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Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

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Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#101

Post by mingus88 »

gcanyon wrote: post #94

It's a funny coincidence, I've never read Neuromancer, and talking with a friend of mine three days ago he said, "I thought we read Neuromancer at the same time and discussed it? You should really read it now!" I have to say, that quoted paragraph in the article is not enticing me. I'm tempted to just read the wikipedia article and maybe clarify a few things with ChatGPT and call it a day. If I'm going to work that h…

The prose is the art. In Blade Runner, the world is built with dense backdrops of an alien city, people walking around in strange clothes, etc. All that is imprinted on you without a single line of dialogue.

With Gibson, all that world building happens with prose. It reads like poetry sometimes where what is written implies a half dozen connections to things never mentioned directly. Unpacking what lies beneath the surface is the immersive bit of his fiction.

If you feel that’s a waste of time and you can get all you need from a Wikipedia plot summary then you’re missing the whole point of the work.

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#102

Post by KineticLensman »

isoprophlex wrote: post #40
throwpoaster wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another reading is that there is no more counterculture because it won and became the culture.

I get where you are coming from but in my mind, when mutating into the dominant culture it loses vital, essential characteristics. Counterculture, modified by the relentless shameless drive to "make it", and the acceptance of operating within existing systems, is no longer a counterculture. My point being a question; did counterculture truly win or was it subsumed and perverted?

"And that, I think, was the handle - that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark - that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back." - Hunter S Thompson

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#103

Post by nickthegreek »

gcanyon wrote: post #94

It's a funny coincidence, I've never read Neuromancer, and talking with a friend of mine three days ago he said, "I thought we read Neuromancer at the same time and discussed it? You should really read it now!" I have to say, that quoted paragraph in the article is not enticing me. I'm tempted to just read the wikipedia article and maybe clarify a few things with ChatGPT and call it a day. If I'm going to work that h…

i’m not a huge long form reader, but neuromancer was quick and terminology reused heavily. you will pick up the slang without too much difficulty. i wouldn’t let the sample paragraph color your view that heavily.

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#104

Post by pieds »

Findecanor wrote: post #78
pieds wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gibson was obviously very inspired by Japan. The Matrix was also in part directly inspired by Ghost in the Shell, even creating The Animatrix at the same time. But Ghost in the Shell and Blade Runner was told from the inside. It is about the authorities chasing down rouge elements. Neuromancer and The Matrix is from the perspective of the outsiders. Like someone else said in the comments here, cyberpunk is countercul…

> Grand Theft Auto, ... Andor Those were made in Britain by British creators.

The UK certainly have had its own counterculture. In some ways more than the US. That still doesn't take away from the franchises being published (and in parts made) by US companies with US culture in them.

The UK had an influence in punk music. But it was also banned by the BBC and bands were at times left to tour elsewhere. Japanese companies created most of the affordable electronic instruments. Yet, electronic music in jungle, drum and bass, UK garage and rave culture took off in the UK with influences from reggae, soul and R&B. Now with the help of BBC Radio 1. This style of music then made it into Japanese video games. With similar things happening in the US with jazz, hiphop and house music.

I'm sure it is possible to gotcha the argument. Hollywood has still created far more interpretations of science fiction in media than anyone else. If you really want to argue for British dystopian science fiction movies then Children of Men is an excellent example. But it is also almost the only one of note.

A country with major influence on science fiction that often goes uncredited probably isn't Japan but Canada.

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#105

Post by anton-c »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #92
anton-c wrote: post #91

Necromancer was cool. Never managed to get through the other cyberpunk classic Snowcrash though. Did I get the right book? Pizza delivery?

Just my opinion, but neither were .. revelatory for me. They were both just okay. I'm not really an avid reader though.

I mean idk when you read it, but like the author said I've seen this language be absorbed so I can't take it in as fresh innovative stuff. I was born after the novel came out so obviously was decades old when I read it.

