Neuromancer 30 Years Old This Month

[Michael Colton]

The Guardian has done a little piece about William Gibson and Neuromancer for the thirtieth anniversary: link.

Shame I did not realize it was the thirtieth anniversary until Gibson himself Tweeted about it. This is the book that made me interested in science fiction in the written format and it is by far my most reread book of any genre - fiction or non-fiction.

 

[BAYLOR]

Easily one of the best science fiction novels ever written.

 

[Vince W]

I remember reading it in nearly a single sitting. I had to stop to go to school. I don't think I paid attention to anything that day. All I could think about was tearing home to finish it.

 

[reiver33]

I read Count Zero first, then went back to Neuromancer, and it suffered slightly in comparison; less polished and - in my opinion - less accomplished. Which is only fair given it was the first in the Sprawl trilogy and he was funding his feet, and I can well imagine the impact it would make on us impressionable readers!

Without realizing the calendar significance I'm re-reading the three, having just started Mona Lisa Overdrive...

 

[BAYLOR]

Johnny Mnemonic great story. Unfortunately, the 1995 film based off it wasn't so great.

 

[tinkerdan]

Somewhere in the 90's a friend pointed me at those works and I found them tolerably good but have not yet been tempted to reread them.

I found The Difference Engine a great struggle to get through.
Idoru was interesting but it lacked something of what I felt in the sprawl trilogy.

 

[Michael Colton]

In other random Gibson news, his upcoming book will be his first novel written in a 'far-future' setting. Will be interesting to see how he handles it.

 

[Toby Frost]

A while back, I wrote down some thoughts about the Sprawl trilogy. It's here, if anyone's interested: http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/541682-going-back-to-gibson-the-sprawl-trilogy.html

 

[The Bluestocking]

Love, love, LOVE Neuromancer. Still one of my favourite SF books ever!

 

[Stephen Palmer]

An inspirational novel. Very few novels capture the zeitgeist, but this one sure did. I re-read it last year, and it still reads great.

 

[Cat's Cradle]

Wow, shocking that it's been 30 years. I no longer own this, and shall rectify that problem right away. The 90s were all about Gibson to me...maybe I can now dedicate portions of this new century to him, too. Thanks for the post, Sodice!

 

[JoanDrake]

I read Mona Lisa Overdrive and really mean to get to Neuromancer someday. It's probably all outdated by now though

 

[Parson]

William Gibson was ground breaking. But the novels (I read all of the Sprawl trilogy) slid too far into the weird category to make any list of my favorites.

 

[Michael Colton]

I read Mona Lisa Overdrive and really mean to get to Neuromancer someday. It's probably all outdated by now though

Quite a bit of the details feel dated now if experienced for the first time (the main one he likes to make fun of himself for is the complete lack of cell phones), but most of themes and broader ideas are still relevant. Gibson has an interesting forward on some of the newer additions talking about that very thing as well as denying he was any sort of prophet (as the dated feeling can attest to). It must get old to be continually referred to as some sort of prophet and having to keep denying it. He seems to be rather put off by being labeled as such just for coining 'cyberspace' and envisioning something remotely similar to the internet.

He has said in interviews and some articles that part of why he was able to write about the topics in the way that he did was because of his complete ignorance of how the relevant technologies actually worked - they were much more dramatic in his mind's eye than they were in reality, as he later found out. I believe he even said once that he does not think he would have been able to write those early novels if he had actually known computers were so "Victorian" in function and appearance as they are.

 

[J-Sun]

I believe he even said once that he does not think he would have been able to write those early novels if he had actually known computers were so "Victorian" in function and appearance as they are.

To add to that, a funny thing is that Neuromancer was written on a manual typewriter (as was half of Count Zero). Gibson was an Apple guy insofar as he was into computers at all, all into the surface and images rather than the guts and reality. Kind of akin to his "street". As Sterling says in the foreword to Shirley's The Exploded Heart, "Back in those days, William Gibson was a hobbyist teaching-assistant who was whiling away his youth in his ivied, meditative fashion. I was an engineer's kid from a smoggy refinery town who had had my head utterly twisted by three years in India and was hanging out with cowboy-hatted interstellar longhairs deep in the heart of Texas.... Most of the science fiction writers who later got called 'cyberpunks' are and were, at heart, really nice middle class white guys.They have some pretty strange ideas, but in their private lives they dress and act like industrial design professors. John Shirley was a total bottle-of-dirt screaming dogcollar yahoo." In other words, Gibson could probably fairly be said to have romanticized both computers and the street at something of a remove. Which is not to take away from the aesthetic accomplishment or the influence or anything else, but just to say that realism ain't the point.

(Though this is also in hindsight - if memory serves, part of "The Gernsback Continuum" is complaining about how unrealistic and un-predictive aspects of that polished chrome future were, implying that he could do better. But, like I say, regardless of intent, the polished chrome is still pretty and, while I haven't read it in eons, I expect Neuromancer holds up in at least some ways.)

 

[Michael Colton]

It holds up in many thematic ways - but it is the little things such as the famous opening line referring to the color of a dead channel. The last two generations of readers have lived their lives without the concept of a 'dead channel.' That sort of thing plus the lack of cell phones or any replacement for them are the most obvious. But it holds up rather well in the sense of the dystopian near-future themes.

And about the realism, Gibson has talked about that same thing that Shirley mentioned. When he moved to Canada, he did spend some time in those circles but said he found the draft dodger community to be too depressed and infused with hard drugs so he separated himself. But beyond that, all you have to do is watch one extended interview with Gibson to know there were some brain cells fried due to his . . . 'experimentation.'

 

[Stephen Palmer]

The novel holds up too in the characters portrayed living lives with almost no meaning - shafted by corporations, corruption etc. Bruce Sterling also worked well with this theme. We see this meaninglessness much more these days than when the book was first published. Vacuity has become a lifestyle choice for some.

I might add that Apple computers are superior not because of the surface and style, but because they work a million times better than PCs.

 

[Null_Zone]

Johnny Mnemonic great story. Unfortunately, the 1995 film based off it wasn't so great.

Nothing ages quite like the cinemas view of the future.

Well apart from TV shows.

 

[Parson]

Well apart from TV shows.

??? If I take this as written I would say that you mean that TV shows do not show their age like movies, but I suspect that you mean the opposite. "Well, apart from TV shows."

 

[psikeyhackr]

The novel holds up too in the characters portrayed living lives with almost no meaning - shafted by corporations, corruption etc. Bruce Sterling also worked well with this theme. We see this meaninglessness much more these days than when the book was first published. Vacuity has become a lifestyle choice for some.

I might add that Apple computers are superior not because of the surface and style, but because they work a million times better than PCs.

No, they just work a million times better than Macroscam Windows.

Install Linux and see how often you get a Blue Screen of Death.

We are shafted by economists rationalizing the economic power games. When have you ever heard an economist suggest mandatory accounting in education? Shakespeare is more important.

psik