Live data from Hacker News

Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

mbh4h.substack.com

61–70 of 427 posts

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#61
Man, I loved Neuromancer when I read it as a kid. Yes, it's a tough book to read, especially today where there are too many distractions as well as too many works of art built on the sci-fi ideas of that era.

Neuromancer is the first installment of the Sprawl trilogy, followed by Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive.

So trying not to spoil too much: Count Zero asks questions about / describes how AI could have influence over religious/spiritual life of humans.

Will we see AI preachers having a real influence on human religious life? ChatGPT the prophet? Maybe this is the real danger of today's nascent AI tech?

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#62

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…

Counterculture moved underground. Cyberpunk as a sub-type: well, science fiction was for decades bound to get there, eventually. The Stainless Steel Rat would like to have a word about it…

where though?

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#64

> 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…

Comparing anyone to Tolkien is massively unfair. Tolkien was a seasoned linguist and he worked on LotR for about a decade. It is going to be extremely hard to match these expectations for other authors.

You're suggesting their arent any other authors who have taken over a decade to write a book? Prousts' In Search of Lost Time took 13 for example.

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#65

Overall an interesting read. To go straight to the nitpicks: > The Matrix Trilogy, Ghost in the Shell, [...]. Except Gibson did it first. Ghost in the Shell started publication around 1989, but it's author was writing cyberpunk in 1985 (Appleseed), with already many of the themes approached in it. 1985 is a tad later than Gibson's Neuromamcer, but given the timeline to start a series with the level of details Masamun…

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 counterculture. It is in the name. Gibson moved to Canada to avoid getting drafted into the Vietnam war. Japan never really did counter-culture as mainstream as the US does. Considering the overlap between cyberpunk and anime, I would actually say that Japan is sometime given too much credit by being treated as the superior original with deeper meaning. When it is Western media that have explored more advanced and diverse interpretations.

A similar thing happened with Battle Royale. A niche movie. The same concept became a cultural phenomenon with The Hunger Games, and later Maze Runner and Divergent series. And then video games. Now made from the outspoken perspective of the teenagers.

So you should absolutely credit the US counterculture and environment for a large part of cyberpunk and dystopian, but also more utopian science fiction. I don't even like Hollywood much, but it still has a far wider catalog than anyone else. Who else could make Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare or even Star Trek: Voyager? Disney made Andor by the way.

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#67

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

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…

It was already a libertarian/neoliberal fantasy - one where everything is corrupt, everyone is competing with everyone else, and the point of the game is to grab as much as you can for yourself while selling your services to the highest bidder.

There's nothing counter about it. It makes surviving in a white knuckle corporate techno-dystopia cool. It's a celebration, not a critique.

Compare with PKD or the much less well-known John Brunner in books like The Stone That Never Came Down and The Shockwave Rider - the latter being an obvious influence on Gibson.

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing anyone to Tolkien is massively unfair. Tolkien was a seasoned linguist and he worked on LotR for about a decade. It is going to be extremely hard to match these expectations for other authors.

You're suggesting their arent any other authors who have taken over a decade to write a book? Prousts' In Search of Lost Time took 13 for example.

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

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#69
post #65

Overall an interesting read. To go straight to the nitpicks: > The Matrix Trilogy, Ghost in the Shell, [...]. Except Gibson did it first. Ghost in the Shell started publication around 1989, but it's author was writing cyberpunk in 1985 (Appleseed), with already many of the themes approached in it. 1985 is a tad later than Gibson's Neuromamcer, but given the timeline to start a series with the level of details Masamun…

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…

Ah..

Japanese media in general has poorer "production values", but they work very hard to draw (as accurately as possible) from global source, that's reflected in their mind boggling diversity. The less strange stuff get to inspire American versions.

It also seems that you have not asked any LLMs before posting this..

GTA "equivalent": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakuza_(franchise)

Re: Reading Neuromancer for the first time in 2025

#70

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

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 were basically all wrong about the internet. Or maybe we could have gone in another direction with the internet but didn't.

The main difference overall though is in the past life was incredibly boring. It was so boring people had to invent all these cultural activities to escape the disconnected, mind numbing boredom of existence.

Life today is just much more interesting regardless of finances so there isn't the motivation to hang out at goth bar once a week.

Post reply on HN