Neuromancer (Book Review)

I have recently finished William Gibson's pre-eminent Cyberpunk novel Neuromancer and can say that it was a brilliant ride. Published in 1984, the novel was critically acclaimed and went on to win all three of the major SF awards (Nebula, Hugo and the Phillip K Dick Award) and became immortalised in the 1990s as computers and the Internet began to take off. With a whole section of the dictionary invented right here, the novel is truly the founder of what would come to be known as Cyberpunk. With neologisms and concepts such as "Cyberspace," "ICE (Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics)" and "the Matrix" used for the first time, such terms became the common go-to words used to identify anything associated with the World Wide Web, leading to a host of "cyber-" prefixed words since then.

The story is extremely fast-paced and involves a great deal of post-modern writing styles, relatable to either Ray Bradbury or Phillip K Dick. The use of rather inventive and sometimes lyrical metaphors latches onto traditions of the 1950s dystopia for Bradbury's case, yet the story never steps into extended metaphors that leaves the reader wondering whether or not something is happening, a la Fahrenheit 451. Barrages of short sentences and rushed dialogue gives us a simulacrum of the hustle of Japan, with Gibson himself once alluding to the idea that "Japan is cyberpunk." The story is noteworthy because of the rather paradoxical protagonist: Case, a "computer cowboy," is an intriguing primary character and once again influenced the entire direction of the sub-genre. Suicidal, drug-dependent and wasting his time brooding over the past, he is yanked into action once again by a rather shifty new employer, yet despite his strong persona in terms of strength of mind etc., he is not -for the most part- like a typical action hero character in the same vein as many other SF heroes (in the novels of Iain M Banks and Alastair Reynolds for example.) It all sounds familiar to the classic 1999 film The Matrix, which Gibson enjoyed by the way, in the sense of Neo being yanked into the world as he doesn't know it, and likewise is living on the fringe of society; unappreciated, lonesome and a petty criminal. Character names also ring similar, with simple nouns used to identify hackers and other computer criminals, who all seem to be dressed in leather (Wage, Zone, Finn and Case to name only a few.) The relations that can be drawn between this book and films since then (even 2009's Inception bares some similarity) are absolutely stunning. That such prescience came inside a book that wasn't the best received by the community upon initial publication is mind-blowing.

The story progresses as one might expect, with Case in a drug-dependent state and -as a result of mycotoxins in his blood- is unable to access the Matrix, a cyberspace environment of constant virtual reality in the Sprawl. The world created is dark and dystopian as hackers and biologically-augmented criminals dwell in clubs and bars in the Chiba City nightlife, beneath the edifices of megacorporations who practically control the world. The sky is described as one of "television static" because in the megacity of The Sprawl, (also the name of the trilogy of books of which Neuromancer is the first,) there is no day/night cycle. His life however is turned around after meeting Molly, whose employer needs his skills as a hacker. From here the story progresses through Case's experiences and conflicts within the group as his drug addiction is cured, but for a price. In order to get rid of the mycotoxins, he must complete the job, but if he doesn't, then the drug addiction will be reversed via biodegradable sacs, and his pitiful life will resume. We slowly learn about the past of Armitage, the employer and of the past of a multinational corporation, whose databanks they are trying to hack. But within the confines of data and between the lattices of information, there awaits an unexpected threat behind the ICE and across the cold nothingness of the Matrix. Given all of this I have proposed two questions:

Is the book primitive? By comparison to today's works, yes.
Has this diluted how interesting it is? Definitely not!

Yes, Neuromancer deserves its place alongside the greats and should be read by anyone who either likes A) Science Fiction B) Dystopian Fiction and finally C) Computers and computing, though I stress that this is not necessarily a hard SF work, it's much more on the soft side and focuses on social implications and character development, as opposed to intrinsic technologies.

In closing Neuromancer is a skilfully-written tale of crime and betrayal, alluding to Orwellian tendencies to such an extent that the press of day hailed it as the next giant leap forward for dystopian literature, even saying that it was a modern day Nineteen Eighty-Four or Brave New World. The dialogue defines the characters, the descriptions stretch the imagination like elastic, and the world is a foreshadowing of what we in the present have now come to experience and realise. A masterful novel written with versatility and aplomb.

Neuromancer (1984) 

Paperback Edition