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3.69 AVERAGE
3.69 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
Extremely difficult to understand and follow even for a seasoned sci-fi book reader.
There it is, the novel that took inspiration from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (the basis for the Blade Runner movie), and that in turn inspired The Matrix movies and the Shadowrun games. If you've been in contact with those pieces of media, you should already know we're in for a good helping of cynical, dystopian cyberpunk.
Whether Mr. Gibson had thousands upon thousands of pages of lore at first then edited out as much as he could, or wrote everything as is in some kind of fever dream the result is the same: we're left with something as dense as German bread, and we're hanging in there by the pinky of our left hand. Prepare yourself for abrupt scene changes and a lot of barely explained jargon.
You must pay attention at all times and not miss a single word or you'll quickly be staring in the distance, wondering who that character is again and whether they just died shot by a sniper, had a parasitic alien scared out of their body, or entered a secret portal and left their clothes behind for some reason. (I later discovered it was none of those options. Said character merely produced a hologram of a monster to avoid being captured. I think.)
Anyway, if you can get past the occasional confusion you'll discover that the technologies and stakes are exactly what you'd expect in this sort of novel, but they usually come wrapped in an original enough packaging that it might keep you interested (it did me). The vocabulary is high level, the style is not easy, and both also fit perfectly with the genre. I'm still queasy from that "skin gleaming a wet intestinal pink" on page 102. Ten out of ten, would gag again.
Now, for the less attractive aspects.
All the characters look and act very (tick all boxes that apply)
❒ badass
❒ eccentric
❒ mysterious
❒ jaded
Even their wardrobe is über dark and cool, the author makes sure you know this with regular and thorough outfit descriptions. This is not a flaw in itself, but the fact that I couldn't find much beyond the 3edgy5me material is. Only one character (Armitage) presented a backstory that wasn't cliché and, even then, none of it was his doing. In the end, my favourite was a dead dude whose personality had been written on a ROM, so yeah.
Then there's also the unnecessary sexual content and female breast descriptions. On this, I have no further comment than: this book was written by a man, for men.
Confusing, edgy, bleak, but also rich, intriguing and evocative. Whether you'll like it or not is a coin toss.
Whether Mr. Gibson had thousands upon thousands of pages of lore at first then edited out as much as he could, or wrote everything as is in some kind of fever dream the result is the same: we're left with something as dense as German bread, and we're hanging in there by the pinky of our left hand. Prepare yourself for abrupt scene changes and a lot of barely explained jargon.
You must pay attention at all times and not miss a single word or you'll quickly be staring in the distance, wondering who that character is again and whether they just died shot by a sniper, had a parasitic alien scared out of their body, or entered a secret portal and left their clothes behind for some reason. (I later discovered it was none of those options. Said character merely produced a hologram of a monster to avoid being captured. I think.)
Anyway, if you can get past the occasional confusion you'll discover that the technologies and stakes are exactly what you'd expect in this sort of novel, but they usually come wrapped in an original enough packaging that it might keep you interested (it did me). The vocabulary is high level, the style is not easy, and both also fit perfectly with the genre. I'm still queasy from that "skin gleaming a wet intestinal pink" on page 102. Ten out of ten, would gag again.
Now, for the less attractive aspects.
All the characters look and act very (tick all boxes that apply)
❒ badass
❒ eccentric
❒ mysterious
❒ jaded
Even their wardrobe is über dark and cool, the author makes sure you know this with regular and thorough outfit descriptions. This is not a flaw in itself, but the fact that I couldn't find much beyond the 3edgy5me material is. Only one character (Armitage) presented a backstory that wasn't cliché and, even then, none of it was his doing. In the end, my favourite was a dead dude whose personality had been written on a ROM, so yeah.
Then there's also the unnecessary sexual content and female breast descriptions. On this, I have no further comment than: this book was written by a man, for men.
Confusing, edgy, bleak, but also rich, intriguing and evocative. Whether you'll like it or not is a coin toss.
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Neuromancer is a genre defining work of speculative science fiction. At it's core, the plot is very simple (almost to a fault at times), however, what makes up for this is the dense atmosphere and unique world building that Neuromancer employs in its prose. So much of the atmosphere is reinforced by descriptions of the world as it relates back to technology. Neuromancer doesn't care whether or not you comprehend or understand what's happening or being said, but it is more so trying to get you to just accept it for what it is: a high speed roller coaster ride through hazy digital distortion and blurred neon.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
⭐ 2.0 I honestly have no idea what the plot of this story was. I felt constantly lost on what's going on, who these people are, where we are and how tf
Spoiler
we end up in space?!?
fast-paced
I had never read a cyber punk novel before Neuromancer, but I figured if I was going to read one, I should start with the one that started the genre. It didn't hurt that Neuromancer won the Nebula, Hugo and Philip K. Dick awards.
The story was interesting enough, but what really impressed me about Neuromancer was the language. First, the jargon and dialect really help to sell the premise and enhance the otherwise formulaic plot. Second, and more importantly, Gibson seemed to understand where the future of technology was going back in 1986, which is really impressive. Here is a quote from Neuromancer (there are no spoilers about the novel in it) that really illustrates the author's foresight:
"The matrix has its roots in primitive arcade games... Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data."
The biggest issue I had with the novel is that for as well as Gibson writes concepts and computers, he struggles to write characters. It is very difficult to connect with either Case or Molly on any level, as they are both written as if they are as mechanical as the decks and mods they operate with.
The story was interesting enough, but what really impressed me about Neuromancer was the language. First, the jargon and dialect really help to sell the premise and enhance the otherwise formulaic plot. Second, and more importantly, Gibson seemed to understand where the future of technology was going back in 1986, which is really impressive. Here is a quote from Neuromancer (there are no spoilers about the novel in it) that really illustrates the author's foresight:
"The matrix has its roots in primitive arcade games... Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data."
The biggest issue I had with the novel is that for as well as Gibson writes concepts and computers, he struggles to write characters. It is very difficult to connect with either Case or Molly on any level, as they are both written as if they are as mechanical as the decks and mods they operate with.