BiblioBlog

June 23, 2003
Neuromaner by William Gibson

Neuromaner by William Gibson: rarely have I had a book disappoint me as much as this one has.

This book won the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the Philip K. Dick - the first novel to ever win all three sci-fi awards. It coined the term cyberspace. And yet, I found it incredibly uninvolving.

I think my main problem with the book is that when it started out, I felt slightly lost - like I was in a country where they spoke English, but the English was a little different from my own. This made me try and fit it into stories I already knew creating an amalgamation of Strange Days, Johnny Mnemonic (also written by Gibson), and The Matrix. I appreciate the fact that by not explaining the past or the present to the readers Gibson presents the novel like it is an accepted reality. I believe, though, this is why I never really was able to get into either the stories or the characters. Trying to get the simple, everyday concepts ("What the hell is a coffin? Why’s he sleeping in it?") made it more of a task to read the book in turn making it harder to accept the characters and understand their motivations. I just desperately wanted it to end so I could move on to something else.

Let me say, however, that there is definitely wonderful stuff in this book - hell, the first line is great. It probably gets better with each read since more will make sense from the get-go, but my frustration and disappoint with the book will probably cause me never to give it another go.



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Comments

I'm not surprised that people are not so impressed with Neuromancer when they read it today. The biggest reason is that so many novels have been written and movies have been made using concepts, styles and inventions right out of the book, it seems like old news. Reading it for the first time in 1984 was a remarkable experience - it just knocked you right over.

I cover most of the science fiction inventions from Neuromancer at Science fiction inventions from Neuromancer by William Gibson. Some of entries give a sense of history to the concepts.

Posted by: CT on October 27, 2003 08:21 PM




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