Neuromancer
Ratings955
Average rating3.8
There are classics that are impressive for being the first of their kind and still standing the test of time, and others that make you so happy for how far a genre has come. Neuromancer is the latter for me. Gibson here seems more invested in cramming in as many made-up techie-sounding words into a sentence rather than building anything interesting character or story-wise. I love cyberpunk because I love the interaction between man and machine, but while Gibson drops cybernetic terms left and right, there's no real cultural, biological, or personal significance to any of it.
The prose has no rhythm, no allure. The character interaction is so stilted its laughable - the main female character, Molly, is such an obvious 80s action girl fantasy, who of course immediately jumps on the dick of this depressed drug addict, Case. I couldn't really tell you much else about what anyone did because I could not focus on any of it between all the random tech lingo and uninteresting plot. Oh right, and all the white people hanging out in future Japan. eye roll
Cyberpunk, and sci-fi in general, has come a long way since Neuromancer. I think I'd rather keep going forward than look back.
I originally read this in high school, but I'd forgotten most of the details, so I decided to do a reread after finishing one of Gibson's newer novels (Pattern Recognition). Like Tolkien, it's one of those classics that's been copied so much that the original has begun to seem clichéd. It probably doesn't help that a good portion of The Matrix was lifted directly from this book. It also suffers a bit from an dating; in 1984, it was generally assumed that the Cold War and Japanese economic dominance were here to stay.
Having said, that, it's still an entertaining read, with an unpredictable plot and interesting views on personality and identity. It probably wouldn't make much of a splash if it were published today, but the genre today would be very different if Neuromancer had never been published.
Iconic, historic, inspirational but difficult to read. Filled with its own vocabulary, perspective changes, time shifts, and disruptions. The reading process was not enjoyable and the imagery, although well described, was difficult to picture and feel a part of. As the inspiration behind so many visual content like the matrix and cyberpunk, its no surprise that visual recreations of this book have been great. But, as a book, the descriptions and imagery just wasn't there enough for me to connect to.
I can respect how influential this book is and still not like it. 2.5 but Goodreads only has a 5 point scale which is dumb.
The Matrix basically ripped this whole thing off. Good on them but I also consider that movie much less creative now.
I really struggled to move through this it was as if my brains was caught in a fog. The details were hard for me to visualize. I wasn't sure who was speaking more than half the time.
Characters would just become he and she between scenes and I had no idea what was happening.
This book is a fever dream.
Non è un libro facile ma è un monolite che ha portato un sacco di concetti come Matrix (la rete di connessione), i Cyberdeck e altri concetti del Cyberpunk moderno.
In oltre ritengo che sia estremamente importante leggerlo in quanto spiega in modo semplice e coinciso un concetto con cui dovremmo avere sempre più a che fare: le Megacorps. Questo tipo di entità/aziende verranno sempre più fuori anche se con denominazioni diverse e, sempre dal mio punto di vista, sempre più attuali soprattutto in America oggi giorno.
In ogni caso ritengo che sia utile anche leggere gli altri due libri della serie per farsi una idea più completa del mondo anche se a livello di storia il primo libro è autoconclusivo.
I'm not gonna give this a rating as to avoid upsetting people who liked this book.
I love Philip K. Dick, Blade Runner and Escape from New York, which are said to have inspired Gibson, but I couldn't get into Neuromancer for the life of me. The writing felt unnecessarily convoluted, I was unable to connect with any of the characters as their generic personalities didn't do anything for me. The plot feels dated, man!
I understand that this was an influential book and a trendsetter at that time, coining many of the terms and concepts that we still use today, and I respect and appreciate Gibson for this, as much as I appreciate The Jazz Singer for being the first talkie, even though it wasn't much of a film.
I'm sure Gibson is a great dude, maybe one of his other books will hit the spot for me, but not Neuromancer.
Where cyberpunk got started. Even knowing that, you'll be shocked by how much other cyberpunk steals wholesale from Gibson.
I first read this in the mid-80's, my only experience with computing was a VIC-20 and a Commodore 64 (1980 & 1982) - the technology in the book was unimaginable for me, pure sci-fi.
I was in my early teens, the drug references were beyond me, it was after this I discovered Burroughs and the Beats.