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#106

Post by ecocentrik »

I'm not seeing anyone mention of Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis, released a decade after Neuromancer and Akira. It's a significant contribution to the cyberpunk canon told from the perspective of an investigative gonzo journalist exploring all the oddities of his world. Goodreads lists it as the 2nd best cyberpunk manga after Akira.

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#107

Post by daremon »

I had the opposite experience with Neuromancer. I read it too many times! Sorry for the long post (translated by GPT as it was originally in Greek).

In September 1993, I started my final year of high school in Greece, aiming to study Computer Science. A girl I barely knew heard I was into computers and handed me Neuromancer, the 1989 Greek edition. I still have it.

I already loved science fiction, though my reading had mostly been Asimov, Dick, and Clarke — robots and space, not so much computers. Neuromancer hit differently. I devoured it. Then I read it again. And again.

That whole year because of the enormous pressure of final exams (I can't explain how important they make you feel these exams are) I didn't touch any other book. I just kept re-reading Neuromancer. It became like a comfort food — familiar but exciting. I must have read it over 100 times.

At some point, I realized I had memorized it. Someone would open it randomly, read a sentence, and I could continue reciting from memory. A real-life Fahrenheit 451 moment.

To this day, I still re-read it every year or two, and it never loses its magic. And I can still describe what's happening on any given page although this has faded a lot.

P.S. I did go on to study Computer Science, and I still love programming.

P.P.S. I married the girl who gave me the book, we had kids but eventually we divorced 29 years later. Still friends.

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#108

Post by messe »

NetRunnerSu wrote: post #43
simpaticoder wrote: post #41

Glad I'm not the only one just getting around to reading Neuromancer in 2025! The shocking thing about the story is how very few screens there are in the world, and how ungrounded "cyberspace" is in physics. Cyberspace's mechanics are vague, and in fact are inconsistent with the other extent communication technologies. e.g. Case never seems to worry about getting a signal for his deck, and yet does worry about gettin…

You've perfectly articulated the central challenge that inspired my own work. The 'magical', ungrounded reality of early cyberpunk cyberspace is precisely the gap we're trying to bridge with formalized realism. Instead of telepathic magic, what if the 'deck' ran on a verifiable, computationally intensive process rooted in a concrete theory of consciousness? We've been archiving our attempt to build just that—the theo…

> You can find the project here: https://github.com/dmf-archive

It sounds like you're trying to build the Cyberpunk equivalent of the shared semi-hard-SF Orion's Arm universe / world building project?

- https://www.orionsarm.com/

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion's_Arm

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#109

Post by Rover222 »

simpaticoder wrote: post #41

Glad I'm not the only one just getting around to reading Neuromancer in 2025! The shocking thing about the story is how very few screens there are in the world, and how ungrounded "cyberspace" is in physics. Cyberspace's mechanics are vague, and in fact are inconsistent with the other extent communication technologies. e.g. Case never seems to worry about getting a signal for his deck, and yet does worry about gettin…

> It feels like the fabric of cyberspace must be ESP or telepathy

Maybe they're using the Ansible

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#110

Post by kenoath69 »

samsartor wrote: post #59
kenoath69 wrote: post #57

I want to recommend Vernor Vinge's books to anyone looking for some new sci-fi... I've read A Deepness in the Sky and A Fire upon the Deep. They were exemplary to the kind of logical structure of SciFi and made some relevant predictions which I won't spoil. The guy was a professor of computer science (RIP)

Deepness in the Sky is one of my favorite books of all time! Fire Upon the Deep is a serious let-down by comparison, but the wolves are a cool concept. As I've gotten older I've realized that I have very little in common with Vinge philosophically. But he was a person who thought very deeply, and it shows.

(ok mild spoilers ahead) Really why! I enjoyed them both and I read Deepness in the Sky first. It was a bit of a shock about FTL for me but I kind of granted narrative license so he could explore the range of consequences there, like with FTLness being distributed over a field of sorts. But yeah the dogs were dope, their packs, the interaction of the technological bootstrapping with them. Yadda yadda. I can't say I am familiar with his philosophy either
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