Neuromancer: 25 Years Later

i love gibson, especially the bridge trilogy, and i can understand some complaints about his characters - i always end up feeling like the real character is his vision of the future - the places, the technology, the vision of humanity. i find this immensely enjoyable.

although, in neuromancer, maybe molly and case were not closely defined on purpose - i thought case's character was expressed so blankly to mirror the narcotized haze he used to combat all the things he didn't want to feel. (this is briefly alluded to in count zero.)

glass plate, may i congratulate you on what may be a victory of your style - i have to refrain from calling you an idiot after almost every post you make. except in that music thread. good job, your snarky, uncited generalizations always piss me off. you win.

chen, ditto on diamond age! that one always stood out to me, and it's not a common favorite. . i hope so too!

I mean I love the Baroque Cycle, (haven't had time to make it through Anathem yet), but goddamned The Diamond Age was near perfect.

I wouldn't read too much into Neuromancer's style. I remember Gibson saying he used virtual reality as a way to get characters from place to place instantly, because he literally didn't know how to write about people physically walking around.

  On 11/5/2009 at 5:46 AM, chenGOD said:

I mean I love the Baroque Cycle, (haven't had time to make it through Anathem yet), but goddamned The Diamond Age was near perfect.

the baroque cycle is the only thing i've read by him (and it took long e-fucking-nough). i was nicely surprised when i heard he does scifi etc too. have you read cryptonomicon?

yeah Cryptonomicon is kind of a follow up to the Baroque Cycle. In a vague sort of way.

I've read just about everything by him, except as I said, Anathem. Oh and I haven''t read his stuff that he wrote under his pseudonym...

If you think it took you a long time to read the baroque cycle, imagine writing it...he wrote it by hand, using quills.

Snow Crash is very good, Diamond Age is excellent. Zodiac is so so. The Big U is also so so.

Snow Crash blew my mind when I was 15.

EDIT: I wonder if it holds up.

I re-read Snow Crash about a year ago (and first read it only about 3 years ago). Loved it both times - highly entertaining and didn't take itself too seriously, while still being wonderfully imaginative and well written.

Neuromancer, I agree, is more about the ideas/atmosphere than the characterization/writing/etc. I do believe Gibson wouldn't ascribe a lot of weight to his "coining" of "cyberspace," and I'm pretty sure he's even said that he feels like Neuromancer wasn't particularly well developed as a work of "literature." I still love it, though, as the universe described is awfully compelling to a cyberpunk lover.

If anyone is interested, there's a great "film" about Gibson (mostly an on-the-cheap but interestingly directed series of interviews with WG) called "No Maps for These Territories" which I LOVE. Gibson comes across as a very thoughtful, humble, oddly anachronistic sort of guy. The man you feel wrote All Tomorrow's Parties versus the acid head that likely wrote Nueromancer.