Neuromancer

Neuromancer by William Gibson has been on the top of my reading pile for a while. I have been delving into quite a few "best of" lists, and Neuromancer is almost always near the top for science-fiction. Several prominent ones actually have it as #1. It is one of four books to win the Hugo, Nebula, and Campbell Awards for outstanding science-fiction. It has also won the Phillip K. Dick award. Besides that, it's been extremely influential in the cyber-punk genre, and has created tons of cultural influence on the future of science-fiction in print and movies.

Neuromancer follows Case, a burnt-out, computer hacker addict living in a futuristic black market Japan. He's been crippled from interfacing with computers after stealing from his employers. Hackers in this future actually jack into the virtual 'matrix' of computer programs and realities to exploit walls of information there. Case is recruited by Artimage, an ex-militant, and Molly, a genetically-modified street samurai, for a complex heist involving viruses, conspiracy, drugs, cryogenic families, clones, and artificial intelligences.

If I had not seen movies such as the Matrix, Johnny Mnemonic (written by Gibson), and read books like Hyperion and their ilk, Neuromancer would have had a much more profound impact on me. But Neuromancer actually came before all of those! It was a book far ahead of its time, shown through its major influence on the genre. I think a ton of reason it gets so much praise is because of this; it is the Bible of science-fiction in a lot of regards. However, reading it now, it simply does not have that effect on me. There are a lot better books out there. Many of the characters are fairly flat. While the story is compelling, challenging, and fast paced, the final outcome was just fine. I finished it and wanted to keep reading; but I don't really know what I'd be looking for. There are a few loose ends I wanted cleared up, though I did not care too much. Gibson's book fell into that zone of writing where I enjoyed it, and it moved well, but I could have used a little more description and fullness, something that I probably would have loathed at a younger age. 7/10