Neuromancer (Sprawl #1) in The Sword and Laser

Mar 14, 2008 Eric rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, cyber-punk

I had never read a cyber punk novel before Neuromancer, but I figured if I was going to read one, I should start with the one that started the genre. It didn't hurt that Neuromancer won the Nebula, Hugo and Philip K. Dick awards.

The story was interesting enough, but what really impressed me about Neuromancer was the language. First, the jargon and dialect really help to sell the premise and enhance the otherwise formulaic plot. Second, and more importantly, Gibson seemed to understand where the ...more

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Nov 10, 2008 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it really liked it

Shelves: sword-and-laser, sci-fi-fantasy, audiobook, ebooks, read2011, sff-audio, read2009, favorites

I appreciate this book for what it is, the book that defined cyberpunk and possibly even the World Wide Web, if you believe the essay at the end. I can't figure out why I didn't really like it. I did read it on the Kindle and haven't had that experience before, so I'm hoping my disconnection with it isn't entirely a format issue.

I was more often confused as to whether the places and feelings and people Case was interacting with were real or not, since he was having physical sensation in all the I appreciate this book for what it is, the book that defined cyberpunk and possibly even the World Wide Web, if you believe the essay at the end. I can't figure out why I didn't really like it. I did read it on the Kindle and haven't had that experience before, so I'm hoping my disconnection with it isn't entirely a format issue.

I was more often confused as to whether the places and feelings and people Case was interacting with were real or not, since he was having physical sensation in all the situations. He seemed most vibrant when talking about drugs or describing the techno-setting of the futuristic universe, and I did enjoy those parts, but I didn't care much about what was going on in the story itself.

ETA: When I re-read this in 2011, I read the print while simultaneously listening to the BBC radio show version. I think I understand cyberpunk more in general these days. I did still spend half the book not connecting with Case, but the actor playing him on the BBC recording brought his frustration and anger more to life for me. It does seem like that is the one emotion he is allowed access to, once the mood altering drugs can't effect him.

"He was no console man, no cyberspace cowboy. Just another hustler, trying to make it through."

"The body was meat. Case fell into the prison of his own flesh."

"All the meat, he thought, and all it wants."

"Summer in the Sprawl, the mall crowds swaying like windblown glass, a field of flesh shot through with sudden eddies of need and gratification."

"Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding...."

"Or else it seemed that it was changing subtly, cooking itself down under the pressure of time, silent invisible flakes settling to form a mulch, a crystalline essence of discarded technology, flowering secretly in the Sprawl's waste places."

"Case watched the sun rise on the landscape of childhood, on broken slag and the rustling shells of refineries."

"It was a place he'd known before; not everyone could take him there, and somehow he always managed to forget it. Something he'd found and lost so many times. It belonged, he knew - he remembered - as she pulled him down, to the meat, the flesh the cowboys mocked. It was a vast thing, beyond knowing, a sea of information coded in spiral and pheromone, infinite intricacy that only the body, in its strong blind way, could ever read."

ETA: This book was discussed on Episode 024 of the Reading Envy podast. ...more

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Oct 16, 2024 Dave rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, sf, crime, audiobook

40 years on and still a masterpiece.

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Jul 30, 2017 Amy rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I now see how the script for The Matrix was born.

I honestly found this a bit hard to follow. Not very interested in reading the subsequent books.

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Jun 15, 2010 Joanna rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, sci-fi

I could lie and say I liked it, but I really didn't. I mean, I really liked the beginning and got quickly hooked, it's super visual and the descriptions are fascinating, but then the story just jumped all over the place and it was hard to keep up. After they met up with the Zionists with no explanation the book just lost me completely and I had no inclination to keep going. I appreciate it's influence and yeah, it was totally ahead of its time. But plot-wise it sucked, I had to force myself to f ...more

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