https://store.gollancz.co.uk/products/neuromancer

Unfortunately doesn't ship to the US if fellow Americans were hoping to get one.

https://preview.redd.it/qh94ia7ee0xd1.jpg?width=2200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a64384386f46bc8eeddeb3ebbef07d5265e6990d

I finished the book for the first time recently and by far and away its greatest impact on me, is the inescapable realization that the Cyberpunk genre has been long-dead for all intents and purposes, or maybe it was never alive to begin with?

To think that so little has been done to advance Sci-Fi in general but especially Cyberpunk in particular, since Gibson wrote this book in a pre-Internet, largely pre-computing world and laid out all of the foundational concepts, language, imagery and prophecies of a future dystopia, is quite tragic.

Not only does his book rival most modern Cyberpunk-flavoured movies/TV shows/video games in raw imaginative energy and visceral sensory overload alone but it really does seem that the best Hollywood and most writers can do nowadays is to rehash 40-year old concepts with paycheque movies/TV shows that still don't come close to the magnitude of the vision that authors like Gibson had nearly half a century ago now, even with the benefit of modern technology and so many relevant real-world developments to draw inspiration from.

I went into the book with my modern-day grasp of Cyberpunk derived from The Matrix, Blade Runner 2049, Altered Carbon and numerous videogames, thinking it'd be something like going from Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight to 1960s-era Batman goofiness... instead, I feel as though Neuromancer basically takes a sledgehammer to most modern Cyberpunk works and exposes them as the cheap, derivative, brain-dead imitators that they are.

Was anyone else also thoroughly impressed and yet simultaneously disappointed after finishing this book?

As I contemplate finally writing that sci-fi (or "speculative fiction" as the genre is called now in the publishing industry) novel idea that's been jangling around in my head for a decade, I decided to see how long William Gibson took to write Neuromancer: I found this brief article by Gibson in the Guardian where he talks about his writing process (he basically learned to write a novel on the fly).

And while there's no timeline given, from what he says in the article we can surmise that it took over a year and a half, at least, if not longer.

According to Gibson, he signed a contract to deliver the manuscript within a year but it took him 18 months. But he got it done and its impact is now widely known.

Hey, hope this is the right place to ask questions about further books in the series.

At the end of chapter 6 (Barrytown) It's implied that Bobby's place gets bombed with his mom still inside, but I don't know if I understand correctly if that is really what had happened or not? He never mentions or asks about it after chapter 6. (I'm only on chapter 14 so far.)

But the end of chapter 6 implies that his block was bombed and that he knew it was meant for him. What is meant by this? I thought Two-a-day's guys went to check on him, but not to bomb his apartment surely? And does that mean his mother who was presumably there died in the bombing?

Kind of lost on this particular bit.

Thanks.

Very early on in the book Case and Molly visit The Finn and he checks case for toxin sacs and says there's nothing there, I thought that implied Armitage lied to Case to keep him under control, but now I'm nearing the end of the book, Armitage had just remembered he is Corto and presumably died ejecting himself out of the ship in chapter 16. Case was desperate to get information out of him about the toxin sacs, so are the toxin sacs real or not? I'm so confused.

Hi, i'm thinking of reading Neuromancer but am concerned that it might be a little dated at this point in time. Is this the case?

The United States could still exist, as a vague political entity. My take is that the Bigs (Big Government, Big Corporations, Big Media, Big Tech etc) have fused into some sort of collusive blob. No elected entity controls much of anything. Leadership of the blob shifts with boardroom politics and palace coups, while the bureaucracies and middle management do as they please, regardless of who's theoretically in charge.

Has anyone worked out the recent history in Neuromancer? When was "the war"? Was tgere more tgan one? When was the spindle constructed? When did Ashpool kill Marie-France ? It all seems too recent. The USA disolved thirty years ago? Bonn got nuked in the war? The same war?

Hey guys!

I read Neuromancer for a sci-fi seminar at university and was blown away because it's such a pioneer book!

