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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

#171

Post by johngossman »

Groxx wrote: post #114
uaas wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are ignoring the part about being a linguist, though. Spending 10 years writing a book is also not quite rare.

tbh I don't think "researches language structure" has much at all of a correlation with "uses language in a pheasant manner". it happens to with Tolkein. but it's kinda like claiming a compiler optimization specialist is a good video game developer simply because games use compilers.

I've been comparing Iliad translations. Some of best classicists, who best understand Greek and the original text, are lousy poets.

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#172

Post by messe »

NetRunnerSu wrote: post #119
messe wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

I prefer to call it, the sociology unit test. https://github.com/dmf-archive/IPWT https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15676304 https://github.com/dmf-archive/Tiny-ONN Let's make sci-fi into reality.

Ah. Now the crank alarm is ringing.

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#173

Post by KineticLensman »

dfxm12 wrote: post #136
macleginn wrote: post #50

One thing that I found remarkable about Gibson is how a-technical he was at the time: "When I wrote Neuromancer, I didn't know that computers had disc drives. Until last Christmas, I'd never had a computer; I couldn't afford one. When people started talking about them, I'd go to sleep. Then I went out and bought an Apple II on sale, took it home, set it up, and it started making this horrible sound like a farting toa…

My ignorance had allowed me to romanticize it Clearly, this helps make works of sci Fi/speculative fiction/cyberpunk and related genres relevant far into the future. If you try to extrapolate current tech 50 years into the future, you'll probably get it wrong and people reading your books during the time it's set in will think it quaint. When you have to invent new future tech, it still feels mysterious and interesti…

> If you try to extrapolate current tech 50 years into the future, you'll probably get it wrong and people reading your books during the time it's set in will think it quaint.

I'm now rereading old SF that I first read 40-to-50 years ago. I don't think I've found a single example where an SF author actually got tech right.

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#174

Post by nebalee »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #157

> But even by 1984, dead channels were a thing of the past: 24-hour news had been around since 1980 My neighborhood didn't get wired for cable until 1988 and my family never had it until 1997. We had four stations and then a fifth when Fox started. It was pretty normal for people to experience dead channels if you didn't live in a city where CATV had been deployed. Even then you could tune to unused channels when the…

And game consoles, home computers or VCRs provided ample opportunities to experience this during setup when using the RF connector. Also, the successful 1982 Poltergeist movie had some very prominent scenes involving TV static.

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#175

Post by johngossman »

throwaway328 wrote: post #167

I recently stumbled upon Michael Moorcock, by explicitly looking for fantasy authors with "anarchist" (in the original, European sense, not the crypto-bro sense) tendencies. Read an essay, watched a few interviews, will be reading a few books, basically I'm all the better for it. Seems very interesting. I might as well ask here - are there equivalents for sci-fi and/or for cyberpunk? I get that there's a pervading se…

Alan Moore identifies as an anarchist (and is friends with Moorcock iirc). Warren Ellis also comes to mind. Yes, both work primarily in comics, but of the highest order.

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#176

Post by jerf »

jfengel wrote: post #140
macleginn wrote: post #50

One thing that I found remarkable about Gibson is how a-technical he was at the time: "When I wrote Neuromancer, I didn't know that computers had disc drives. Until last Christmas, I'd never had a computer; I couldn't afford one. When people started talking about them, I'd go to sleep. Then I went out and bought an Apple II on sale, took it home, set it up, and it started making this horrible sound like a farting toa…

I find that very believable, since Neuromancer isn't at all about computers. The computers involved are little different from what you might have seen on Star Trek. They are story engines -- except for the ones that are really just people. This is not a negative. Sci fi is always about people.

I enjoyed the world of Tron a lot more when I understood that it was more about how people saw computers at the time than how they actually were, too. The result was something arguably more unique than a "realistic" view would have been, too.

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#177

Post by KineticLensman »

pieds wrote: post #104
Findecanor wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 mu…

> The UK had an influence in punk music. But it was also banned by the BBC

Punk music was not in fact banned by the BBC. They sometimes refused to play the more outrageous tracks that had charted but a massive number got through. The songs weren't somehow eliminated from the charts.

> bands were at times left to tour elsewhere

You could have gone to any Uni town/city in the UK and there would have been punk bands playing in pubs and clubs. The table stakes were extremely low.

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#178

Post by archermarks »

throwaway328 wrote: post #167

I recently stumbled upon Michael Moorcock, by explicitly looking for fantasy authors with "anarchist" (in the original, European sense, not the crypto-bro sense) tendencies. Read an essay, watched a few interviews, will be reading a few books, basically I'm all the better for it. Seems very interesting. I might as well ask here - are there equivalents for sci-fi and/or for cyberpunk? I get that there's a pervading se…

Ursula K Leguin, 100%. The Dispossessed is about an anarchist society. Might also check out Kim Stanley Robinson and Kameron Hurley.

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#180

Post by xyzsparetimexyz »

I'm a big fan of the aspects of the Sprawl world that weren't personally copied as much - the fuller domes over NYC and (this is surprisingly prominent in the book and a significant plot point) all the personal hologram tech.

It's personally very boring to read about how the book and technology is dated blah blah. The vibes still feel incredibly fresh to me and that's much more important. A lot of modern books (especially written during covid) won't nearly hold up as well

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