Neuromancer [Mass Market Paperback]

For those of you out there under the age of 30, it may be hard to fathom the impact of Neuromancer and the stories that preceded it (collected in "Burning Chrome"). I really am NOT exaggerating when I tell you they changed the world.

When "Neuromancer" was published, SF was a genre whose time had passed. While some good writers & old masters were laboring in the trenches & publishing to the same fans they always had, there was really no mass market conciousness of SF except as the source of bad 50's monster movies. "Neuromancer" changed that. "Neuromancer" caused an entire generation to look at computers as something cool rather than nerdy. "Neuromancer" created the concept of "cyberspace" (without which you would not currently be accessing Amazon). "Neuromancer" even gave Bill Gates the name for his fledging operating systems company. Yup, folks, this is THE book!

I very clearly remember first reading this. It was about 1 year after it was published, & I had the vaguest of notions concerning the subject. If I'd read the short stories that preceded it, they had somehow not registered in my conciousness. Page one: CHIBA CITY BLUES what a cool title! Then that famous opening paragraph "The sky was the color of a TV tuned to a blank channel." I thought I'd died & gone to literary heaven! I was convinced this was the reason I'd learned to read 15 years prior, I had been waiting all this time for "Neuromancer"!

I could sum the plot up for you. I could tell you why Gibson's writing is so technically brilliant. I could quote page after page. But why? I feel sorry for the readers who haven't experienced "Neuromancer" because you lost the opportunity to watch a book change the world. Now it's 20 years later. Don't get me wrong: THIS IS A GREAT BOOK! But you'll never experience the mind-bending rush of possibilities now that the future in the book has become a reality.

With Necromancer William Gibson virtually invented cyberpunk, his imaginative vision of a matrix of interconnected computer systems is a true a landmark of Sci-Fi; the tale of a data thief who risks everything to re-establish his lost connection with the drug that is cyberspace.

Case has lost his ability to jack in; a vengeful employer has ravaged his body's nerves system, effectively locking him out of the net. New employment presents itself in the form of a strangely cold new employer and a deal is struck; rebuild his body in exchange for his expertise within the network. His new assignment places him in the company of Molly, a beautiful technologically enhanced assassin, her body transformed by nano-surgical augmentation. Thrust into a dangerous game together, she provides the muscle and he the technological link to the world of the matrix. Making a play against a powerful rouge AI, they find themselves face to face with authoritative corporations, and violent warring programs with in the code. They are aided by a human construct, a former hacker whose entire conciseness's has been captured and imbedded in silicon.

A journey into a mad world, a drug addled populace feeding on the excesses of human desire and rampant uncontrolled technology. Ceaseless body modification and augmentation blur the line between young and old, man and cyborg; A terrifying vision of a morally bankrupt society living on the edges of insanity.

The matrix is a vivid electronic forest, an endless neon light of raw data. Case jacks in and escapes the realities of flesh, existing only in the lucid realm of the code. The drug of cyberspace is rendered in incredibility vibrant detail, mesmerising in its descriptions and intricacy I became lost in the twisting words and began to wonder where the dream ended and the real began. The fine line separated fantasy and reality is distorted, my mind struggled to maintain direction in the optical kaleidoscope of color and texture.

It is not a world I wish to escape into, but to escape form. Full of depravity, and selfishness, the people of this dark future have given up any illusion of ethics, given in to the lusts of technological pleasures.

William Gibson has crafted a true masterpiece of speculative fiction, and delivered it in exquisite detail. His writing has an incredible visual quality to it; the mess of electronics comes alive and dances around any thoughts of sanity. I did not enjoy the read as much as was seriously impressed by it. Its complexities and mind-bending descriptions left me in a state of constant bewilderment.

Beautiful and terrifying at the same time, Necromancer is unlike anything ever imagined. Its vivid imagery is beyond my talent for description. It towers above me, mocking my inability to fully appreciate its magnitude. I did not fall in love with Necromancer, but I was left in awe and utterly shocked.

Those who denounce Gibson's prototypical cyberpunk masterpiece as "unreadable" need an examination. Thoroughly imaginative and filled with intrigue, it's the story of Case, an antihero who, deprived of his cybernetic modifications, sets out to reclaim his powers by working for a shady outfit. Accompanied by Molly, a "Razorgirl" with modifications of her own, Case sets out to pull off the ultimate hack. Can he trust his employer, Armitage, a flesh-and-byte construct? Will Molly betray him? How does he complete his mission? Neuromancer is well-paced, interlaces imagery with creative concepts, and traces a bleak vision of the technology-addled future...but colours it with the possibility of redemption.
Many of the ideas from later works, such as Stephenson's "Snow Crash" or the Wachowski brothers' "Matrix" trilogy...uh..."borrow" liberally from what stands as the gold standard of the cyberpunk genre.