Book review: “Neuromancer” by William Gibson
December 12th, 2003 at 11:14 amReading the “Neuromancer” was my last attempt at “getting” the cyberpunk style of books. And this attempt didn’t suceed. In fact, it failed miserably. When was my previous (also failed) attempt ? That was Spephenson’s “Snow crash”.
It gets to me that people with my (obviously geekish/hackerish) mentality are the ones who like these books the most. So what’s wrong with me ? Why don’t I get them ?
Is it only me who thinks that a hacker who can also fights with swords, throws shurikens, shoots from guns and talks with gangsta’ style, is *not cool*. I mean, hackers are mostly geeks who spend their day glued to the computer. This whole stuff (as in the Swordfish movie, for instance) sounds more like a wet dream of some pimple-faced 17 year old computer geek j*rking of in front of pr0n and dreaming of being *cool*.
For me, the plot of Neuromancer is hard to follow. I hate all the twists that make you stop understand what’s going on. I don’t know, perhaps I’m dumb, but I was quickly lost with all the main characters and their virtual counterparts.
Hell, I even lost the book’s point somewhere. What was it that Case is looking for ? Where did it become clear in the plot ? I clearly don’t like books in which characters are under-developed, and one must spend a long time guessing who is there and for what purpose.
The only good thing about this book, IMHO, is its relation to The Matrix. Many ideas for the movie (I acknowledge only the first The Matrix as a “movie”) were clearly borrowed from this book. People jacking into a “Matrix” - a virtual reality, through the back of their heads, etc…
So, to conclude, enough “cyberpunk” for me. If I’ll want some good sci-fi, I’ll turn to the classics - Asimov (thought I’ve already read, and thoroughly enjoyed, the Foundation and Robots series), Heinlein, etc…
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February 11th, 2008 at 5:15 am
hahahaha! you missed the point here, bud.. i recently read this book, and it’s really great! by the way, your view of what a hacker is is quite flawed. i mean, the 17-year old pimpled-faced kid you’re talking about? he’s just some guys idea of a description because of insecurity. the thing is, about this book, if you love to read, then this book would be quite appealing to you. hackers are people too, thus they have each their differences, and cannot connote to the simple”pimple-faced kid” you talk about. heck, there are hackers that are cooler than the people you think are “cool”.
anyway, on with this book. this book was released on the year 1984, when computers were still quite slow, with 1.44Mb as their biggest forms of memory storage. putting that in mind, you’d find it incredible that someone came up with this kind of book in an era like that. william gibson had vision of the far future. and it’s depicted in the book. read it again, and appreciate each line, each word and each letter.
but one things for sure, this “pimple-faced geek” can do things you will find unimaginable.
-KaZuo
February 11th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Hey, I’m still waiting for your book review on Stardust… another book that people “like you” are supposed to like