Here is the novel that started it all, launching the cyberpunk generation, and the first novel to win the holy trinity of science fiction: the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award and the Philip K. Dick Award. With Neuromancer, William Gibson introduced the world to cyberspace--and science fiction has never been the same.

Case was the hottest computer cowboy cruising the information superhighway--jacking his consciousness into cyberspace, soaring through tactile lattices of data and logic, rustling encoded secrets for anyone with the money to buy his skills. Then he double-crossed the wrong people, who caught up with him in a big way--and burned the talent out of his brain, micron by micron. Banished from cyberspace, trapped in the meat of his physical body, Case courted death in the high-tech underworld. Until a shadowy conspiracy offered him a second chance--and a cure--for a price....

Aleks Krotoski, broadcaster, journalist, and academic specialising in technology and interactivity, has chosen to discuss William Gibson’s Neuromancer on FiveBooks as one of the top five on her subject - Virtual Living, saying that: 

"...This is the seminal cyberpunk book: it’s the thing that the web is based on. It’s a pretty typical cyberpunk story, being the one of somebody wronged, who has to jack into the mainframe to clear his name. The main characters are pretty distasteful, but because they’re part of this society that is in and of itself a dystopian environment, they’re using these technologies to make these worlds better. But they create a real romance around what technology is, and what technology can be...."

The full interview is available here: http://five-books.com/interviews/alek... ( )

Henry Dorsett Case, called "Case", was once a star hacker. However, after stealing from an employer, in punishment they damaged his nervous system with a mycotoxin that renders him unable to interface and continue his work as a "console cowboy". Unable to do what he was once so good at, he becomes a self-destructive thug in Japan until his downwards spiral is halted by Molly, a "street samurai" with blades in her fingers and mirrored sunglass insets over her eyes, and Armitage. They offer Case the opportunity to be a cowboy again, if only he does what they say... Only, the scheme is a lot larger than Case could ever guess.

Neuromancer is a difficult novel for me to discuss. In many ways, I enjoyed the novel immensely, but in others, I became very frustrated. Of course, I immediately felt incredibly guilty for being frustrated with the novel, because it's considered classic. Not to mention Gibson is credited with anticipating and legitimizing the entire genre of cyberpunk. I can see why. Neuromancer has a ton of fabulous details, a sweeping plot, and a strange jittery energy that propels the reader straight to the ending.

What annoyed me was that even as I was racing through the book, I felt as if the world of the book was somehow blurring around me, becoming indistinct and hard to define and understand. I'm not entirely sure if this was because of the short, jumpy sections and chapters--or if it was because Case spends a good portion of the book under the influence of one drug or another--or if it's because Case himself doesn't have a very good grasp of what's going on a lot of the time... Well, I'm just not sure. But this aspect frustrated me, especially because I wanted to absorb the world of the book the more I found out and the more I read, but instead got the opposite effect. In a way, I felt like I was swept along without a handhold a lot of the time.

That aside, there were a lot of things that intrigued me and pleased me about Neuromancer. That "jittery energy" I mentioned? I've never quite felt that from a book before. I felt like I was along for the ride, hitting every bump along the way, and somehow experiencing the same haze of mystery and confusion that Case has to deal with.

I'm not quire sure how Gibson accomplishes that. It probably has to do with his hold over language. Entering Neuromancer was a little difficult for me perhaps because there's an entirely new vocabulary one must learn to understand the story. It's easy enough to sort out AI, coffin, razorgirl, street samurai, console cowboy, and ICE, but then I ended up second-guessing myself a lot of the novel. Did I really know what he meant by ICE? Console cowboy? And then there are a bunch of little jokes I'd have missed completely had I not just had a philosophy class that covered functionalism and minds/computers. A lot of the dialogue about the intelligence of computers/AI or Turing is enhanced unbelievably with a little background in that section of philosophy. That's something I'd have completely missed otherwise--and who knows what I did miss?

I suppose another drawback for me was the characters. Case and Molly are both incredibly interesting. In fact, I particularly loved Molly. However, I don't feel like I got to know either of them at all in the story. I am, for better or worse, a very character-driven reader. This story definitely was not character-oriented, but instead plot-driven. When a story is so driven by the plot, even if information is given about the characters and their motivations, they can still remain enigmas or mere pieces being moved about a game board rather than people. This was my greatest disappointment, because I really wanted to understand Case and Molly, but by the end of the book I had no better grasp on their characters than I did before.

