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Neuromancer
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March 2017: Neuromancer by William Gibson
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From Wikipedia: Neuromancer's release was not greeted with fanfare, but it hit a cultural nerve, quickly becoming an underground word-of-mouth hit. It became the first novel to win the "triple crown" of science fiction awards—the Nebula, the Hugo, and Philip K. Dick Award for paperback original, an unprecedented achievement described by the Mail & Guardian as "the sci-fi writer's version of winning the Goncourt, Booker and Pulitzer prizes in the same year".
The novel thereby legitimized cyberpunk as a mainstream branch of science fiction literature. It is among the most-honored works of science fiction in recent history, and appeared on Time magazine's list of 100 best English-language novels written since 1923.
The novel has had significant linguistic influence, popularizing such terms as cyberspace and ICE (Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics). Gibson himself coined the term "cyberspace" in his novelette "Burning Chrome", published in 1982 by Omni magazine. It was only through its use in Neuromancer that the term Cyberspace gained enough recognition to become the de facto term for the World Wide Web during the 1990s.
The 1999 cyberpunk science fiction film The Matrix particularly draws from Neuromancer both eponym and usage of the term "matrix.” After watching The Matrix, Gibson commented that the way that the film's creators had drawn from existing cyberpunk works was "exactly the kind of creative cultural osmosis" he had relied upon in his own writing.
In his afterword to the 2000 re-issue of Neuromancer, fellow author Jack Womack goes as far as to suggest that Gibson's vision of cyberspace may have inspired the way in which the Internet developed (particularly the World Wide Web), after the publication of Neuromancer in 1984. He asks "[w]hat if the act of writing it down, in fact, brought it about?"
Last time I tried to read Neuromancer I just bounced right off it. I remember the writing as being completely impenetrable.This is going to be a tough one...
Is anyone else struggling with this one? I almost feel like I'm not getting something...
I haven't started it yet for this month (to be honest I'm not sure I'll get there in time) but the last time I read it, I found it very hard going.
I started it on the plane today and after about 30 pages had to put it down. I felt like I was watching a the second half of a 2 part episode arc without having seen the first episode.
After 130 pages I still don't like it a bit. I don't know who is who, the protagonist is unlikable, I can't decipher the slang, I can't keep up with the travel, both physical and cyber. I guess I'll finish it but certainly won't read more by the author. Were the awards because cyber stuff was so trendy at the time? Were there no other good books? Did the author blackmail the award committee? I want an absorbing story, not a struggle to figure out the plot.
It wasn't just that cyber stuff was trendy. This book invented cyber stuff. It was the very first. It was utterly ground-breaking. Every 80s cyberpunk novel is a pale imitation of this one (the same way that the current crop of romance novels with 'billionaire' in the title are all derived from 50 Shades).
That's mostly why it's been on my TBR list. It essentially invented the genre and also influenced how the internet evolved during that time. But gosh I cannot bring myself to pick that book up again. I only got about 30 pages into it and I got so lost. With books, you want to be able to picture everything you're reading and get lost in it, not lost by it.
Same thing happened to me. I think I tried for almost 60 pages and finally returned it to the library
Ok so we're driving down south on Wednesday and I will be stuck in the passenger seat for about 4 hours. I'm not taking any other books, so I will be forced to read this one. Wish me luck. Not a good sign when I have to lock myself away with no distractions to actually try reading a book!
How was the drive? Did you manage to read the book?
I keep bouncing off this book, every time I try it. The last time I picked it up, I put it back "on a safe place" on my bookshelves, ie: where I can't find now.
I managed to get to 100 pages. There were moments where the book seemed to get interesting and I really thought I had a handle on things, only to soon realize I once again had no idea what was happening.
Earlier I googled a reading guide for this book and got dozens of Reddit results with people pretty much echoing us. A few said it gets harder to understand but that it's worth plodding through even if you have to re-read it. Most just said they gave up. A few people said some of his other works are easier to understand while some are worse.
I'm certainly not going to re-read it but I am going to keep plodding through. What a disappointment! But judging by the comments I've seen online, it's not just us.
Here's the guide I found:
http://www.shmoop.com/neuromancer/cha...
Haha! Well, it's nice to know that we're not alone!
Nick wrote: "Haha! Well, it's nice to know that we're not alone!"No kidding! In saying that, the reading guide I posted above has helped a lot plus it's pretty funny. I'm enjoying the guide more than the book.
Sarah wrote: "Same thing happened to me. I think I tried for almost 60 pages and finally returned it to the library"At least your copy was free! I actually went out and bought it :/
I'm almost done and I still don't like anything about it. Can we move on to the next one? Please?
Haha by all means. I'm still going to keep trying but it'll probably be a few months at the rate I'm going.
Finally finished and the best thing I got out of it was a decision to put down a book I really don't like after giving it a fair try; life is too short and there are too many great books to finish one I don't like. Onward!
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. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case embarks on an adventure that ups the ante on an entire genre of fiction.