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William Gibson

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Neuromancer Hardcover – July 1, 1994

by William Gibson (Author)

4.3 15,843 ratings

Book 1 of 3: Sprawl Trilogy

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Case, a burned out computer whiz, is asked to steal a security code that is locked in the most heavily guarded databank in the solar system

Book 1 of 3

Sprawl Trilogy
Print length

288 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Ace Hardcover
Publication date

July 1, 1994
Dimensions

5.56 x 0.98 x 8.56 inches
ISBN-10

0441000681
ISBN-13

978-0441000685
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William Gibson
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Popular Highlights in this book

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THE SKY ABOVE the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
Highlighted by 2,403 Kindle readers
His ugliness was the stuff of legend. In an age of affordable beauty, there was something heraldic about his lack of it.
Highlighted by 1,942 Kindle readers
He’d lived for so long on a constant edge of anxiety that he’d almost forgotten what real fear was.
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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....

Review

Kaleidoscopic, picaresque, flashy, and decadent...an amazing virtuoso performance...Neuromancer, in every sense, is state-of-the-art. -- The Washington Post

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ace Hardcover; Reprint edition (July 1, 1994)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0441000681
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0441000685
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.56 x 0.98 x 8.56 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,461,063 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #24,683 in Science Fiction Adventures
- #71,101 in American Literature (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.3 15,843 ratings

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William Gibson

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William Gibson is the award-winning author of Neuromancer, Mona Lisa Overdrive, The Difference Engine, with Bruce Sterling, Virtual Light, Idoru, All Tomorrow's Parties and Pattern Recognition. William Gibson lives in Vancouver, Canada. His latest novel, published by Penguin, is Spook Country (2007).

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Amazon Customer

incredible fictional setting

Reviewed in the United States on March 17, 2024

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I really liked this book, it was written so well, the author treated me like an adult, and didnt mind explaining anything such as trobes, the acronym for ice was just mentioned once and not even explicitly with the fact that it will be acronymicised. He just carelessly uses words, phrases and sentences that seem so foreign and are made up and yet they have a bit of familiarity, i can almost make out what they look like but its a bit fuzzy.

The main thrust of the plot is intriguing, a guy who runs for the sake of it. Very relatable being a programmer myself as i work on it for just the joy of working on it, just because i believe im good at it.

The characters were very likeable, their ultimate motivations always hidden, their behaviour unpredictable.

The payoff at the end of the plot was a bit anti climatic, however that leave more to be intrigued about and it was nevertheless satisfactory.

Somehow despite such a scifi bleak setting, the story was pretty human, the emotional core embodied by Linda Mei central to the driving force behind the characters, the little touches such as the shopping trip that molly and case went on feel so important at the end.

2 people found this helpful

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Katrin von Martin

Surprisingly Relevant with an Interesting Story

Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2015

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I typically avoid "foundation" books like the plague. Whenever a piece of literature comes with the distinction of founding this genre or starting that movement, it has been my experience that the work will be focused more on concepts and ideas rather than story and characters. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I simply read for fun and tend to not enjoy books that are more about establishing ideas than telling a good story. So, when my fiancé read "Neuromancer" and insisted that I would enjoy it due to my love of things like "Ghost in the Shell," science fiction, and cyber punk, I was more than a little wary. I feared that the novel would be rife with techno-babble and jargon that would only make sense to someone obsessed with technology, so I put it off...and put it off...and put it off. After some not-so-subtle hints from my fiancé that I really needed to read this, I finally sat down and went for it. Did a lot of things fly over my head? Probably. But you know what? I enjoyed it anyway! Spoilers follow.

"Neuromancer" essentially boils down to a futuristic crime novel. Case, the main character, is an ex-hacker whose former employer had part of his nervous system irrevocably destroyed after Case tried to hack the employer's company, effectively preventing him from ever connection to Cyberspace again (and therefore putting him out of work). Down on his luck, he's offered an opportunity he can't pass up: his nerves will be repaired using new (and otherwise preventatively expensive) medical technology if he agrees to use his hacking skills to complete a special job. He's joined by an odd, unique group of cohorts: a former colonel from the Special Forces that doesn't quite seem to be all the way there; a mercenary with some cool cybernetic enhancements and a past she doesn't want to talk about; a performance artist with perverse holographic imaginings; the personality of a dead hacker immortalized in the matrix; and the mysterious Wintermute, an Artificial Intelligence that seems to really be running the show.

To start this review on a high note, the story is great. It's both exciting and complete. I had feared that the plot would take a back seat to showcasing the author's ideas of futuristic tech, but that happily isn't the case, and the story definitely isn't secondary in the novel. Ok, so the beginning is a little slow (the first 20 pages or so could prove to be a little daunting for some since they're mostly introducing us to Case and giving some exposition on the setting), but once things pick up, they really pick up. And not only is the plot satisfying in and of itself, it takes us all over the world (seriously - the characters go to several different countries and even take a trip off-planet) and gives us a look at plenty of locales to help flesh out Gibson's world.

