[Macworld]

Post your comments for Neuromancer turns 25: What it got right, what it got wrong here

[Jason Snell]

I just want to say that I love, love, love, love, this book.
However, there are plenty of anachronisms 25 years later. Like the ubiquity of pay phones in my all-time favorite scene in any book. And the fact that now, post-digital TV translation, I'm not sure the sky can ever be the color of television tuned to a dead channel ever again.

[Rhywun]

Weird, I read this book (recently!) and I barely remember any of the situations described in the article :(
Maybe there was just so much going on, and so confusingly, I could barely keep up.
Anyway, my favorite "cyberpunk" book is The Diamond Age. A bit less cyber, and a lot more neo-Victorian, than Neuromancer. I highly recommend it.

[Penzi]

William Gibson is a very smart and very clever man, who reads not only the spirit of the times but puts together seemingly disparate present technologies into fantastical future variants. And he does so with a penchant of humanism and warmth one might find disconcerting in 'books about technology', but that would only come about if one were able to pierce the veil of the 'suspension of disbelief' he deftly spins.
Marvelous!
I look forward to reading his work in future, as I have to this day.

[NaOH]

This reminds me of an intriguing bit of trivia that I read about William Gibson around the time when Neuromancer was first released.
Apparently Gibson had very little knowledge of technology and computers.
Despite, or possibly because of this, his vision has proved to be stunningly plausible.

[Rhywun]

I just finished Gibson's latest book (Spook Country) a couple days ago. It's interesting but his previous book Pattern Recognition was better. They both take place in the same present-day "universe".

[TheFLP]

Quote

Neuromancer also gave rise to a whole new genre in literature: cyberpunk.

I don't know if you can give it all of the credit for cyberpunk ? as Gibson mentioned several years ago on his blog, Bladerunner came out while he was still writing the book, and he thought he was sunk.

Quote

{quote:title=William Gibson:}{quote}
Everyone would assume I?d copped my visual texture from this astonishingly fine-looking film. But that didn?t happen. Mainly I think because BLADERUNNER seriously bombed in theatrical release, and films didn?t pop right back out on DVD in those days.

williamgibsonbooks.com

But it may have had the most early influence.

[Jason Snell]

Praise for "Pattern Recognition" seconded. That's a great book.

[keylimer]

Great article.

And you know he wrote the book on a typewriter. For me he foresaw the whole hacking underground, viruses Vs.firwealls, the whole days people spend online - so much stuff - but you can't give him credit for inventing cyberpunk.

I think he's said the first cyberpunk book was written in the 50's - Alfred Bester's; 'The Stars My destination.' ('Tiger, Tiger.' in UK)'

I like the fact that Gibson can write about the same stuff and the world has caught up so much that his books are no longer sci-fi.

[snwCr5h]

fyi, the Ace Edition shown in this article actually [preceded] the publication of the 1st Edition of the hardcover Edition. This was confirmed by William Gibson himself at a book signing in the 80's in Redmond, Washington. He said he himself did not have a copy of the original Ace Edition as of that book signing.

[snwCr5h]

[CORRECTION] re: fyi, the Ace Edition shown in this article


The Ace Edition which appears in Neuromancer's Wiki page http://en.wikipedia....iki/Neuromancer

[Torley]

Second Life doesn't just seek to replicate the real world — there are a variety of locations that are intended to be very realistic, alongside far more surreal and imaginary realms.
Since Second Life's content is user-created, it's up to each person to decide what they want to create. As a result, just like the World Wide Web, there's a diversity of passions to indulge in.
I respect Neuromancer but I found the book a boring read compared to Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age and Snow Crash — I found the latters more "wet" and fun.

[People_Eater]

While this is a nice little overview, you lose points for this:
> But whereas in The Matrix technology functions primarily as a means of control, in Neuromancer its role is more complicated: At times technology is benevolent, and at other times it's malevolent. Many of the inhabitants of Neuromancer's near-future world see technology as a liberating force, a way to escape from the ravages of pollution, disease, and war.
[/quote]
See, you should have referenced Red Dwarf instead, which was written many years before The Matrix and does have a similar complexity to the Neuromancer model. Also, Red Dwarf includes the concept of gaming in virtual reality, which I think has been borne out by the way things are heading.
Plus, it's just much better than The Matrix and thankfully lacks Keanu Reeve.