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The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

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Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#111

Post by jrochkind1 »

mherdeg wrote: post #80
the_af wrote: post #17

One thing I read somewhere -- and it might have been an interview with Gibson or with someone else talking about his work -- is how much William Gibson despises derivatives of cyberpunk in the books, videogames and movies that followed. Specifically, he dislikes the focus on the aesthetic, neon lights, mirror shades, etc. I think Gibson really dislikes Cyberpunk 2077, for example. Gibson argued they are missing the p…

I liked Paolo Bagciaglupi's "The Calorie Man" (which I read in "Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology") as an example of this kind of "if we project today's state of affairs 30 years into the future, what is the dystopia it produces?" line of reasoning. The story is about megacorporations greedily controlling the supply of food via patents on GMO crops in a post-peak-oil society. There's no artificial general intelli…

I really recommend Bagciaglupi's "The Wind-Up Girl", which is kind of the novel expanded from The Calorie Man. It is dismal.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#112

Post by pmoriarty »

sneak wrote: post #108
mmaunder wrote: post #68

I’m constantly amazed at how Metaverse aficionados quote Snow Crash and and other 1990s works as cornerstones of cyberspace, when Gibson invented the term and Neuromancer was written in 1984. Gibson is the original. The passage where Case connects to the matrix (also a Gibson term) again for the first time once his nervous system is repaired is heartbreakingly beautiful. I relate to it as a young phone phreak growing…

To be honest, the descriptions of the metaverse are the parts of Neuromancer that hold up least well. The dirtbags, crime, sex, and drugs are all still perfect, and I imagine will remain so.

"the descriptions of the metaverse are the parts of Neuromancer that hold up least well"

I'd be interested in reading descriptions of cyberspace that are better than Neuromancer's.

So far I haven't found any.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#113

Post by whoopdedo »

corysama wrote: post #57
Gravityloss wrote: post #2

I was sick at home and finally picked up the Neuromancer which had been sitting in the bookshelf for years. It was an experience indeed. At many points, very high concept (which of course has been copied to death). At other points, naive. Surprisingly few things felt old fashioned. The biggest let down was the unrealistic behavior and motivation of people. It felt very much like an adventure game where everything rev…

In the interview/documentary https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Maps_for_These_Territorie... Gibson is quite self-deprecating. He attributes several aspects of the book that people love to his inexperience as a writer. The main character is cold and vague because he didn’t know how to write a fleshed out character. People jack-in a lot because he was uncomfortable writing scene transitions. Something like “What do yo…

Reminds me of Gene Roddenberry needing to invent teleporters because the Enterprise couldn't land on a planet.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#114

Post by gpderetta »

throw1234651234 wrote: post #30
the__alchemist wrote: post #10

I finished reading Neuromancer a week ago. I'd played Cyberpunk 2077 recently, and Dystopia further back. So many of the concepts from those games appear to come directly from Neuromancer! I stumbled upon articles implying they were indirectly influenced; Neuromancer evidently created a whole genre! Btw, compared to hard scifi like Stephenson (relevant comparison due to Snow Crash), Neuromacer isn't really there; its…

Gibson pioneered the genre - you have to give him that. He is very much off on a lot of details though. For example, in his other books, his descriptions of mercenaries are comical at best for anyone who has a passing familiarity with the topic. Nonetheless, I place him up there with Stephenson. All this DESPITE the fact that Stephenson stands in a league of his own - he pioneered "post cyberpunk" with Diamond Age an…

Personally I think that Gibson is vastly superior to Stephenson.

As for recommendations about post-cyberpunk: our own cstross has written plenty of great books (Accelerando in primis); I've liked anything that Peter Watts as written so far (Blindsight is the most famous, but the rifters saga is also good and the Sunflower cycles is excellent). Alastair Reynolds writing is very uneven, but world building is excellent and so are many of his stories (even outside of the Revelation Space universe).

More generally, Egan (hard sci-fi), Banks (space opera) are some of my favorites. Vance, Wolfe for something more on the fantasy side.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#115

Post by discardedrefuse »

the_af wrote: post #17

One thing I read somewhere -- and it might have been an interview with Gibson or with someone else talking about his work -- is how much William Gibson despises derivatives of cyberpunk in the books, videogames and movies that followed. Specifically, he dislikes the focus on the aesthetic, neon lights, mirror shades, etc. I think Gibson really dislikes Cyberpunk 2077, for example. Gibson argued they are missing the p…

Neuromancer was a critique of the era that birthed it. Reagan might be gone, but the frameworks cemented into place back then are still the same frameworks we operate under today. Gibson may have unintentionally been predicting the future. As the world further aligns with the cyberpunk dystopia, the mainstreaming of cyberpunk aesthetic is inevitable.