Gibson's writing style is very notable and distinct. Honestly, it can be a tad difficult to get used to at first glance. The best way to describe it would be that each chapter is broken into vignettes, each one serving to highlight something, whether it be some introspection on Case's part, character development, a plot point, demonstrating a piece of technology, or showcasing some part of the setting. While a little jolting at first to jump around, the vignettes flow and connect nicely to weave a coherent, satisfying story. Prose-wise, Gibson has the type of writing style that needs to be read slowly and enjoyed. That's not to say that it's wordy or complex - quite the opposite, actually! Every word is important, so if you try to skim or read too quickly, you'll likely miss out on a lot and become horribly confused. It's not that Gibson writes a lot, but that he writes meaningfully - trying to speed read this would do a disservice to the author, story, and reader. Gibson's writing style is unlike anything I've seen, and, perhaps surprisingly, it really works.

While the story and the author's style are extremely important, the tech and relevance are also large parts of the book. "Neuromancer" was published in the 1980s, so I expected some very dated science fiction and technology and a vision of the future that was so off base that it push the book firmly into the realm of fantasy. Since this is the book that is considered one of the foundation works of the cyber punk genre, a lot concepts have trickled into not only cyber punk culture, but mainstream media as a whole. This is the novel that invented the term Cyberspace and prominently featured the matrix as an abstract representation of the computer network that, with the right equipment, one can interact with. People adding cybernetic enhancements to their bodies is perceived as normal and virtual intelligence is not only a thing, but a well-known (though not always completely understood) creation. Cloning isn't unheard of and advanced medical procedures are the norm. Given that Gibson wrote this before many of these things existed, his ideas have stayed largely relevant because many are things that science is still trying to make a reality. One might wonder if Gibson could somehow see into the future. Even over 20 years after its publication, "Neuromancer" manages to not feel dated and, as a result, lacking in relevance.

The final thing to discuss as far as the overall story goes is the world. The other big reason that this piece of speculative fiction has aged gracefully is that the gritty, rough, super-controlled world portrayed in the book is very much the sort of future that many people still fear. Gibson's vision of the future consists of large corporations controlling the different countries and regions. Some of the cities that we know have come together to form larger metropolises and the lines between countries seem to sometimes blur, yet cultures are still fairly distinct. None of that really matters, though, since it's mostly companies and illegal groups that hold the power in this world. Whether this is a personal fear of yours or not, you'll be able to feel the corrupt hold these large groups have and the complete helplessness of the average person to do anything about it. This isn't a clean, sci-fi future where everything is white, shiny, and full of helpful technology; it's a grimy world full of selfish people who use (and abuse) the current tech in whatever way benefits the most...and it's surprisingly accessible to the modern reader.

Lets move on to the characters. This is the one thing that keeps me from giving "Neuromancer" a full five stars. I'm the kind of reader that needs great characters to become truly invested in a story, and this book fell a little flat for me in the area of character development. Make no mistake, this is certainly an interesting group of individuals. Each one stands out in their own right with their unique abilities and back stories and, much like Gibson's writing itself, there are no wasted or superfluous characters. Every one has a role to fill and each demonstrates something that serves to flesh out the novel's setting. Even the side characters or one-off figures are intriguing in their own right. I would argue that the characters serve their various purposes well...but I never felt particularly attached to any of them. Instead, rather than seeing them as fully realized characters, they struck me more as the embodiments of the ideas and concepts of Gibson's world. There's nothing necessarily wrong with this - my fiancé and others seem to have responded well to the book's figures and what they set out to do. I just needed more growth from them, more reasons to become attached and really care about them as individuals and as a whole. And while there are moments where some of this development that I craved began to shine through, the characters seemed distant throughout most of the novel. I was interested in their stories and who they were, I was interested in what they could do, but I ultimately didn't care about them beyond that, and the absence of that more personal connection with them stood out while I was reading.

The one exception to this is Case, the main character. Perhaps it's because most of the book is from his (third person) point of view and he therefore gets to experience more than any of the other characters. Perhaps it's because he gets the biggest life-changing upgrade (his ability to jack into the matrix being restored), so we see a drastic change as far as his capabilities and outlook are concerned. Whatever the reason, his journey actually seems to have an effect on him, and he definitely isn't the same character at the end of the story as he is at the beginning, and since we get to experience things right along with him, it's easy to care about what ultimately happens to him in this strange, futuristic world.

On a random, personal note regarding characters, as seems to often be the case, the two characters I was most interested in died before their stories were fully concluded or revealed to us. Damn! Just my luck...

In closing, don't make the same assumptions that I did. Don't ignore this book because you think it'll be too smart or tech-heavy. Don't refuse to read it because you fear the story will take a backseat to Gibson's scientific concepts and visions of the future. Don't give it a wide berth because you fear the age of the novel will make it come across as dated and out of touch with the current reality. "Neuromancer" manages to strike the balance between telling a satisfying, interesting story and showcasing the author's (sometimes terrifying) world. Gibson's distinct style of prose makes for a unique reading experience, and though the characters fell a bit short of what I wanted, I'm glad I overcame my objections and read this book. A solid four star read.

73 people found this helpful

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August

Loved it!

