11–20 of 87 posts
Also he was obviously not really into IT (at least when he wrote the book), which added to the negative perception even more, and left me with very mixed feelings afterwards.
Neuromancer, William Gibson’s first novel, was published in 1984. It helped to establish the cyberpunk genre of science fiction: a dark future where computing, communication, and artificial intelligence technologies were dominant, complemented by significant medical advances, large inhabited satellites in Earth orbit, and considerable drug use. I recently re-read it and was struck by how things have turned out differ…
Cyberpunk dates at least a decade before Neuromancer -- Brunner's Shockwave Rider form 1974 comes to mind (and is a pretty interesting and strangely timely read, given that it is almost 50 years old).
To me, Ted Nelson's Zigzag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZigZag_(software) - is a similiar view to Neuromancer's virtual reality. It's a shame it's not more popular. Gzz is an excellent version of it.
I find it interesting how frequently “just ok” software is picked up and reaches a critical mass just because it is open. There are many good software projects that won’t grow because of licensing because they are more useful with network effects.
I have lots of colleagues who use R for data analysis. It wasn’t that great in the beginning but was widely used because of openness. 5 years ago, SAS and IBM would describe how superior they were, but it kind of missed the point.
For most of my software uses, I just need good enough.
Is it just me?
Gibson's language is so heavy, it was almost physically hard to read the book as a non-native speaker. Also he was obviously not really into IT (at least when he wrote the book), which added to the negative perception even more, and left me with very mixed feelings afterwards.
I just finished the audiobook of Neuromancer a week ago, and I didn't really enjoy it. I'm not sure if I would have enjoyed it more if I'd read it. I love other what I think of as similar books like Snowcrash and Diamond Age. I had high hopes for Neuromancer, which maybe that was part of it, but I just didn't enjoy it. It kind of turned into a slog and I nearly gave up at around 90%, but just pushed through because I…
It was fascinating to realize just how much of our culture is indebted to Neuromancer. So many games and movies use scenes or characters taken wholesale from the pages.
Now if only somebody would do a TV adaptation of the original!
(As an aside: after finishing the book, I really enjoyed this artist's take on the characters. It was uncannily close to what I was already picturing in my head: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Qo4Z8)
Neuromancer, William Gibson’s first novel, was published in 1984. It helped to establish the cyberpunk genre of science fiction: a dark future where computing, communication, and artificial intelligence technologies were dominant, complemented by significant medical advances, large inhabited satellites in Earth orbit, and considerable drug use. I recently re-read it and was struck by how things have turned out differ…
> Neuromancer, William Gibson’s first novel, was published in 1984. It helped to establish the cyberpunk genre of science fiction Cyberpunk dates at least a decade before Neuromancer -- Brunner's Shockwave Rider form 1974 comes to mind (and is a pretty interesting and strangely timely read, given that it is almost 50 years old).
Cyberpunk wasn't coined as a term until right around the same time as Neuromancer came out and Neuromancer swept the big sci-fi awards, making it a fair thing to say that it 'helped to establish'.
I just finished the audiobook of Neuromancer a week ago, and I didn't really enjoy it. I'm not sure if I would have enjoyed it more if I'd read it. I love other what I think of as similar books like Snowcrash and Diamond Age. I had high hopes for Neuromancer, which maybe that was part of it, but I just didn't enjoy it. It kind of turned into a slog and I nearly gave up at around 90%, but just pushed through because I…
Gibson's language is so heavy, it was almost physically hard to read the book as a non-native speaker. Also he was obviously not really into IT (at least when he wrote the book), which added to the negative perception even more, and left me with very mixed feelings afterwards.
The book was released in 1984. Could it be that his descriptions of tech were just true to the times? I imagine his stylistic embellishments were also important in the same way older movies about technology (e.g. Hackers[0]) stylize digital events. [0]: https://youtu.be/Bmz67ErIRa4?t=69