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A review by edick
Neuromancer by William Gibson
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Neuromancer makes its place as a cornerstone of sci-fi (and more specifically cyberpunk) known, and amazingly Gibson pulls this off with a decent bit more showing than telling.
The atmosphere he stitches together across a shrunken, sprawled, overconnected Earth is unmatched, especially considering he cranked this out in the ‘80s. Written on the cusp of the Internet’s big spurt of growth in the 90s, he paints a vivid mosaic of what he imagines 20XX penetration hacking is like, and it’s damn interesting.
Many people fault Neuromancer for being a little too cloudy and hard to follow, and I can’t completely disagree. A lot of the time it feels like Gibson’s imaginative vision has its foot on the gas, pulling you through an endless, abstract, multicolored tunnel of cyberspace — in the moment, it can seem like he’s flexing his worldbuilding muscle pretty hard, but for me this results in a pretty fun & novel reading experience.
While it feels more plot-oriented, the characters give it a good bit of life. They feel grimy, troubled, and each with their own complicated past, and they bounce off each other well, without stealing the show from the setting Gibson has created.
Could I have gotten more out of the overarching story? Sure. At times, it is undeniably a bit spacey in terms of what it’s trying to convey, but if you don’t strain yourself trying to wrap your head around every moment, you’re in for a good time.
The atmosphere he stitches together across a shrunken, sprawled, overconnected Earth is unmatched, especially considering he cranked this out in the ‘80s. Written on the cusp of the Internet’s big spurt of growth in the 90s, he paints a vivid mosaic of what he imagines 20XX penetration hacking is like, and it’s damn interesting.
Many people fault Neuromancer for being a little too cloudy and hard to follow, and I can’t completely disagree. A lot of the time it feels like Gibson’s imaginative vision has its foot on the gas, pulling you through an endless, abstract, multicolored tunnel of cyberspace — in the moment, it can seem like he’s flexing his worldbuilding muscle pretty hard, but for me this results in a pretty fun & novel reading experience.
While it feels more plot-oriented, the characters give it a good bit of life. They feel grimy, troubled, and each with their own complicated past, and they bounce off each other well, without stealing the show from the setting Gibson has created.
Could I have gotten more out of the overarching story? Sure. At times, it is undeniably a bit spacey in terms of what it’s trying to convey, but if you don’t strain yourself trying to wrap your head around every moment, you’re in for a good time.