Reviewed in the United States on May 1, 2024

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I loved this book! It's a pretty simple plot line, but is so entertaining. It's easy to see why so many writers and directors were inspired by this piece.

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Chris

Hard to give this a rating

Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2023

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Really, _really_ hard. I've read this book twice and I still have no idea what happens in it. And it's not like I'm a SciFi novice, I've been reading all the genres of fantasy, speculative fiction, SyFy, and space opera I can find, from Asimov to George RR Martin, 1950's Classics to 21st Century modern - weird, wonderful, pulp, good bad, indifferent, riveting, boring - the point is most of it makes some kind of sense. But this book leaves me scratching my head.

Which is not to say it's not good. Well written, preposterously imaginative, well paced, it kept drawing me back even while it confused the hell out of me.

This is one of those classics against which critics compare every more recent piece and it's not hard to see why. It has all the elements of a good read: drama, tension, conflict, mystery, a beautiful girl with 'a past'... Gibson even invented the terms cyberspace and cyberpunk in this book. The technical details are a bit iffy but I guess in 1950 iPads and satphones would have seemed unbelievable. I just wish the mystery wasn't quite so impenetrable. Or maybe I'm just thick.

So do I give it a 5 for writing style or a 3 for plausibility or a 1 for the somewhat cryptic style?

9 people found this helpful

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phrynne

A very well written book with some intriguing and novel ideas

Reviewed in the United States on July 26, 2021

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I started to read this book in fear and trepidation having already glanced at the reviews. Many of them ranged from disdainful to damning but I took heart from the people who did like it and, after all, it is the winner of many prestigious awards.

I loved it. For me it was a sci fi thriller, two of my favourite genres rolled into one. I was grabbed immediately by the characters of Case and Molly - especially Molly with her attitude, her mirror eyes and the blades under her finger nails. And do not forget Dixie the Flatliner, such a clever little creation on the author's part. This is a very visual book and it was easy to start choosing who would play the roles in a movie.

The language was tricky at times but at no point did I lose the overall sense of what was occurring. Once or twice I went back to reread a bit for example the first appearance of Riviera made no sense to me at all until I discovered what his party trick was. There was plenty of action, a good story and I found the whole thing very readable.

For me this was a very well written book with some intriguing and novel ideas, plenty of action and suspense and a satisfactory conclusion. I did however have to read the ending twice. It took me a minute to understand what Gibson was telling me but when I realised what it was I was left happy.

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

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James Boyko

For anyone who likes noir, hiests, futurism, and is interested in AI.

Reviewed in Canada on April 4, 2024

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Phenominal. A must read.

Kindle Customer

brilliant book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 12, 2024

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Grabs you but the throat and doesn’t let go. I read it in two days. If you like distopian landscapes, crazy technology and a thrilling story then this one’s for you.

Liberatio

Ein Grundstein für das Cyberpunk Genre

Reviewed in Germany on January 24, 2024

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Das Buch hat mich ab der ersten Seite in seinen Bann gezogen. Das düstere Setting, die wahnsinnig gut ausgearbeiteten Charaktere und eine großartige Story lassen einen kaum das Buch zur Seite legen.

Die Story wurde hier schon mehrfach ausgearbeitet und bewertet. Somit meinerseits nur eine klare Empfehlung für alle, die sich dem Cyberpunk Genre widmen wollen oder vielleicht sogar Inspiration für eigene Werke suchen. An diesem Meisterwek kommt man nicht vorbei!

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Ilya Watteau

Un très bon livre, mais avec un style d'écriture qui ne plaira pas à tout le monde

Reviewed in France on February 18, 2023

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Après avoir fini Cyberpunk 2077, j'avais envie de m'immerger encore plus dans ce type d'univers. J'ai donc regarder en ligne quel était les meilleurs livres dans le style "Cyberpunk" et Neuromancer par William Gibson était toujours présent dans le top des classements, j'ai donc fini par l'acheter. L'auteur a un style impeccable pour décrire l'ambiance du monde dans lequel l'histoire se déroule, on a vraiment l'impression d'être dans la tête du personnage, tellement il y a de détails dans chaque scène. Que cela soit la couleur des murs, l'odeur des lieux, les bars avec des noms japonais et français, les sons de la rue, les relations entres les personnages, la criminalité, etc. Le plus gros problème que j'ai avec Neuromancer, c'est la façon dont les dialogues sont écrits. Je ne sais pas trop comment le décrire, mais l'auteur a un style bien à lui, qui passe ou casse avec le lecteur en question. Résultat, même arriver vers la fin du livre, j'avais l'impression de comprendre seulement un quart de l'histoire, j'ai donc regarder le résume de l'histoire en ligne pour comprendre ce qui se passer et pourquoi telles personnages faisait telle actions et pour quelles raisons. C'est un phénomène très étrange, parce que j'ai lu plus d'une centaine de livres en anglais et c'est la première fois que j'ai eu autant de difficultés pour comprendre le récit. Je pense que Neuromancer, fait partie de ces livres qui doivent être lu plusieurs fois pour vraiment faire attention à tous les petits détails présents dans les pages.