Neuromancer

Sprawl Trilogy, Book 1

By: William Gibson

Narrated by: Jason Flemyng

Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

Narrated by actor Jason Flemyng.

The book that defined the cyberpunk movement, inspiring everything from The Matrix to Cyberpunk 2077.

The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel.

William Gibson revolutionised science fiction in his 1984 debut Neuromancer. The writer who gave us the matrix and coined the term 'cyberspace' produced a first novel that won the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick Awards, and lit the fuse on the cyberpunk movement.

More than three decades later, Gibson's text is as stylish as ever, his noir narrative still glitters like chrome in the shadows and his depictions of the rise and abuse of corporate power look more prescient every day. Part thriller, part warning, Neuromancer is a timeless classic of modern SF and one of the 20th century's most potent and compelling visions of the future.

©2016 William Gibson (P)2021 W F Howes

Are you you?

Listening to this 40 years after its conception makes your eyebrows raise from time to time thinking ah there Sims comes from or how did he predict this was coming about. I guess when you are connected to the one you know…

Worth getting

I’ve always wanted to read this book but I didn’t know if I would enjoy it, but I’m happy to say that I did like it, and it’s worth getting

For all cyberpunk and Blade Runner fans

I really enjoyed listening to this book even though l rarely listen to fiction. After recently re-watching Blade Runner ( my absolute favorite film ), l decided to give fiction a chance and first listened to Phillip K. Dicks Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ( essential for all Blade Runner fans and highly recommended ), followed by this fantastic book. I look forward to listening to this again. I will also be listening to the other two books in Gibson's Sprawl trilogy. The narration on this is perfect for the story. Nice work Jason Flemyng!

Confusing and jumps around too much for audiobook

Great sci-fi but the writing style jumps around between "realities" and characters so often you loose the thread way too often.
Probably better as physical book where you can recap or take it in at your own pace.

Difficult book to get through but good atmosphere

The story: I loved the cyberpunk setting, the grimy atmosphere is brilliant but I frequently found myself confused and struggling to follow that's going on. There are tons of things happening and you're presented with dermadisks here and simstims there and the book does not hold your hand very much in terms of explaining the plot. I was almost tempted to give the story three stars but I'm upgrading it to a four because I guess being dumped into a sci-fi world and left to figure it out yourself is part of the experience. Also, I bet I would get more out of it if I were to do a re-listen sometime down the line.

The narration: The narrator did an ok job, however I would have liked more variety in between the different characters. Sometimes I lost track of which character was speaking which of course might be just me and my attention span's problem. I found the narrator a little boring and dull to listen to. Also, a few times throughout the book it sounds like certain words have been overdubbed. I have no clue why that's necessary but it was distracting the few times it happened.

Good AB

The voice acting was amazing.
But for some reason, found myself relistening the same chapter over and over again, even decide to go a few chapters to re read from the novle.

Good story, bad narrator

The narrator did a bad job which caused the story to be really hard to follow.

Unsuitable Audio

The audio may be unsuitable for commuters or people that can't listen to the book in complete silence.
The narrator tends to mumble a lot which is a great artistic choice and adds to the neon noir atmosphere of the book. The problem is that if you are listening to this book in any other setting than that of a quiet room you will miss most of it. If you commute on a train or in a car for example, this will be very hard to listen to.

I lost track of the story many times and I finally gave up at the 2 hour mark. Maybe I will pick up this title in the future (in print so that I can enjoy it in a quiet room).

Unfinisheable

Boring narrative. Plain. Badly equalized. Slow story. Perhaps with a better narrator it would be more enjoyable

Hard to follow

The book is a little bit confusing to read, but the audiobook is incomprehensible, the narrator is pretty good tho. I think I will get back to reading the book, couldn’t finish the audiobook.