Neuromancer

📖 Leo reviewed Neuromante by William Gibson

Debe leerse con gran disposición

3 stars

Uno de los libros que me ha resultado más difícil de comentar/calificar... Por un lado, me parece admirable la forma en que Gibson se adelanta a su tiempo de maneras que muy pocos se atrevieron y muchos menos consiguieron convertir casi en "profecías". Por otro lado, la narrativa es difícil de seguir... No por compleja, quizás es un asunto de gusto personal o del momento de mi vida en que lo leí, pero me costó conectar emocionalmente con los personajes. Me lo apunto como un libro al que le debo una segunda lectura, con una disposición diferente de mi parte.

Ashwin reviewed Neuromancer by William Gibson

Review of 'Neuromancer' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

(Crossposted from my blog: daariga.wordpress.com/2015/11/28/neuromancer/)

Concepts and visuals from movies such as Ghost in the Shell, Inception, Dark City and The Thirteenth Floor kept swirling in my mind as I turned the pages of Neuromancer. Anyone who reads this 1984 sci-fi novel by William Gibson will have no doubt that these movies have borrowed heavily from its ingenious inventions and plot.

The futuristic story begins in a Japan that is right out of The Blade Runner. (This movie was released two years before the novel). The protagonist is Case, a former cyberspace hacker who is living out his last days among the dregs of the underworld. Cyberspace here refers to the interconnected worldwide network which a user can navigate by donning a headset and melding their consciousness into an online virtual reality avatar. Hackers can also share the consciousness of another cyberspace user, if allowed. Things start looking …

(Crossposted from my blog: daariga.wordpress.com/2015/11/28/neuromancer/)

Concepts and visuals from movies such as Ghost in the Shell, Inception, Dark City and The Thirteenth Floor kept swirling in my mind as I turned the pages of Neuromancer. Anyone who reads this 1984 sci-fi novel by William Gibson will have no doubt that these movies have borrowed heavily from its ingenious inventions and plot.

The futuristic story begins in a Japan that is right out of The Blade Runner. (This movie was released two years before the novel). The protagonist is Case, a former cyberspace hacker who is living out his last days among the dregs of the underworld. Cyberspace here refers to the interconnected worldwide network which a user can navigate by donning a headset and melding their consciousness into an online virtual reality avatar. Hackers can also share the consciousness of another cyberspace user, if allowed. Things start looking up for Case when a mysterious benefactor named Armitage and his female bodyguard Molly help regain his old powers in exchange for his hacking services. As Case starts to finish his assigned nefarious tasks one by one he realizes that he and his team are being guided and controlled by an enormously powerful artificial intelligence (AI) named Wintermute. He must figure out who Wintermute is fighting and why.

This slim novel comes loaded with acclaim. It is said to be the cyberpunk novel and is credited with introducing the word cyberspace. In my opinion, the entire plot and visuals of The Matrix movies have been literally lifted from this book. Even in 2015, the ideas and the vision in this work stand tall! However, I felt that the storytelling itself was quite weak.

I loved the first part which introduces its sleazy dystopian world. The hacking adventure that follows is lackluster. The problem is not the plot, which is incredibly beautiful, as I discovered on reading it on Wikipedia after I finished the book. The vision in Gibson’s mind just does not materialize through his muddled descriptions and conversations. Neuromancer is a short and quick read, filled with an imagination that is epic and a writing that is not.