Reviews

The book is is so thematic it started its own genre of sci-fi. But all sci-fi has strong themes of philosophy and this book followed that rule. The story itself was a bit bland by today’s standards but even for being written 40 years ago it’s still very topical and relevant. The writing is very stylized and extremely poetic, I can admit it became hard to follow the action at times because of how distracted I was with the elegant sprawling descriptions of cyberspace. Overall I enjoyed reading it and can see myself rereading it again later because of how good it was, but not enough to read the sequel.

ajmurphy's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

3.75

libellum_aphrodite's review against another edition

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2.0

I can certainly acknowledge and appreciate that Gibson was a conceptual Sci-Fi trailblazer around the cyberpunk genre. I'm most impressed with the AI and superintelligence ideas framed so early (including an AI being clever enough to hire a bunch of humans to hack its software locks)!

But, I cannot forgive or uprate him for being such a terrible storyteller. The plotline is terribly confusing, jumping all over the place. As I was reading, I kept thinking, "I must be misunderstanding - this can't really be what's happening so randomly," but when I checked the synopsis after, I was correct about everything. Besides the plot, the characters are shallow and poorly developed, and the sex, especially Case and Molly's relationship, is inexplicable and a bit skeevy.

It's not fair to rate a book highly just for great ideas, badly told. Head back to some Arthur C. Clarke and find yourself fully engrossed by an excellent writer who also wrote groundbreaking fiction for his time. MANY years and technologies later, I still couldn't put his books down and was fully emotionally invested. For the second half of Neuromancer, I couldn't wait for it to be done already.

chriseaton's review against another edition

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medium-paced

4.25

jdunnington101's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

rajaxar1's review

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fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

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