes... try and remember world with these things called ‘pay phones’...

this neuromancer future is never mine, not impending, not plausible, not likely. when i am nineteen the future is already happening but not like this book. i like japanese style or art but i do not yet know manga or anime. i like cool hi-tech surfaces. i like pomo recombination of stories and disruptive effect of combining genres. i am impressed if not convinced by the Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner look of the future... but this book has everything in accessible and poetic prose form...

is this style over 'science'? well i never am scientific kid. computers are important to my dad in chemical physics or whatever research, but computers are important to me only as word processors and later 'gimmicks' and 'toys' father will denigrate. but how many people are scientists and how many people just use tech? in this way, of all the many abilities of computers, the most significant computer innovation for the writers i know, for me, is the current word processor. and for the artists i know is the graphic interface- what, you mean you have to actually write commands?! style wins... ...more

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Feb 18, 2024 Jonfaith rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: speculativelyspeaking

Despite the blue orgasms, I loved this, which is truly unexpected, not for the technicolor ejaculate but rather how I had hated the previous encounter with Gibson. I can’t say Nick Land and Mark Fisher led me here as that was a lifetime ago, so 2022-23.

Neuromancer is a portfolio of ideas in the skein of noir. It is often cumbersome and burdened with patois but it has a rhythm and the dub remains righteous. I won’t go into the specifics but the AI was simply astonishing. I thought the Frog Squad ...more

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