The Straylight maze and the reference to the palace of the Duke of Mantua now seems contrived, but...
Body augmentation with technology, organ transplant procedures that are common and readily available.
Now re-reading this, you see that like a tanker captain, Gibson was looking over the horizon and in amongst this he is exploring some fairly staple enduring themes, slavery, self determination, evolution, assisted evolution, machine intelligence, squandered potential, etc.
I think I still prefer Pattern Recognition.
I read this a few years after it was published and it really threw me. Gibson’s writing connects with my brain in a manner that is a rare and wondrous find. He uses a lot of new terminology, but he provides just enough detail that allows each reader to fashion their own internal construct, and I like that very much. He also presents some very interesting concepts and unique, well developed characters. Like the best books, this left me dazed for a few days after reading it. I have tried to find books that take me to a similar place in my head, and invariably they come up short. I don’t know how it holds up 40 years later.
Reminiscent of the Cyberpunk video game in a good way, but the novel gets very lost in the worldbuilding making the prose very hard to follow at times. With this also being one of those novels that forces you to learn a different language to understand whats happening and who's who, it detracts from what seems like well written action and and what could have been a better crafted, high-level concept.
Plot was impossible to follow and the character development wasn't really there. Though I respect the impact this book had on modern day sci-fi.
The place where it all started. Gibson throws his unsuspecting readers into the gritty world of cyberspace. If only we'd been warned. Ironically written in 1984, Gibson's view of the future is dark and dangerous. It's a world of cyberhacking into the brains of others and neural enhancements for those who can afford it. And running underneath the human drama is the goal of an artificial intelligence that is becoming sentient and wants to merge with the only other AI that can match and complete it.
Yep, the humans want computer enhancements built in, and the computers want to be humans. OK, I didn't get that a bit quite right. The computers want to be greater than humans.
This book demands a lot of its readers, but pays off in the end.
Got 1/3 of the way through and just was not clicking with it. I hate to say it but I think part of the problem is that this was SO influential that it now feels trite. I don't like having that issue because it's not the book's fault for being iconic! Idk. I just did not care what happened to this guy. But I do want to play Cyberpunk 2077 again.
Reading the impetus of cyberpunk is awesome. It is the sci-fi equivalent of looking through frosted glass. I had a great time but kinda wasn't sure what was going on. If you like cyberpunk you should read it.
The writing and the story are good, but what makes this novel special is the world that Gibson created, which is essentially the source code of the cyberpunk subgenre.
Neuromante è famoso perché ha contribuito a creare l'immaginario cyberpunk, e sebbene non sia cosa nuova per me, è riuscito a sorprendermi: sia perché i luoghi e l'atmosfera che si respira hanno suscitato in me un certo fascino nel suo sfrenato estremismo, ma anche perché ho ritrovato elementi molto familiari, prova del'enorme influenza che ha avuto nei mass media.
In retrospettiva la trama del romanzo ha una struttura e uno svolgimento semplice e linerare, tuttavia durante la lettura non mi sembrava così, anzi devo dire di averla trovata intrigante e affascinante (toccando anche temi di attualità scottanti come le IA), ma di certo non è il punto forte del romanzo.
I personaggi sono tutti particolari, eterogenei e affascinanti sia fisicamente che psicologicamente. Seppur manchi del vero e proprio character development, nella parte finale l'autore è riuscito a dare una dimensione precisa ad ognuno di essi, e in un certo senso a giustificare le loro azioni.
Come qualcuno mi ha fatto notare, il romanzo è punk anche nella scrittura, ma a disturbarmi non è lo slang, o dialoghi da strada, ma uno stile di scrittura grezzo, che unito a una narrazione molto frammentaria e spedita, non facilita la lettura, anzi credo che in qualche modo comprometti l'esperienza nonostante ne sia parte integrante.
Tutto sommato però è stata una lettura piacevole, piena d'azione che intrattiene e coinvolge.
A seemingly endless slog of flashy, gritty descriptions and names meant to bedazzle the reader with their seeming creativity, obscuring rather than revealing the probably interesting world they're attempting to communicate.
Maybe a good book, but the writing style did not agree with me.
