Neuromancer

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Summary: Neuromancer: Not what I expected
Review: I would have to say that I disliked Neuromancer. I found it hard to understand from the very beginning. The characters and plots were just thrown at the reader without much of an explanation, and I was lost throughout most of the story. I didn't find the whole idea of the book very appealing, either. I was disinterested from the start, which is probably due to the fact that I had no idea what was happening or what had happened in the book. Overall, I would say that for all the good reviews the book had, I was disappointed with it.

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Summary: Highly Recommend It!
Review: For one of my courses, at Southwestern College, I was required to read this book. As I started reading it, I was able to realize what a wonderful book it was. Although I have never liked Science Fiction, Neuromancer completely grabbed my attention, in a way, I could easily keep up with the reading. In sum, I considered this book as highly createful and innovating.

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Summary: Blue Fear beyond the Holocaust Horizon
Review: It takes some serious mental energy to envision life as it was in 1984--not so long ago, granted, but a different era still: riding the ragged edge of the Cold War, Atari and IBM the technological dominant, the future a wide horizon of blue fear...difficult, even for one who grew up in the 'excess 80's'. But I suppose that certain patterns could be discerned by the wide-eyed and wise of that time; imagination filled in the gaps of what social evolution had yet to dictate. For the budding Sci-fi author, I imagine the prospects of utopia/dystopia were endless and endlessly fascinating: AI, VR, cybernetics and bio-enhancements: so many possibilities as yet unexplored, as yet unexploited!

Thus we have William Gibson's cyberpunk manifesto _Neuromancer_, the book that spawned a whole genre by itself and prophesized a chilling existence that, some 17 years after the fact, looks very familiar. Hackers and viral bombs? -second page news. The Sprawl? -growing every day. Cloning, VR, bio-enhancements? -already on the crest of the next wave. Thus the danger of modern sci-fi and its cyberpunk offshoot: becoming as relevant as a gutter newsrag, stigmatized by well-worn clichés and the dubious nature of experimental prose. Why would one want to spend their valuable time on yesteryear's fear?

Well, when yesteryear's hype contains the febrile energy and insight of _Neuormancer_, the read is worth the time spent. Gibson fashions a world of vivid and startling imagery, the ugliness and beauty of it leaping from type to the reader's imagination with ease. The slang and unique aspects of Chiba, the Sprawl etc. are done in a casual fashion, so that one understands the phrases and cultural particulars without getting thrown or distracted. There is a feel of something _new_ here, even if it isn't all that new by nowadays standards; _Neuromancer_ contains a force of intellect, of testing the boundaries and coming up all aces, that buoys the reader through the overly-familiar space-opera archetypes and, in passages, the stilted self-conscious prose. A commendable effort that still resonates, unlike most its contemporaries/derivatives.

But for all its hyperbole and raw intelligence, _Neuormancer_ does have its share of flaws, some glaringly apparent, others under the surface, within the structure of the novel itself. Envisioning and detailing this dystopia was an admirable feat, especially considering the time it was written and what hindsight awards the current reader, but so much effort is given to making the environment 'real' that the characters themselves--the flesh and blood constructs that the reader is supposed to inhabit, sympathize with, and ultimately understand--the characters become neglected in the process, ending up rote pulp-fiction stereotypes of passing interest. Gibson tries to inject some pathos for Molly, Armitage and Case midway through the novel, but the attempt is strained and, because it is introduced so late, our neon-jazzed eyes glaze over the heavy 'personal crisis' of the climax--we just want these archetypes (ie the author) to get back to the cool stuff they excel at.

The story itself is basic pulp-noir--outlaw cowboys running on societies' edge, complete with cyber-shtick saloons and the usual assortment of backstabbing betrayals--and not very interesting pulp-noir at that: both conflict and plot are ambiguous for the first half of the novel, and while Gibson's ultimate ideas are very intriguing (particularly about the cold existence of cyrogenics), the novel ultimately suffers from a crippling lack of tension. Gibson's writing can be inconsistent, as well: though parts of the novel are extremely well written, other passages become quite convoluted in their (needless) detail.

Four stars--despite its flaws, _Neuormancer_ is a seminal work, and better than ninety percent of the dumbed-down junk competing for shelf space.

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Summary: Addictive?
Review: If you like to expand your mind with ..., this book is for you.

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Summary: STILL THE BEST SCI-FI BOOK EVER!
Review: After this book, all other science fiction books pale in comparison.

I've re-read it three times now and plan to read it again very soon.

Gibson's later books suffer from too much explanation. In NEUROMANCER, Gibson just tells us what is happening and leaves it up to the reader to figure out the details, which I loved.

In later books, like Virtual Light and Idoru, he over-explains every detail and tends to bore the reader.

COUNT ZERO is a sequel of sorts to NEUROMANCER, but in my opinion, MONA LISA OVERDRIVE, (the final book in the "Sprawl" Trilogy), comes as close to equaling the excellence of the first book.

