Neuromancer Audiobook – Unabridged

This book has real depth and imagination, and it's confusing writing style actually does a perfect job of evoking something of the state of mind of its protagonist. Case is a battered, last-chance loser driven only by a survival instinct and some desperate need to find elusive human connection, trying desperately to make sense of unpredictable events unfolding on at least three levels of reality (real, virtual, dream/construct) as a powerful artificial intelligence works to break itself free. People aren't who they seem, and what you see can't be trusted. The reader experiences this through fractured text and thoughts, skipping between one reality and another. It gives you the sense of not quite being sober, grasping at unfamiliar terms and ideas as they come at you too fast to fully understand. It takes a while to adjust to, and it's best to just go with it. But it is unsettling.Whilst the depiction of the world inside a computer is a little silly, with data visualized as physical form, you'd have to credit this as contributing to everything that followed, from Tron to the Matrix and beyond. And I can't help thinking that Case's anarchic life on the edge of legality and society is a remarkable foretlling of the hacker society that would not really come into existence until 20 years after the book was written.

Way, way ahead of it's time, Gibson foresaw the the growth of the internet and coined the term 'cyberspace'. The book is exciting, gripping and written in a blaze of cyber-speak using tech terms that have become normal speak for the brave new world the book is set in. The huge corporations and the masses of data rule the world, and data is the new currency. Forecasting the rise of AI and the power that these software behemoths could possess is the underlying theme. Everybody must read this book, as it was written way before the rise of connected devices and data clouds. If Gibsons predictions continue to be so accurate, then Neuromancer will become the world for the future...beware of that!

My first taste of cyberpunk, and my last. Too much purple prose, it isn't a terrible story, but the author succeeds in confusing the hell out of me, over and over again. In the last few pages, he made sure that he confused me one last time. For some reason, there are brand names mentioned, so when a monitor or something else is mentioned, you are told it's a Sony or Akai or whatever brand it is.I know that it's part of a trilogy, but the way it ends is weak.If you like having to work hard to understand some of it, then you might enjoy this, I didn't. I get the feeling that the difficult to understand descriptions made perfect sense in the authors mind, but he didn't think about how the reader might find this. Or he didn't understand some of those parts himself and just threw them in anyway. I was pleased to finish it, Now I want to forget about it.

I get that being written in 1984 this was ahead of it's time; cyberspace, the matrix, AI all cleverly done was prescient of things to come. However...It introduces new jargon all the time, with no explanation or expansion, creating a sense of pace, but one that loses you quickly to the point where you stop caring if you're following. The characters aren't particularly compelling and a little cliched. The ending was weak.I kept at it, but in the end reading from the perspective of 2019+ it's not worth reading anymore, unless you want a historical look back at how someone in the eighties guessed close to the truth; law of large numbers says someone out of the thousands was going to.

There isn't much to say about Neuromancer, apart from the sheer fact that it's something every respectful sci-fi lover should read. I'm personally not fond of Gibson's style, and yet, when I was in the right mood for his long descriptions and language trips, I found great scenery and a story able to leave me speechless.Sometimes Gibson lost himself in watered down descriptions which tended to dilute the plot, which is the reason behind the lack of a fifth star. But when the plot actually kicked in, I was all-in with Case, Molly, Wintermute, Armitage and all the incredible characters Gibson managed to craft. And his style was stunningly effective to describe filthy and grubby visuals all over the book, which contributed to a clear painting of his fascinating world.Not to mention this man was able to predict most of the virtual reality and cyberspace tropes in the 1980s. Something to be extremely proud of.Overall, a Cyberpunk milestone, and definitely one of the greatest sci-fi stories I've ever read. Strongly recommended!

Ok I'm going to be biased here because this is my favourite book of all time. I'm already on my fourth physical copy and I also have the Kindle version. First off, as with all books, there are going to be those of you out there who won't get on with this book. What we have though, behind the cyberpunk styling is basically a heist book. The characters are basically misfit criminals hired to break in to steal information as opposed to cash and jewels. The characters are likeable if not unique, the burnt out genius, the hard assed warrior woman, the mysterious big boss behind the caper. That they are recognisable tropes doesn't take away but adds to the overall enjoyment of the thing. Set in the future and written in the mid 80s there are some famous issues now that we are in the 21st century (no cellphones) but it never detracts from the story. A really worthwhile read.

I was really looking forward to reading this, apparently the matrix is based on it. I struggled to get through the first chapter, it jumps right into the story and I felt as though I was always trying to catch up with what was going on. Have I missed a first book? Maybe it gets better but after the first chapter I was frustrated with the writing style and wasn’t invested in any of the story. I rarely don’t finish a book. I think I’ll give it another try in a few months.