Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

Post by magicalhippo » Sun, Jul 13, 2025, 3:47 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #60

cherryteastain wrote: post #53

> I found that Gibson’s prose felt almost identical to the placeholder Lorem Gibson text I had used—so dense with jargon and terminology that my mind kept slipping off the sentences. This is why, despite being great conceptually and story-wise, ultimately I did not like Neuromancer. Plenty of other novels have tons of in universe jargon but don't feel as exhausting to read as Neuromancer. For instance, Tolkien invent…

I read it in the 90s and found the opposite experience: it's evocative. It doesn't describe things, instead it gives hints and lets your imagination build its own answers.

Post by KineticLensman » Sun, Jul 13, 2025, 3:48 PM UTC

saturneria wrote: post #70

keiferski wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cyberpunk was essentially a sub-type of counterculture, and counterculture itself has pretty much been dead for a couple decades now. When the hackers are primarily interested in VC funds, the cryptocurrency ethos overtaken by the finance industry, and the goal of every artist to “make it” as a creator, there’s basically no room for culture that explicitly wants to operate outside the system. You could probably tie t…

In the 70s/80s, the jobs that were available to you were basically what your family member could "get you in". I am of that age and I remember General Motors was a great place to work at that time. My friend "got in" after high school because his father was a union boss. For me, "getting in" to General Motors was literally impossible because I had no connections. I was into 90s cyberpunk and the problem was the ideas…

Post by blogabegonija » Sun, Jul 13, 2025, 3:50 PM UTC

navane wrote: post #47

amarcheschi wrote: post #2

If you're interested in reading about cyberpunk and why today it feels "dated" - or at least to me, how it didn't manage to reinvent itself and remains crystallized in time -, there's a wonderful article here: https://forums.insertcredit.com/t/what-was-cyberpunk-in-memo... Be advised it's quite long

It's because punk died, which is half of cyberpunk. All the cyber is corporate now. We live in cyber corp. We live in the part that Gibson found, rightfully, totally uninteresting to write about.

Post by roughly » Sun, Jul 13, 2025, 3:55 PM UTC

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…

Post by kmeisthax » Sun, Jul 13, 2025, 3:56 PM UTC

makeitdouble wrote: post #81

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…

> Japan never really did counter-culture as mainstream as the US does. I would put Akira in that bucket, but I see your point. The way counter-culture is brought into mainstream is a lot more strategic in Japan, and the reader is expecting to do more deciphering work than in Blade Runner for instance. E.g. Final Fantasy is overtly about fighting a Zaibatsu like corporate overlord that's depleting the vital resources…