I'm writing a term paper about it, more specifically the how the body becomes a commodity under late stage capitalism and how Case continuously tries to escape it. I think it's one of the most interesting themes within the book!

I don't have a definite thesis yet but would love to hear some of your thoughts abt the topic because no one else ik wnats to talk about it lmao

Much love

This applies to any genre, story or anything you can think of. You can make a custom character or say you want to use one from the book. Just a PSA.

I remember there being a slang word in the trilogy. It was a word for doing something stupid (online?) and getting killed.

It was named after the first known character that does this stupid thing.

I recently bought the Sprawl trilogy (plus Burning Chrome) from an eBay book seller with highly positive feedback. It was the set with the abstract architecture designs which seems to be the most common release currently. I was happy at first, but I keep noticing some odd details that make me wonder if they're bootlegs and wanted to know what other people think compared to their own copies. Firstly, while Neuromancer and Mona Lisa Overdrive seem to be quite sturdy like I would expect, Count Zero and Burning Chrome seem kinda floppy as if they're made from slightly thinner paper stock. Also the text on the floppier ones seem very slightly blurrier than the other two, which have nice crisp text. Secondly, I've seen these books IRL and they had metallic printing on the titles a top line of text on the cover. There's no metallic on these at all. Finally I realised that Mona Lisa Overdrive is very, very slightly shorter vertically than the others. I only noticed it when they were stacked on my shelf, it's maybe a mm or less out, but it's definitely different. Are these big problems? No. If that's just how they are I'll keep them. Not really into having bootlegs though as it doesn't support the author.

I’m not even sure I understand what the plot was. I read A LOT of sci fi and fantasy. This was unlike anything I’ve ever read. I’m not passing judgement. I’m just crazy confused. Mostly because the difference between digital characters and human characters / when they’re in the matrix vs not was confusion me. Some of the AI’s were human too? Armitage was AI? What about Rio? Three Jane?

Helpppppp

So the story ends very abruptly from when they finally patch into the system and get Wintermute to combine with Neuromancer to when Case is suddenly living alone and Molly dumped him like a hot price of trash.

It felt like the story was rushed, like the author got to the part of the story he wanted and just wanted to wrap everything up as quick as possible.

I haven’t read any of the other books in the Sprawl trilogy yet, so is there a reason why the story ends with almost no clarification whatsoever? Like is case going to come back and so the reason we don’t get to know much more about how things conclude is because it’s not yet decided for him or is it for some pretentious reason like oh “your story ends whenever you are no longer of service to a higher power” or something like that.

I just don’t really want to keep reading the other books if they are all gonna end so unsatisfactorily.

https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/neuromancer.html

Limited to 500 copies worldwide.

You know I've ordered mine.

After reading Neuromancer a handful of times, I've finally moved over to reading Count Zero, and I'm finding it much much harder to follow than Neuromancer. The only issue I had with Neuromancer was learning all the new terminology and phrases, but after that it was pretty much a breeze. Count Zero totally flipped this on its head though, and even though I'm familiar with the Sprawl's vocabulary I'm still struggling with the story. Am I stupid? With Neuromancer I only had to look up a few things to know what was going on but Count Zero I'm looking up whole chapter summaries just to get an idea of the plot. I'm at chapter 11 but I only sort of understand what's happening. Does the plot come together as the story goes on or should I start over, I've restarted the book twice but seem to get lost around the chapter 10 mark.

So I've read Neuromancer and loved it. The ending somewhat confuses me.

So Case seems to live after his overdose, flatlining etc. Which I believe until the part where he sees himself on that beach. Could it be that he remained flatlined and somewhat lives in a dream / alternate reality in the matrix?

I know there are more books so maybe it's stated he actually lives in a next book?

Anyways, thanks for the help on this question. Maybe it's an obvious he lives but this book got me guessing ...

