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Science Fiction & Fantasy |
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Neuromancer
written by William Gibson
Studio : Time Warner AudioBooks
by Time Warner AudioBooks
Publisher : Time Warner AudioBooks
Released : 1994-08
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 4
EAN : 9781570420597
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 449 reviews)
List Price : $23.00
Our Price : $49.98
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Book Description |
One of the most important and influential novels of our time.
Neuromancer is the multiple award-winning novel that launched the astonishing career of William Gibson. The first fully-realized glimpse of humankind's digital future, it is a shocking vision that has challenged our assumptions about our technology and ourselves, reinvented the way we speak and think, and forever altered the landscape of our imaginations.
Now, for the first time, Ace Books is proud to present this groundbreaking literary achievement in a new trade paperback edition.
Winner of science fiction's 'Triple Crown'--the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick awards.
Includes the special afterword Gibson wrote for the 10th anniversary hardcover edition published by Ace
"A mind-bender of a read." --The Village Voice
"Freshly imagined, compellingly detailed, and chilling in its implications." --New York Times
"Kaleidoscopic, picaresque, flashy and decadent...an amazing virtuoso performance." --Washington Post
"It made me want to live in its world." --San Francisco Chronicle
"A revolutionary novel." --Publishers Weekly
"Gibson is tapped straight into our collective cultural mainline and shows no sign of stopping." --Spin
"Gibson has revitalized science fiction as no other single force in a generation." --Rolling Stone
"Epic in scale." --Wall Street Journal
"The quintessence of cyberpunk." --Washington Post Book World |
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Americancivilwar.com |
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Here is the novel that started it all, launching the cyberpunk generation, and the first novel to win the holy trinity of science fiction: the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award and the Philip K. Dick Award. With Neuromancer, William Gibson introduced the world to cyberspace--and science fiction has never been the same. Case was the hottest computer cowboy cruising the information superhighway--jacking his consciousness into cyberspace, soaring through tactile lattices of data and logic, rustling encoded secrets for anyone with the money to buy his skills. Then he double-crossed the wrong people, who caught up with him in a big way--and burned the talent out of his brain, micron by micron. Banished from cyberspace, trapped in the meat of his physical body, Case courted death in the high-tech underworld. Until a shadowy conspiracy offered him a second chance--and a cure--for a price.... |
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Forced my way through half of it then gave up |
I think I am a pretty intelligent and well read guy. I am a fan of a variety of different types of SF, but this book simply didn't work for me. I've seen people who are obvious fans of this book lambaste the one-star reviewer in the comments section saying they must be semi-literate, inbred NASCAR fans if they didn't like this book. To you people I say, "Grow up." I'll stack my IQ up against yours any day.
Like many other one star reviews, I point to the heavy usage of unexplained jargon. More importantly, however, is that the book is so disjointed that it is difficult to determine precisely what is taking place at any given time. Is there a plot? I couldn't figure this out and after forcing myself to read half the book I decided that life was too short and set it aside.
Peter Hamilton is an SF writer who does a good job of creating futuristic technologies and presenting them in a way that the reader gets it and becomes immersed in the world he creates. I simply could not get into Gibson's world. I'm not sure I would want to.
I understand this book launched the Cyberpunk movement. Excuse me my ignorance, but I guess I don't really understand what Cyberpunk is. If this is it, then I'll happily steer clear. Give me a good John Varley book any day.
If you want to read an excellent SF story that shows a fantastical future with bizarre implications of powerful AI, then check out Varley's Steel Beach. I cannot recommend it enough.
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Cyberpunk or cyberjunk? |
I found this book to be horrendous, if not outright painful. Perhaps the cyberpunk genre isn't my bag, but considering that my trade currently is (and has been for almost a decade now) computer programming, it should warrant a greater appreciation for the technical aspects of the novel. Unfortunately, the ideas within Neuromancer were so far fetched that it just came off as cartoonish.
In my opinion, Gibson awkwardly complicates ideas/vocabulary, in an attempt to show off erudition in technology and history, but comes off as pseudointellectual and immature. The style offers little payoff (if any) when the definition of terms manifest in later chapters and distracts from an already weak premise. The detective elements offered a hint of something to come, but the incongruous jargon and unlikeable characters left much to be desired.
I have to admit it that Neuromancer is the first fictional book (out of hundreds) I wasn't able to see to the end. I read 174 pages out of 270, and threw in the towel. Granted, Gibson occasional offered descriptive imagery which many tout poetic. Despite this, it took everything I had just to finish chapter after trite chapter, finding that with each completed page I was farther and farther away from an enjoyable plot. |
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Not worth the hype, but worth the read. |
While I did enjoy the book, it wasn't anywhere the world's greatest novel that many seem to say it is. The plot was shallow, the characters were decent but also a little shallow. The world was an ok futuristic setting, defiantly fits as a cyberpunk genre.
The book is a little confusing, many of the aspects are never really explained. And the ending was a build to something great and then just fizzled out. But even with that being said I defiantly would recommend reading it because it's a ok novel. |
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enjoyacble |
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gibson does an excellent job at creating and transporting us to a world and culture which is very much unlike and like the world we currently reside. as always there is a strangeness to the tone and i find myself very much stuck in whatever mood gibson desires the reader to feel. and then he makes you laugh with delight at the sheer imagination he exhibits. in other words, i really wish he was one of those really prolific authors so instead of an occasional treat we would receive a glutton's feast. |
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Case Meets the Matrix [T] |
Neuromancer bends your thoughts and concepts with its theme of man integrating self with computerized Artificial Intelligence - what we commonly dub as AI.
Written in a style reminiscent to James Cain, Micky Spillane, Dashiell Hammett and other authors of that 19th century mystery genre, the book keeps you on your toes about what will happen when the mainframe's "matrix" ghosts collide - will their be a pulse eliminating computer use for a period of time, or will things improve?
The writing revolves around an antihero - not a guy who does this for the "good." He is a washed up hacker who abuses his system with drugs. He became washed up when "He'd made the classic mistake, the one he'd sworn he'd never make. He stole from his employers. . . They damaged his nervous system with a wartime Russian mycotoxin."And, so the protagonist Case is offered a second chance in this book, by a man named Armitage and a woman named Molly.
By now, you may have guessed that some thing of this book are familiar - a rebellious young man melding with a computer: sounds like Neal in the blockbuster trilogy of "The Matrix." Wikipedia hints of this being the story which influenced the same. There definitely is a similarity. In the end, when Case is as confused as the "Matrix" audiences, he asks the computer generated human form, "So what are you." The computer responds, "I'm the matrix, Case."
Case's entry into the computer - jacking up - brings on communications with the dead - Linda and Flatline. Reminiscent to Phil Dick's "Ubik." And like the Phil Dick novel, "Neuromancer" entails a David versus Goliath International Corporation - against the conglomerate which created and sponsored the hardware which intentionally or unintentionally creates the AI which confronts mankind.
This book also reminds me of Dan Brown's "Digital Fortress" - a geek's equivalent to "The Da Vinci Code" as the chase is not about church relics, but about computer software. The complexities and intricacies of the computer are more described in Brown's book, but conceptually there are many parallels.
Gibson won the science-fiction "triple crown" for this novel --the Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, and the Hugo Award in 1984 (could there be a better year to win?). Interestingly, having read it today, I could grasp some concepts - LED, pixels, RAM, ROM, firewalls - which I probably would not have understood in 1984. In many ways, it still is too descriptive of the computer concepts for this reader. But, the accuracy of the same astounds me and proves that he was a knowledgeable "computer person" who also is a gifted fiction writer. |
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