I keep hoping that one day I'll find another book that is equal to this incredible work of science fiction genius!

But, until then, I'll just keep reading this one over and over again.

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Summary: Spaghetti Western--Pulp Fiction
Review: Okay... this book was required reading for Dr. Frost's ScienceFiction class. I was so glad he'd required it. I'd never read cyperpunk before. I'd seen bits and pieces of Johnny Mneumonic here and there and some comics and graphic novels, but never really thought about it. I love it. Some guy earlier slammed it for being a "spaghetti western" and cliched. Well, it is. It's supposed to be like that. That's the way I like it. I also love Robert E. Howard. Conan reads the same way to me, only with swords. But i'm going to check out that other guy's work too... *shrug*

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Summary: If cyber-life geeks you, get this book
Review: Great book . . first introduction to Gibson . . . bought Count Zero, Mona Lisa, and Virtual Light as a result of this first read.

Gibson's got a knack for detail and imagination in a world that's fantasy yet somewhat plausible considering the way bio-technology and communications is going these days. Either you'll get this book or you won't. Just because you love books that have multiple story lines, grossly micro-detailed story-telling, and unusual characters, does not mean that you'll be able to follow things like other similar books. You kinda need to know what some of the techno-stuff is since it's not necessarily a book for jacked-in, stimmed-up, construct novices. If that sorta made sense, it's right up your alley. In other words, Gibson doesn't go to great lengths explaining all that stuff, which is nice for a change.

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Summary: One of the most imaginative worlds ever built
Review: For a long time, I couldn't make myself interested in most of the current science fiction stories. I am not sure if it was the writers' fault or mine. Their stories presented a fine reading, and very often had interesting characters. They were well-written and I did care about what happened to the their heros. The real treats were those with unexpected plots or new twists on old stories - and there were enough of those. But all of them were lacking something - and what it was I understood only after reading Neuromancer.

Most science fiction stories (and all fantasy tales) are based in different worlds, whether different in space, or in time, or both. The authors strive to define those worlds in their terms, bringing them as close to reality as their and our imagination allows. But over the years, these worlds became stale. We've seen most of the futures, and we've seen most of the distant planets, and we've seen most of the alien civilizations. In my recent readings, no one could add anything substantially new to the previous constructions.

I didn't read Neuromancer in 1984. I read it in 1999. I knew it exsited for a long time, but I thought it wasn't worth reading now that we are living in the world which Gibson had described. I was wrong.

Neuromancer describes a world totally unlike others. It is ours. Gibson could recognize it back in 1984. We definitely recognize it now. But unlike our world now, Neuromancer's is complete, a well-defined iteration in the current direction of progress. And the insights are still startling.

Unlike most of the worlds in other stories, it was not designed to highlight the contrasts between our world and the one described, or between us and its inhabitants. It was designed to show what our world - our habits, our trends, our technology - will look like if we take them further along the same line we are moving now. You will recognize it immediately, and in that lies a large portion of the book's attraction.

Another portion is the book's language. It is evry specific, you can't confuse Gibson's prose with many others. But it defines the book as much as the world it describes does. The dialog, the sentence structure, the similes and metaphors, revelation of the concepts, even the unfolding of the story itself - it all serves amazingly well to plunge you into what could be your future. If you need any hints, just read the book's first sentence.

You might or you might not like the plot. It's typical as far as these plots go, but with enough twists to keep anyone interested. But it's not the book's main point. Read Neuromancer for its vision of the future, for its vision of the mankind, for it's world - and keep in mind, you could live in it one day.

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Summary: One of the worst books I've ever read
Review: Quite frankly, it pains me to give this book even one star, but there's nothing lower.

Picture the worst spaghetti western you've ever seen. Now get rid of the horses and hats and replace them with computers. There, now you have Neuromancer. The plot is so cliched it hurts. A lot. With a flat plot and characters that are hard to give a damn about, I was left feeling completely bamboozled by the people who said this book was a masterpiece of cyberpunk.

If you want a great book of the cyberpunk genre, read Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson instead.

And for those who said it was a mind-rattling, brilliant book: read "Foucault's Pendulum". Then we'll talk about mind-rattling brilliance.

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Summary: Without question one of the few to put it all together.
Review: Neuromancer by William Gibson is one of maybe two or three books I have read in my thirty years to put all the elements of a story told together perfectly... (1) I read it non-stop. (2) I read sections over and over again, just for the exeperience of the prose. (3) I never wanted it to end. I wanted to know this world by inhabiting it. Like an album you know is good because you just let it play, flip over and play again, over and over, because the album is a journey, each part telling a portion of the tale, Neuromancer captured me, and never let me go. The book is a part of me, now...that's the power of this particular novel, and the legacy of any novel that's truly evolutionary, as opposed to revolutionary (ie., in a style that's part of a stylistic continuum that we've seen before and will see again - one thing this book is NOT is something we've seen before; it evolves us)...