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Chuckle at the absence of cell phones, but *do* ride Case's destructive pathway, the convolutions that Wintermute goes through - shrug - don't take it too seriously, it's just a book. It was sharp, glittering, and refracted a story of improbable characters into a mere 317 pages.Smile at the 3Mb of hot RAM, sure, go on. But the view it gives is a memorable one. I used to read Omni.(well, that dates me)I first read William Gibson's work in that fine failed magazine.I bought Neuromancer when it came out - gee, my Grafton '86 copy's still rocking along - and frankly, I don't own another book that can evoke a time and place, a paperback madeleine, as well as this.I inhaled it.I swam in it.It didn't just float my boat, it bolted a pair of grey-import Hyundai SRMs on to it, messily plastered the hull with radar-absorbing carbon epoxy, and lit off on column of noise and steam.If you want an insight into how one possible future might have looked from the perspective of the early 80s, you could do far worse. Like any novel, it has its problems, but it broke a mould that many couldn't even see.
To put it simply, none of our revered "greats" in cyberpunk cinema would have existed if not for this novel.Philip Dick may have pioneered the genre of cyberpunk, but William Gibson took it one step further and created something that is uniquely his own. When you read this book in the context of knowing all the films that have come to pass in the past decade, you'll come to realize how much this masterpiece was the keystone for all of the great sci-fi virtual thrillers we would previously have considered to have stood on their own. Before there was the Matrix and Ghost in the Shell, there was William Gibson and the Sprawl trilogy. Many of the elements and motifs in this novel would be usurped and re-shaped to appeal to popular culture and mainstream audiences, albeit without much homage to the originator.
Do not waste your time reading this book. His storyline it is childish. The author uses a lot of words he came up with and this makes the text extremely hard to follow. As far as his writing style it is horrible.
In the book, it is a weapon, yet the book itself had no true description of what it was like; I had to rely on the internet to get an accurate mental image. A seamless blend of science fiction, action and mystery, this is one of the very few books I rushed to finish; even though I had a deadline to finish this book by, that wasn't the reason I read is so speedily. Gibson still uses plenty of imagery to give the reader perfect mental images of the world he's created, which is superior in every way to details described by almost every mainstream modern writer. The plot of the book is a brilliant foreshadowing of how technology will evolve, and it was executed almost perfectly.
William Gibson's style of writing can only be described as subjective. Overall, this book's relative fame is rightfully justified. I can't think of any reason this book could be truly disliked; the whole thing is an excellent piece of literature that I'd recommend to any fan of science fiction. The aforementioned problem, the only problem I could find, is minute, especially when comparing problems to successes. Neuromancer was indisputably an important novel of the information age, but, no matter how important it was, it must still stand up to the critic's infamous question: was it any good. This is a complex question to ask; the way this book is written will undoubtedly bring mixed reviews, since its plot and writing style are so unique. It serves the purpose well, but may be disliked by some for its tendency to delve into extraneous detail; it may give a confusion to the reader. This may sound boring, but it gives the book a unique feel to it.
This makes the book conjure up almost no emotion, contrary what many writers try to do. In all, I'd estimate that there are about 20 of these made up words. This book has easily become one of my favorites, and I couldn't regard it any higher. But, honestly, this isn't much of a problem, because the meaning of the words is revealed because of the context. But, this style, in my opinion, only adds to the greatness of Neuromancer. It wouldn't be such a problem if there was a glossary in the book, but, sadly, there is none.
But, overall, I think it's safe to say that this book's historical value is matched by its value as a story; It has an extremely well laid out plot, complex, yet readable style, and it set the way for modern cyberpunk. Although this book was quite good, it did have one issue, which has to do with the vocabulary the author uses; many of the recurring words in the book were made up by him, for example, the Fletcher. Gibson describes the world beautifully, yet he almost never uses writing devices like metaphors, similes, or hyperboles. I rushed because the story was so engaging, I found myself needing to know what would happen next. The writing can almost be described like the technology this book talks about: efficient, complex, and cold.
There is no doubt that he is a genius. I thought Case and Molly were both interesting at points, but then weird things would happen in the book and I would be confused.
I wanted to read it because it was on one of those lists that say must read books before you die, and now I have. I'd find myself skimming forward or going back to see if I missed something.
I had some mixed feelings about this book. Large amounts of the terminology I had to look up so I could know what the heck was going on.
I can cross that one off and make a note to never read it again. On one end it was great and William Gibson is brilliant because all of the things that had to do with technology, computers, matrix, etc werent around in the early 80's.
But I thought this book was terribly boring and difficult to read.
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