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3.69 AVERAGE
3.69 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
DNF
An influential icon of science fiction and cyberpunk.
But just not for me.
An influential icon of science fiction and cyberpunk.
But just not for me.
adventurous
dark
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Eh. I’ve read worse. Cyberpunk’s dope, though.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Painful to read. Misogynistic. Racist. Romanticises assault. Poorly written. Convoluted ‘plot’ where nothing of substance happens. If I could give minus stars I would
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Drug abuse, Sexual content, Violence
Winner of Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K Dick awards. Forerunner of the well-loved scifi genre Cyberpunk. The bringer of a shift in the cultural consciousness. A terribly-written novel.
Remember the Hollywood hacker films from the nineties? Remember odd graphics of incomprehensible data turning into objects and moving around with the beat of a techno music while the hero bashes away at a keyboard? This is the source of all that misinformed notions. Neuromancer. Perceptive fans of the book may say, Oh, but the in-world logic justifies visualization of data, because it's stored in a virtual world (called the matrix), so it's conceivable the hacker will see data and code as real-world objects. To that I say bullshit! Graphics, any kind of graphics -- be it a simple computer game or a complex simulated reality -- is for the end user. To cause unintended behavior in the program you must see the code in its bare form; the barer the better.
The charge of singlehandedly introducing misinformation into the cultural consciousness aside, the debut novel of William Gibson is not well-written either. The defining aspect of it is its inscrutable narrative. One reason for it is inundating the narration with a unknown parlance without explaining any of the new terms to the reader. This is not a bad trait. In fact, it may be the only good this Neuromancer has going for it. Trusting the reader to immerse themselves in the secondary world without spoonfeeding them is unarguably daring; something which SciFi and Fantasy authors seem incapable of doing.
But the other reason behind the narrative being inscrutable is the incomprehensible description Gibson employs in describing the simplest scenes. The writing is so devoid of color that boredom sets its claws. The dialogue, although full of spunk that adds a bit of color to the story, is ridiculously edgy, as if written for preteens who would do better with a Marvel comic. The plot itself is perhaps the biggest culprit for the drabness of the story. It's not revealed until the end why and sometime even what is happening, leaving the reader incapable of partaking in the suspense that fastpaced heist stories revel in. Think of any heist movie: Ocean's Eleven; Italian Job. Think of the structure. What's the first act of the story? It's invariably the planning. The guys get together and draws up a plan, minutely detailed, that lays out beforehand how dangerous the job is and what the stakes are. Otherwise, it just doesn't work.
The characters are the final straw a story has. If all else fails, one good, well-drawn character may make a book worthwhile. Unfortunately not a single character in Neuromancer fits that condition. It's almost impossible how such ostensibly interesting characters -- a washed-up, drug-addicted hacker who lives for the thrill of the chase; a cyber-enhanced killer lady with a checkered past and a brash attitude; an inscrutable army-man with mysterious connections and motivations; many more -- all turn out to be just gimmicks without depths. There are moments of pure human emotions, e.g., when Linda's construct vanishes in front of Case and he shouts, "I had a cigarette and a girl and a bed to sleep," but they are so far and few between that one must consider them the exception rather than the rule.
It seems when it comes to genre fiction, awards can't be trusted. Specially in Fantasy. Most of the heavy-hitters, the Nebula and Hugo winners, I read and hear about seems to have aged poorly (thinking of Heinlein's books). Neuromancer is no different.
Remember the Hollywood hacker films from the nineties? Remember odd graphics of incomprehensible data turning into objects and moving around with the beat of a techno music while the hero bashes away at a keyboard? This is the source of all that misinformed notions. Neuromancer. Perceptive fans of the book may say, Oh, but the in-world logic justifies visualization of data, because it's stored in a virtual world (called the matrix), so it's conceivable the hacker will see data and code as real-world objects. To that I say bullshit! Graphics, any kind of graphics -- be it a simple computer game or a complex simulated reality -- is for the end user. To cause unintended behavior in the program you must see the code in its bare form; the barer the better.
The charge of singlehandedly introducing misinformation into the cultural consciousness aside, the debut novel of William Gibson is not well-written either. The defining aspect of it is its inscrutable narrative. One reason for it is inundating the narration with a unknown parlance without explaining any of the new terms to the reader. This is not a bad trait. In fact, it may be the only good this Neuromancer has going for it. Trusting the reader to immerse themselves in the secondary world without spoonfeeding them is unarguably daring; something which SciFi and Fantasy authors seem incapable of doing.
But the other reason behind the narrative being inscrutable is the incomprehensible description Gibson employs in describing the simplest scenes. The writing is so devoid of color that boredom sets its claws. The dialogue, although full of spunk that adds a bit of color to the story, is ridiculously edgy, as if written for preteens who would do better with a Marvel comic. The plot itself is perhaps the biggest culprit for the drabness of the story. It's not revealed until the end why and sometime even what is happening, leaving the reader incapable of partaking in the suspense that fastpaced heist stories revel in. Think of any heist movie: Ocean's Eleven; Italian Job. Think of the structure. What's the first act of the story? It's invariably the planning. The guys get together and draws up a plan, minutely detailed, that lays out beforehand how dangerous the job is and what the stakes are. Otherwise, it just doesn't work.
The characters are the final straw a story has. If all else fails, one good, well-drawn character may make a book worthwhile. Unfortunately not a single character in Neuromancer fits that condition. It's almost impossible how such ostensibly interesting characters -- a washed-up, drug-addicted hacker who lives for the thrill of the chase; a cyber-enhanced killer lady with a checkered past and a brash attitude; an inscrutable army-man with mysterious connections and motivations; many more -- all turn out to be just gimmicks without depths. There are moments of pure human emotions, e.g., when Linda's construct vanishes in front of Case and he shouts, "I had a cigarette and a girl and a bed to sleep," but they are so far and few between that one must consider them the exception rather than the rule.
It seems when it comes to genre fiction, awards can't be trusted. Specially in Fantasy. Most of the heavy-hitters, the Nebula and Hugo winners, I read and hear about seems to have aged poorly (thinking of Heinlein's books). Neuromancer is no different.