I'm reminded of that line in The Matrix when Neo breaks The Oracle's vase, "What's really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything?"

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#116

Post by pmoriarty »

Apocryphon wrote: post #105

Has anyone read his Bridge trilogy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_trilogy > The trilogy derives its name from the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, which was abandoned in an earthquake and has become a massive shantytown and a site of improvised shelter. Seems sadly two heartbeats into the future for today’s Bay Area

Honestly, this sounds a bit like some of Philip K Dick's work, which was set in the Bay Area after a nuclear war... he wrote it about 50 years before Gibson, though I'm sure Gibson must add something original to the mix.

I once asked Gibson whether he was influenced by Philip K Dick, and he said that he didn't read Dick when he was young, and was more influenced by Pynchon instead. Still, despite his denial, he seems to be retreading a lot of ground first covered by Dick himself.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#117

Post by Jon_Lowtek »

brimble wrote: post #95
matthewdgreen wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think to focus on Neuromancer's use of Japanese culture is to stay at the surface level. The background of Neuromancer is one of income inequality, human destruction, and almost-absent government and community (partly caused by a ubiquitous global information network that seems to have broken everything.) We don't have brain-computer interfaces today and Chiba City isn't the center of the tech world (maybe that's S…

So many mega corps being Japanese is a product of anxiety about Japan at that time—maybe not even Gibson's anxiety, exactly, but if you were around then and projected which mega corps were gonna be prominent in your nearish-future setting, you'd really be swimming against the current if you didn't make a lot of them Japanese. Much of the rest of it, though, isn't about Japanese culture, corporate or otherwise, but se…

Name three japanese mega corporations with significance in the story of neuromancer

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#118

Post by NoraCodes »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #109
the_af wrote: post #17

One thing I read somewhere -- and it might have been an interview with Gibson or with someone else talking about his work -- is how much William Gibson despises derivatives of cyberpunk in the books, videogames and movies that followed. Specifically, he dislikes the focus on the aesthetic, neon lights, mirror shades, etc. I think Gibson really dislikes Cyberpunk 2077, for example. Gibson argued they are missing the p…

Curious if someone can find a URL for Gibson saying such things. I've never seen Gibson describing Neuromancer as a critique of Reagonomics or having any particular political agenda. Interested to see it if so! I don't think of Gibson having nearly as much "political" agenda or grounding as some other early "cyberpunk" writer's like Bruce Sterling or Rudy Rucker. (I don't think Gibson himself referred to his work "cy…

Have you read much of Gibson's other work? He's very clear about his attitude towards sci-fi as a way to examine the present day in many of his essays.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#119

Post by mindcrime »

Apocryphon wrote: post #105

Has anyone read his Bridge trilogy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_trilogy > The trilogy derives its name from the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, which was abandoned in an earthquake and has become a massive shantytown and a site of improvised shelter. Seems sadly two heartbeats into the future for today’s Bay Area

Funny you would ask: I just finished All Tomorrow's Parties about a week ago, as the end of a massive read/re-read of William Gibson. I started with Neuromancer and read the Sprawl Trilogy and the Bridge Trilogy back to back.

I'd read everything at least once before, except Idoru and All Tomorrow's Parties, so this was a chance to kinda do it all at the same time, finish the stuff I had not read, and kinda have all this William Gibson in my head at more or less the same time.

Having done all that, I'll add this; if you've only read Neuromancer, or even only read just the Sprawl Trilogy, definitely consider giving the Bridge Trilogy a shot. It's markedly different in many ways, but still very Gibsonesque and definitely worth reading. The big differences, IMO, are that the Bridge Trilogy books are less "futuristic" and have less focus on tech technology qua technology, and focus more on the people and their interactions and choices, etc.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#120

Post by stakkur »

The 80's were my 20s. It's hard to explain to younger folks how the 80s (especially early 80s) felt, culturally. The whole 'Japan, Inc.' thing was in full swing, and the general feeling was that Japan was eating the world. 'Tech' was this fresh, semi-mystical thing, still opaque to much of the public.

Gibson latched onto that cultural wave and took it into a possible future, and it was exciting to me. Today it's interesting to see that technofuture both commoditized and idolized.

Now in my 50s, it's still interesting but seems a bleak and not-terribly-human place that I don't want to live.

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