Rating a classic is always hard. On one hand, it's hard to ignore what the book has done for the genre, but on the other hand, I really had some trouble enjoying the novel completely. In the end, I have to evaluate the novel on my own, personal enjoyment level and how impressed I was by disregarding all outside factors. ( )

I re-read this book every year, and each time new facets of Gibson's budding style are revealed. It's aged a bit in the twenty-odd years since its debut, most noticably in its bursts of neon purple glamour-punk prose, but it still has plenty of staying power with mysterious badass characters, fanciful yet practical zero-gravity backdrops, semi-crazy computers, looney dynastic recluses, and the notion that in the 21st Century, the body is meat and even more disposable than before. Gibson's subsequent canons are very different, comparatively subdued, and in the case of his more recent work, can hardly be called science fiction at all. So, it's refreshing to go back every now and then and revisit "cyberpunk's" humble, if slightly silly, modern beginnings. ( )

In general, this is a most enjoyable book. Once you get used to the chop and change style which often had me flicking back and forth looking for the missing pages, the plot comes together nicely and at good pace. I must say I got the feeling that the chop-change approach is born more out of laziness rather than the author's intent but, either way, the effect is quite poignant in itself - reflecting the jaded lives of the main characters.

On the face of it, this book is a sci-fi thriller set in an arbitrary future Earth that is quite probable in many respects (as opposed to the far out and fantastical setting of say Star Wars or Star Trek). The story plot is certainly entertaining and engaging in itself, but ultimately the heart of the story is how we understand what it means to be human in light of and in relationship to the technological world we live in or, more accurately, may form as technology continues to develop. The book works on both levels which is perhaps why a 20+ year old book set in the arbitrary 'near future' is still so popular today.

In general, I recommend this book, but be aware that the style is not particularly smooth and easy in approach. It's simple on the face of it but complex at its heart and sometimes difficult to follow. Like many post-modern works, it is rather disjointed in parts and very much character driven. Fortunately, the characters, particular the main protagonist in Case, are interesting and dynamic enough to keep the reader interested and wanting more. Prophetic, poignant and ponderous modern classic. ( )

Neuromancer left me feeling rather disappointed.

I had expected the cyberspace and AI components to play a much larger part. I went into it thinking that it would be a cyberspace story with a dash of noirish crime caper, but it turned out to be the other way around. I would have liked to have gotten to know the titular 'character' a lot more.

The ending didn't offer much resolution. I suppose it's an ending that's true to each of the characters involved... Still, though, it wasn't satisfying.

While I can't fault Gibson for it, I found the evidence of Neuromancer's age distracting. This is a world with neural interfaces and orbital colonies, but a few megabytes of RAM have black market value and data is stored on tape. ( )

I read Gibson's Pattern Recognition first and, to be honest, I didn't really enjoy it too much. Knowing the fame of Neuromancer though, I had to give it a shot. I got to around 100 pages in and decided to put the book back on the shelf. The futuristic, cyberpunk setting was interesting, but I could get into the story. I had no desire to see any character do anything really. I didn't care of Case survived or if Molly had a happy ending. I feel that the purpose of the book was to describe an atmosphere, which I appreciated for 100 pages, but I just got bored with the story and the lack of information. The cut-up, hard to follow text wasn't so much the reason, but I'm sure it added to my frustration. I get that this style of writing adds to the atmosphere, and I appreciated that, but I kept hoping for something interesting to happen, and nothing did. I'm sorry I couldn't finish it, but with so many other books to read, I couldn't spend another day on this one. ( )

It just blows me away every time I read it. It's THE cyberpunk novel ;-) ( )

Neuromancer is one of those books you know you should love. I like cyberpunk. I appreciate classic science fiction. Every feature Neuromancer presents I can check off. It's the execution that is failing. Gibson isn't a good writer. His descriptions are unclear. His understanding of computer technology was outdated even when it was written. There are some memorable ideas, but everything here has been done better by those who came after. Neuromancer should be appreciated for creating cyberpunk, but it is not a quality novel. ( )

Summary on back of book:

"Case was the sharpest data thief in the Matrix, until an ex-employer crippled his nervous system. Now a new employer has recruited him for a last-chance run against an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence. With a mirror-eyed girl street-samurai riding shotgun, he's ready for the silicon-quick, bleakly prophetic adventure that upped the ante on an entire genre of fiction."

