Rating: 
Summary: Neuromancer takes no prisoners
Review: I have just begun reading Neuromancer again. I read it twice in quick succession the year it was published in paperback. What astonised me at the time was a complete and detailed vision of a world which was so feasable in its obvious completness to the author but which by the lack of explanation of the detail, challenged *me* to grapple with the genesis of some fantastic technologies. In part it was this experience at 20 which cemented my determination to work in the future.
On reflection I have no recollection of the plot, the characters or the resolution. So perhaps these are the weak links. Whilst it is a seminal work from a science fiction perspective, the last thirteen years have delivered some technologies that are much closer to those Gibson *invented*, so I doubt the experiece will be anywhere near so profound for the first time reader today.
Rating: 
Summary: Vision, but not much else.
Review: The plot was weak, really weak. Unfortunately, the characters were even weaker. They weren't that likeable, worse they just weren't very interesting either. It doesn't compare(in quality) to other cyperpunk books that I've read at all. Its one redeeming quality is that it was first
Rating: 
Summary: Holy drug-addled dystopia, Batman!
Review: "Hey, Carmine, it's like this: Drugstore cowboy looking to get whacked gets an offer he can't refuse and a chance for the big score. Says he's a made guy, but he spends all his time high as a kite or fondling computers. His bionic girlfriend does the heavy lifting. But everybody in the book keeps low-life company."
"What about Heat?"
"Make me laugh. Cops get whacked by artificial intelligence. Girlfriend packs a sidearm that shoots any ammo she wants. And when drops get dicey, drug boy goes temporarily brain dead."
"Whaddaya mean, TEMPORARY brain dead?"
"Yo, Carmine, that's why it's called science fiction."
Rating:
Summary: Not a Hacker book
Review: Some have mentioned the lack of computer realism in this book. I believe Gibson himself has said he really doesn't know that much about comuters and that's not the strength of the book. It lies in the storytelling, plot and characters. Great book, not for choir-boys and girls
Rating:
Summary: ...And Cyberspace was born.
Review: "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."
So begins William Gibson's prophetic and apocryphal novel NEUROMANCER, the first in his SPRAWL Trilogy and arguably the most important Science Fiction novel of the Century. In a single, mind-bending work, Gibson propelled an entire generation into a new era of information perception, an era that has since woven itself strand-by-strand into the global information nexus we call the World Wide Web. It begins with Case, a young and bitter cyberspace cowboy prowling the neon-lit streets of Chiba City, in search of his lost identity. Robbed of his talent for working the Matrix as a data thief and cyberspace pirate, his life is a bleak and desolate journey towards self-destruction. Until the day a mirror-eyed assassin offers him a second chance. Suddenly Case is an unwitting pawn in a game whose board stretches from Chiba to the Sprawl to an orbiting pleasure colony populated by Ninja clones and Zion-worshipping Rastafarian spacers. The job: to hack the unhackable. To break the ICE around an Artificial Intelligence and release it from its own hardwired mind. But at every turn Case is haunted by the shadows of his own dark past, and pursued by a faceless enemy whose very presence can kill. Ironically, William Gibson tapped out the wonders of NEUROMANCER on a manual typewriter, and was certain it was fated for the Out Of Print stack or a quiet cult following. But now, over ten years later and still in print, it has become a kind of cultural landmark in a sea of Information; a chrome-and-silicon avatar of everything from the World Wide Web to Virtual Reality. NEUROMANCER must not be explained or related; it must be experienced, taken in through the pores and rolled against the tongue like electric adrenaline. And there is only one way to do so. Pick up a copy. And jack in. Clay Douglas Major
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title
Rating:
Summary: Amazing!
Review: For me, this book defines cyberpunk. The prose and concepts are dazzling. If you try to figure everything out, you're in for trouble-just surf it and go with the changes and you'll have a great time! The audio version, narrated by the author, is also terrific, in my opinion
Rating:
Summary: Technologically suspenseful
Review: Gibson's mix of technology and suspense is masterful. His characters are well thought out and the stories are very involved. I thought his portrayal of Chase was intriguing. A very interesting read
Rating:
Summary: Faint praise
Review: More atmosphere than substance. The future can already be seen to very different from what this so-called "visionary" author "predicts", so those eagerly awaiting a cyberpunk future can now return to asking "Do you want fries with that?"
Rating:
Summary: Cyberpunk Hacker Epic in which the Hacker Never Programs
Review: I read this expecting a lot, but there is that gaping hole in the book's heart because the Hacker non-hero never programs. He passively watches programs run. He watches Molly of the implanted shades and fingertip razors do her thing, and tell her sad story while slicing and dicing spear carriers right and left, and departs. And he does nothing. I'm baffled by its classic status. John Brunner's _Shockwave Rider_ preceded it by a decade, and his hacker actually programmed, and his actions made a difference. Stylistically, Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_ and _The Stars My Destination_ preceded it in the fifties, and they still read like they were written twenty years from now. And Vernor Vinge, with True Names, a hacker classic beats it. Delaney's _Nova_ has style and imaginative density and a protagonist who actually acts. Maybe the impotence of the protagonist strikes a nerve somewhere, amid all the post-modern imagery,and cluttered culture. Zelazny's _Today We Have Faces_ used the vivid image of the ringing phones to better effect. Ah well, tastes differ. For recent cyberpunk with style, wit, and a programmer hero who actually programs, and who matters to the outcome, try Stephenson's _SnowCrash_
Rating:
Summary: Pivotal SciFi Work of Our Age: Dense, Glittering, "Techie"
Review: Gibson's allusiveness, density, and "near-future tech" ideas are staggering. COUNT ZERO (maybe a smidgen better, maybe not) and the stories in BURNING CHROME (ditto -- maybe double ditto, the best of all) show the same techno-poetic vision. MONO LISA OVERDRIVE -- which finishes Bobby's saga (from COUNT ZERO) -- pushes on in the same vein, with flashes of its own (E.G., A "DOWNLOADED" MIND AS A TERRIFICALLY COMPLEX COMPUTER GAME!). VIRTUAL LIGHT (full of clever "tech" ideas, I'll give it that) and IDORU (set in Tokyo, so THAT was a plus....) fall short of the early work. (THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE, with Bruce Sterling, shouldn't even be on the same shelf. Its characteristic Bruce Sterling "chewiness" seems to addle Gibson's talents in TDE -- "like a duck hit on the head" [Lincoln's words about Rosecrans].) NEUROMANCER is THE emblematic SciFi book of the closing years of our century. It is haunting, dense, glittering, beautiful, and (just barely) scary. Wow
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