Last month I picked up Neuromancer as I had heard many great things about it, and I am a huge fan of Cyberpunk (Blade Runner, 2077, etc) it quickly became my favorite book and I've read it back to back 4 times now. But there's a few things that still confuse me if anyone has answers I'd greatly appreciate it

1. Why did Deane (or Deane on Wintermute/Neuromancer's orders) kill Linda? I know it was said that it was cheaper to kill her when she was trying to fence the RAM instead of paying for it, but this seems out of character for Deane. Certainly with his revolving door of fashion and expensive life extending procedures, he must be a very wealthy man and doesn't need to cheat Linda out of some New Yen. Was it on Neuromancer's orders, to get her construct trapped in cyberspace to entice Case into staying there? I feel like a proper motive was never really mentioned.

2. Why are the Zionites so trusting of Wintermute? They said themselves that if these are "end of days" that they should expect false prophets, so why immediately go with Wintermute's plan? Especially when they have little to nothing to gain (besides the payday they got at the end of the mission) from Neuromancer merging with Wintermute?

3. How does Armitage remember that he was in Screaming Fist (he tells Case in detail about the operation in the Hilton after Molly snatches him from Cheap Hotel), but doesn't remember that he's Corto? What was the point of Wintermute changing his identity? Was it to stop authorities from coming after Corto?

4. Is McCoy Paulie still a construct at the end of the story? When Case is making the final leg of his run on the Villa Straylight, the Dixie Flatline is absent as Neuromancer tells Case he's been erased, but at the end of the story, when Case is casually scrolling cyberspace from the Sprawl, he finds Neuromancer, along with the constructs of himself and Linda, and then he hears the "Laughter that isn't laughter" referring to Dix's laugh that sends chills down Case's spine earlier in the story. Did Neuromancer wipe the Dixie Flatline or did he make him into an AI, able to create new memories when before be was a ROM construct and couldn't?

5. Why didn't Turing come in full force after Wintermute assassinated the 3 cops that came to arrest Case? You'd think that'd be grounds for a full assault on Freeside as they already knew about Wintermute and the plan to merge with the AI in Rio.

Maybe some of these questions are left ambiguous on purpose but I'd like to know everyone's thoughts.

Think about it. An anime style movie/series would be the perfect way to capture the tone and style of the Sprawl trilogy. Think Cowboy Bebop, Magnetic Rose, Ghost in the Shell, Cyberpunk, etc. (or look up clips if you haven't seen them). There's just so much you can do with animation that you can't with live action without it looking awkward or cheesy (see godawful Bebop adaptation). There's so much more wiggle room with realism. Think about how cool the scenes in the matrix would look in stylized 2D animation and how awful and cheesy it will inevitably look in CGI in the live action adaptation. CGI never ages well. Good 2D animation ages like wine.

Plus animation would allow waaaay more room for capturing Gibson's immense world building. The scenery in the shows/movies I mentioned before is incredible- there's so much attention to detail and there's no limits on scope. If done live, all of the backdrops, cityscapes, and sets would just end up being CGI anyway so - knowing Hollywood and the current state of sci-fi in film - we'd just get a couple generic sci-fi looking set pieces thrown together in adobe that they'd plop in for a few seconds at the beginning of each scene and then it'd be all close shots of the actors the rest of the time because who wants to spend time and money thinking about what the background looks like when you're paying $10mil for some random, sexy, over-acting asshole's face (seriously, watch ANY movie from the last 5 years and then go watch ANY movie from the 90s.... wtf is with all the constant close shots now??? Gimme some space to feel the scene, damn...)

IDK I just think it would be badass and would capture the spirit of Neuromancer perfectly. William Gibson is such a vivid, visual writer and he has such a unique and stylized tone with his dialogue. Both of those things would translate SO well to anime in my opinion (and SO poorly to live action, but hopefully the upcoming adaptation proves me wrong). What do y'all think?

A line from Count Zero. One that I don't entirely understand specifically, but contextually makes sense. It's a line Josef Virec says to Marly after assigning her with her objective, and explaining the condition he's in - "... (in) a vat. In some hideous industrial suburb in Stockholm. Or perhaps of hell."

Could someone explain the quote, please