I was required to read this book for a class and by and large, it was hardest slog of a read I've had to do for a class in a long, long time. I'm normally a big fan of science fiction and was excited when I found out I'd finally have a chance to read the book that created cyberpunk. But this one was hard. The prose jumped around so much between characters and scenes, and Case "flipped" in and out of reality and the Matrix that most of the time, I wasn't sure where I even was. There was the detachment that I've come to associate with postmodernism and while usually, I quite enjoy it and find it humorous, for me it didn't work here. The book didn't have that ironic feel I've received from other pomo works of fiction so instead of being ironic and funny, it was just boring.

Besides that, I have really no idea what happened at the end or what part Neuromancer really even played. I'm not sure why Wintermute was after Case and company. Indeterminacy can be effective, but this was too much for me.

Honestly, I can tell the book is actually very good, so me not liking it is probably more of a difference in personal taste than the book being bad. I'm going to hang on to my copy and in the future, when I'm much more acquainted with postmodernism and cyberpunk, I plan on rereading this. I think I'll get much more out of it then than I did this time around. ( )

This was described to me as the archetypal cyberpunk novel. And perhaps it is. The world was interesting, the characters were dynamic, and the view of the future was familiar yet radically different. However, I had a terrible time following the storyline. I got what happened in a general sense, but there was still some stuff that went over my head. Like what happened to Wintermute at the end. So honestly I'm not sure if I'd recommend this book to anyone else, because I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. Perhaps I should reread it sometime. ( )

William Gibson's Neuromancer is interesting specifically for the world the author creates with it. The plot is difficult to follow, however. Gibson seems to take for granted a patient reader who is comfortable with confusion and willing to move forward in a narrative without having a clear idea of what is going on.

The plot emerges as a series of fragmented conversations and vague references to missions, training, technologies, and equipment. It is surprising, however, how I was able to approximate a plot based upon these disparate elements without a more directive, connect-the-dots sort of narrator. In many ways the aesthetic technique of the novel is as unique as the world Gibson develops here.

One element of the the novel that is really great is the cast of characters. The characters are quite memorable. Case, Molly, Armitage, Maelcum, Wintermute, Riviera, 3Jane: the characters seem to have rich developed backgrounds, and they seem be fully realized (although you only glimpse them partially).

As a foundational text for the cyber-punk sub-genre, it should be read. ( )

Slightly dated or not this was a very good read. The book starts very well and moves along at a fairly breathless pace. That is until the final 1/3 of the story - the Straylight Run. The quick moving story then judders to a halt and suddenly starts grinding its way to its conclusion. If it hadn't been for that rather methodical final section I'd give this really rather good piece of sci-fi four stars. As it is though, it's an enjoyable read but one which did feel like a bit of an effort in the closing stages. Still well worth picking up though. ( )

A quick paced sci-fi thriller that keeps the reader constantly wondering what is real and what is an illusion, this book was probably some pretty ground-breaking stuff for its time. ( )

All in all, one of my favorite sci-fi books of all time. Excellent characters (even the construct), a well imagined world and fascinating plot make this a true sci-fi classic. Not much else can be said that hasn't been said a hundred times already. ( )

This is a classic of cyberpunk. Although it feels a bit dated now, using many of the neon future backdrops that are familiar in P.K. Dick and Bruce Sterling, at the time I first read it, it was like a breath of fresh air in comparison to the space operas that had previously dominated science fiction. ( )

William Gibson's Neuromancer is what many have said a shining example of the cyberpunk genre. Some have even said it's one of the books that started it all. The man practically coined the term 'the Matrix' in this book. I've always been interested in sci fi stories whether they're from books, movies, or television shows, so it felt necessary that I read a book that's so highly regarded by people who also like sci-fi.

