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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

#241

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#242

Post by silenced_trope »

daremon wrote: post #107

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 h…

Nice!

Did you read the rest of the Sprawl Trilogy too? What do you think of the other books?

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#243

Post by silenced_trope »

angry_octet wrote: post #124

My favourite lesser known post-Neuromancer works: George Alec Effinger "When Gravity Fails" (1987) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Gravity_Fails Walter John Williams "Aristoi" (1992) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristoi_(novel) And just pre-Gibson: Michael Berlyn "The Integrated Man" (1980) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2144056.The_Integrated_M... Bruce Sterling "The Artificial Kid" (1980) This is not a hac…

nice, anyone who provides links with their recs is top-notch!

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#244

Post by chrisweekly »

ilamont wrote: post #139
daremon wrote: post #107

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 h…

Wow. What a great story. An in translation, no less. The Greek translator must have been very talented. (Kind of curious now ... were the other translated editions in non-English languages as powerful? Do readers of science fiction in other languages seek out works by specific translators or publishers known to have great translations?)

"translated by GPT"

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#246

Post by the__alchemist »

roughly wrote: post #197
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…

Gibson is such a unique sci-fi author because his fundamental interest is fashion (he’s said this himself) - his worlds are beautiful, but completely skin deep, and he’s a master of using one word or phrase to evoke an entire world or backstory, but you scratch at what he’s written and it’s all vibes. Bruce Sterling is similar, although maybe less of a fashion native - they’re both looking at people and at trends and…

A more charitable description highlights that Gibson is more literary than the authors you're comparing to. He has an artistic flourish to his wording, and he's very good at it. This isn't to detract from your main point.

It's interesting to think about that in Stephenson novels (I don't wish to draw too deep a comparison, but many make it between Snow Crash and Neuromancer), it is interesting to note how deep Stephenson dives to build his themes. In some places it's a subtle framework, in other places it's... very noticeable, as you allude to!

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#247

Post by grujicd »

chrisweekly wrote: post #244
ilamont wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. What a great story. An in translation, no less. The Greek translator must have been very talented. (Kind of curious now ... were the other translated editions in non-English languages as powerful? Do readers of science fiction in other languages seek out works by specific translators or publishers known to have great translations?)

"translated by GPT"

I believe parent was talking about translated book, not about the comment.

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#249

Post by leoc »

EdwardCoffin wrote: post #223
leoc wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cyberspace in Neuromancer is certainly not not psychedelic, but it’s also clearly to a large extent based on Tron .

To the best of my knowledge Gibson has never talked about Tron being an influence. He'd already described cyberspace in his short story Burning Chrome before Tron came out. He has sometimes talked about Blade Runner and worrying when it came out that people would think his stuff was derivative of it (it wasn't), and then said he eventually got to talk with Ridley Scott about it, and it turns out both of them had simi…

You're right; also, apparently, Gibson said he hadn't seen Tron as late as March 1983, and he finished a draft of Neuromancer before that August https://www.bookbrunch.co.uk/page/free-article/neuromancer-t... . (Though this also confirms that he had seen Tron stills in mid-1982, though that's still well after both "Burning Chrome" and the Jacked In outline (both 1981)). OTOH the similarities to Blade Runner have never really been hard to explain: if you cross film noir and hard-boiled with New Hollywood and '70s malaise fiction then it's natural to end up with something a bit like Blade Runner and so also Neuromancer, while on the other hand there are of course huge differences between the two as well.

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#250

Post by Groxx »

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.

Far too late to edit now, but I got a laugh out of the autocorrect "pheasant" at least
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