I know I’ll probably get murdered for this one, but Neuromancer was completely incomprehensible to me. It felt like a fever dream, a vocabulary dump mixed with half-baked jargon. I’ve had my fair share of challenging reads, oftentimes they end up my favorite books — *Blood Meridian, Against the Day, As I Lay Dying,* to name a few. And I love that a book that is so carefully constructed has inspired so many people, but it just wasn’t for me.
It’s strange because I love other Gibson books like *Burning Chrome* and *The Difference Engine*, and many of his best qualities shine throughout *Neuromancer* but the end result was just odd to me. I didn’t care for any of the characters and every moment seemed as confusing as the last. I did enjoy the prose, which I know sounds contradictory, but I’m a sucker for learning new words and stories which take place in surreal environments. Still, I didn’t really comprehend a whole lot of it.
It seems like a pretty hot book right now, and has had some resurgence the last few years, which is so strange to me because I’m a total sci-fi junkie and I assume a more casual reader would only have the same feelings as mine but amplified. I know at least some people feel this way, I was the only one in my company book club who didn’t DNF it.
Anyway, I was wondering what you all thought about it and what the main draw was.
by corycrater
7 Comments
I was also kinda disappointed by Neuromancer. A lot of new ideas, maybe? I’m no scifi historian but that seems the most plausible reason for the book’s fame.
You have to read it twice. It’s actually a pretty by the numbers heist story.
There used to be a very strong “cool factor” – but that kind of thing has an expiration date. Now there’s probably a fair bit of nostalgia about it…
This is funny because I’ve seen neuromancer become popular more than once throughout my life. The draw is how fucking odd it is. How odd it was, rather. Also some other things but maybe if I had read it when I was older, I would not have loved it so. Anything involving AI is undergoing a resurge in popularity. I could make arguments about it, but, if you don’t like it, you don’t like it. Art is subjective. I will say that count zero is an often unknown sequel which Gibson swore he’d never write. You’ll probably hate that too. Great book. 🙂
I also thought it was a little difficult to read, but not necessarily *that* bad. I finished the whole trilogy and generally really enjoyed it.
Definitely benefits from multiple readings, though I know some may think that is a negative.
As a fan of cyberpunk before reading this book, I can easily see how you can get discouraged from finishing it. The only reason some of it made sense to me was because I was already a fan of the genre via Ghost in the Shell (anime) and Johnny Mnemonic (which is based on a William Gibson short story and features a prominent character who is in Neuromancer).
A lot relies on suspension of belief for certain things (like most sci-fi) while also riding the wave of what was going on. Other than Philip K. Dick’s work and some of Issac Asmov’s, this book was one of the pillars of the cyberpunk genre. It’s fast paced and doesn’t really give you much exposition to explain the world. Only reason I was able to follow along was because I saw Johnny Mnemonic with Keanu Reeves that helped envision what that future would look like.
If ever interested in finishing it, try exposing yourself to other media based on cyberpunk like Johnny Mnemonic and Ghost in the Shell (original anime, not the live action). If still not interested, then it just isn’t your cup of tea and no one can blame you for that 🙂
Gibson has always come off a little cold as an author, at least to me. I say that, also acknowledging that he’s one of my favorite authors. His stories are fine. His characters are kinda mid. Okay, Connor Penske is VERY not mid, and maybe one of his best characters ever, but I digress.
Where he excels is world building, and I often crave his writing just so I can mentally live in the space he is describing. And its been more than once I actually have lived in the spaces he has described, and I want his version anyway.