On a superficial level, Neuromancer is a caper story that takes place in a gritty, futuristic setting. Its protagonist, Case, is what we would think of as a hacker. Where we first pick up in the story, Case has lost the ability to hack because an enemy of his destroyed a part of his nervous system and prevents him from hooking into cyberspace. He is then propositioned by a mysterious man who restores his ability to hack, but only if Case is willing to do something for him.

Once readers delve deeper, the story is actually about artificial intelligence, technology, and what it means to be a living, breathing, human being. This may not seem like much, but take this into context: the novel was written in 1984, a time when few people had computers in their home and the world wide web was just a faint glimmer in Al Gore's imagination. With that in mind, it's amazing that Gibson crafted such a shockingly accurate tale of what the future (or the present, now) might be.

Admittedly, I did not really feel attached to this book until I read 1/3 of the way through. Gibson's prose is so rich and dense that it's hard to read quickly at first. He describes things in such detail that sometimes it seemed like I was reading paragraphs and paragraphs but nothing really happened. His techno-babble was also hard to keep up with, but I eventually stopped fighting it and trying to make sense of it; I just let it flow past me.

Having read it so late in my life and after having read and watched so many stories influenced by Neuromancer, I was disappointed I didn't read it sooner. Maybe it's good that I didn't read it till now -- I might not have understood a lot of what was written if I had this in my early teens, but I think my mind would have been blown if I hadn't known of the hype surrounding this book. Despite the overblown expectations, I still enjoyed the book for what it was. ( )

Fast paced, dark sci-fi : Neuromancer is THE archetypal cyber-punk sci-fi. Fast paced, sometimes funny, sometimes (very) dark - not always clear but nevertheless - one cannot put it down. A true immersing experience in the genre.

Above all enjoy Gibson's rhythm and language, which then again I could encounter in a more pleasing context in Chandler and Beats. Would respond better to his short stories, perhaps; I was engrossed for 40 pages, and became steadily wearier of the science, masculinity, and worldview straight to the end. ( )

The book is widely hailed as a classic and although a bit dated it still is fairly involving. It is still a bit hyped which the prose can not live up to but it is a passable read if a person is not particularly interested in the science fiction genre.

I decided to brush up on my sci-fi history by reading this archetypal Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick award winning Cyberpunk novel. I’ve already read Pattern Recognition and Spook Country, so I knew a bit of what to expect. What I found was Gibson in his raw unpolished brilliance. You would expect a twenty-five year old book about the future to feel dated. However, aside from a few exceptions, it felt remarkably current. This novel lives up to its reputation.

The prose is dreamlike, blurring the lines between action and reflection—much like the plot blurs the lines between real and virtual reality. You need to pay attention while reading it to keep track of the characters, but the payoff is worth it. The story stays with you once the book’s back on the shelf.

Few things are more satisfying than reading a classic that exceeds your expectations. ( )

Neuromancer may have effectively spearheaded the genre of cyberpunk, but I did not find it to be especially exciting. I think it may simply be that I am looking at it after the genre has had time to stretch its wings.

Much of the first half of the book is spent just developing an understanding of the terms and the world that exists. In fact, much of the second half of the book is also spent roughing out general ideas. Everything begins as being an unknown. You do not understand the speech, the world, the technology, or the plot. Because no part of the story makes sense, you need to get the entire picture all together in your head before you can clear up any of the details.

Once I had a good view of the story, the characters, and all the details, I found that I was both uninterested, and unattached to anything. By the end of the book it was simply reading to finish. This book was not what I hoped it would be, but I do recognize the fact that it does hold an important place in literature as a whole. Unfortunately it has become nothing more than a checked box on a list of my to-read items. ( )

A lozenge is a shape. Like a cube, or a triangle, or a sphere. I know that every time he types it, you are going to imagine a cough drop flying serenely by, but it's a shape. It's from heraldry for god's sake. You may want to look up some synonyms to insert for yourself when he uses it, here are a few: diamond, rhombus, mascle.

Now that the greatest obstacle in Gibson's vocabulary has been dealt with, I can tell you that he writes in one of the finest voices of any Science Fiction author. His ability to describe things in succinct, exciting, sexy ways is almost certainly the reason we owe him for words like 'cyberspace'.

