Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

sabukaru.online

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 404 posts

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#341

Post by Nursie »

Tr3nton wrote: post #340
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…

I couldn't even finish Snow Crash. The fact the protagonist's name was "Hiro Protagonist" is a good example of the intellectual tone of the novel. Every character reminded me of Poochy from The Simpsons, an over-written "edgy" anti-hero, as compelling as an episode of Saved By The Bell. Neuromancer on the other hand I still think about, and I haven't read it in a decade.

I enjoyed it, but it must be read with that in mind - every character is a caricature, and the dystopia they live in is that way too.

If you don't take it as being serious in any way (other than in its satire of cyberpunk and its lambasting of a corporate-owned American future), I find it quite enjoyable.

But it is a satire. I hope :)

(Market Forces by Richard Morgan is another book I very much enjoyed, which is also very much this way)

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#342

Post by Nursie »

pmoriarty wrote: post #171
at_a_remove wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gibson has a cameo in Wild Palms . PAIGE: This is William Gibson, Harry. HARRY: Oh, yeah... Neuromancer , right? PAIGE: He invented the word "cyberspace." GIBSON: And they'll never let me forget it.

Wow. Wild Palms .... I don't hear that one mentioned often (or ever). Glad to hear I'm not the only one who's seen this weird, obscure, flawed gem of a series.

It was very weird, from what I remember. I managed to track down a DVD copy a few years ago, but never got around to rewatching.

Drugs that make you see Cathedrals, a cult and politics intertwined... and a rhinocerous. LOL.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#344

Post by sien »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #318
RangerScience wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strongly recommend the Laundry files. Note that they start rougher (hewing very close to the original concept of "grumpy sysadmin in weird circumenstances") but quickly mature into more.

Pretty sure Mr. Stross is a regular around here. I personally couldn't warm up too much to his Laundry or Merchant Princes books, but Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise are excellent, and Accelrando was also fun.

Yep, he is :

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cstross

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#345

Post by dvngnt_ »

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…

2077 is rebellion though. he never even played the game

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#346

Post by pmoriarty »

barry-cotter wrote: post #338
pmoriarty wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found Snow Crash to be really childish, and not even in the same league as Neuromancer . I read Neuromancer originally in 1984 and again a few years ago, and for me it still holds up. It's not the greatest book or anything, and I found Count Zero to be much better, but apart from those two books I've yet to read anything else cyberpunkish that comes even remotely close. Before someone mentions Greg Egan or Vernor V…

Dry and boring I can imagine people calling Egan or Vinge but unimaginative? They both throw off ideas like confetti.

Here's an example I remember from some Vinge novel ("A Fire Upon the Deep" maybe) I read decades ago: some ancient species/entities were supposed to have transcended a long time ago. What did that transcendence consist of? Where did they go? What's their life like after transcendence? Vinge gives the reader nothing. I call that a failure of the imagination.

Yes, I get that the post-singularity world is supposed to unpredictable/unimaginable in principle... but it's the author's job to imagine it anyway, else why am I even bothering to read his books on the singularity? If he doesn't/can't imagine it, I judge it a failure and a disappointment.

I don't remember details about Egan's work, except that nothing in it seemed particularly interesting and nothing wowed me... hence I really can't remember much about it except the premises of some of his novels, like Permutation City.

This is contrary to works by authors like Gibson, Herbert, and Dick, for instance, which I'll never forget. They're just leagues ahead of lesser authors like Vinge and Egan.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#347

Post by flir »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #257
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…

Neuromancer isn't really my kind of scifi but Gibson's descriptions are so good and poetic I get the urge to re-read select chapters at least a few times every year.

The biological machine gun. Not gonna forget that one in a hurry.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#348

Post by LegionMammal978 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #112
sneak wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One depiction of cyberspace that's stuck with me is that of the datumplane in Dan Simmons' Hyperion (Chapter 5). It's only a few pages' worth of content, but it's by far the closest description conceptually to Gibson's cyberspace. Notably, the datumplane is envisioned as a highly organic realm at all scales, not restricted to cyberspace's cubes and hard edges. Both contain structures corresponding to the large-scale organization of their societies' data and programs.

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#349

Post by jdkee »

discardedrefuse wrote: post #115
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'…

See Adam Curtis' excellent Hypernormalisation.

https://vimeo.com/191817381

Re: The Influence of Neuromancer on Cyberpunk

#350

Post by jdkee »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #210
pmoriarty wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds very hand-wavy, and I wish Gibson was more explicit in drawing the connections. Slums and the dominance of megacorps and the ultra-rich I understand, but what do cyberspace and AI's (two of Neuromancer 's more original and iconic themes) have to do with Reagan? Nothing, from what I can tell.

Based on other stuff I've read him say, I feel like he might actually indeed be implying that things like slums and the dominance of megacorps and the ultra-rich are to him more central/significant themes/aspects of Neuromancer than AI's or cyberspace! Or at least that they are more central/significant than people focused only on the cyberspace thing recognize. Gibson had of course famously never used the internet wh…

In the year of Neuromancer's publication, 1984, very few people on earth had used the internet.

See https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1988/demo/p23-15...

Post reply on HN