It took twenty years for his visions of leather-clad kung-fu ladies and brain-computer interfaces to reach the mainstream in The Matrix, but only because he was that far ahead of his time.

However, Gibson was no early adopter. He used a typewriter to write a book that predicted the internet, virtual reality, hacking, and all the nonsense we're embroiled in now (and some stuff we're still waiting for). It can sometimes feel unoriginal, but, much like Shakespeare, that's because what we have today is based on what he was doing then.

Though Gibson may not be as radical as Dick, or as original as Bradbury, there is something in his words, his stories, and his 'coolness factor' that keep bringing me back. Indeed, he is much more accessible than the philosophically remote Dick, Bradbury, or Ellison, and all in a slick package.

Just don't try to watch Johnny Mnemonic. Ever. He did write the best X-Files episode, though: 'Kill Switch'. He also wrote a script for Alien 3, which I have never read, but can state with certainty was better than the one they chose to film. ( )

I know that this book is considered a classic, the pioneer in the genre of cyberpunk, and all around awesome, but I'm going to admit: I had to force myself to keep trudging through it. In fact, several times I gazed wistfully at my shelf, which is filled with China Mieville books that have just come in from the library, as well as John Scalzi's Zoe's Tale, and almost gave into the urge to cast it aside entirely in favor of one of those many TBRs.

My issues with this book are myriad. First and foremost is a writing style and style of worldbuilding that made reading this book /far/ more work than it needed to be. Gibson loves to throw slang and jargon and crazy stuff at you without explaining what it is. To some extent, that's fine - I don't like pages of solid exposition either. What I /do/ like, though, is an author who knows how to weave his world, his slang and jargon and crazy tech, into the story so seamlessly, with description and plot uses that naturally explain what's going on, that you don't notice that it's all foreign. The number of times I had to stop, backtrack, and reread a paragraph - or a /page/ - in order to figure out 1) what was going on and 2) what the characters were /actually saying/ was simply insane. I have spent time translating French with less effort.

His world is unclear, his action is unclear, his character's speech is unclear, his characters themselves are often unclear. It feels like Gibson was enamored of this vision of a world he saw in his head (and where I can glimpse it, too, I can see why! Some things are intensely arresting, like Molly's silver-lensed glasses), but he forgot that the reader doesn't live in his head - we need a bit more help to get there!

All of these things might have been forgiven if the story or characters had blown me away. Unfortunately, I found the characters to be fairly stock and, frankly, boring (I certainly wasn't invested in any of them), and the action of the story was both difficult to follow and not all that interesting once I did. The latter probably stems from the book's age - some things here would probably seem far more revelatory were I reading it in 1984 rather than 2009. Some science fiction can stand the test of 25 years, but those are typically concerned with humanity and character, not dazzling tech. Neuromancer doesn't care much about either, so it doesn't feel relevant and it barely feels interesting.

I feel a little bad being this harsh on something that has clearly earned its place - the number of bits and pieces that have been blatantly ripped off by other books, movies, television shows, and other modern sci fi formats is astounding. What Gibson did here was probably unbelievably amazing, new, fresh, exciting, 25 years ago. I would have been more forgiving of the density in order to get those fantastic images, that fascinating world. But I'm reading it today, and cyberspace and AI and even genetic modifications don't read the same as they once did. It's unfortunate, but true. I'd hoped to at least enjoy the book for its place in the classic canon. Sadly, the other problems meant I didn't really even do that.

Mostly,I just wanted to finish it. I did at lunch today, and within 20 minutes I was 60 pages into Zoe's Tale, and it was like breathing a giant sigh of relief. Ahhhhh--- /there's/ what I wanted! ( )

It's definitely before its time. Cyberpunk has come a long way since this was written, but it doesn't feel dated.

It's a fast story, and wraps up a lot faster than it started. Some components appear to have been added only because they are "cool" (like a guy who projects holograms - it's a cool talent, but completely irrelevant to the story, he could have just carried a super big gun and been as effective). This doesn't detract from the story, however, it is what makes the story original and interesting.

It's not as good as Morgan's cyberpunk, but it certainly holds up well for its age. ( )