Neuromancer

De: William Gibson

Narrado por: Robertson Dean

SOON TO BE AN APPLETV+ SERIES

Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards, Neuromancer is a science fiction masterpiece—a classic that ranks as one of the twentieth century’s most potent visions of the future.

Case was the sharpest data-thief in the matrix—until he crossed the wrong people and they crippled his nervous system, banishing him from cyberspace. Now a mysterious new employer has recruited him for a last-chance run at an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, a mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case is ready for the adventure that upped the ante on an entire genre of fiction.

Neuromancer was the first fully-realized glimpse of humankind’s digital future—a shocking vision that has challenged our assumptions about technology and ourselves, reinvented the way we speak and think, and forever altered the landscape of our imaginations.

Reseñas de la Crítica

“One of the coolest gifts you can get for your favorite sci-fi geek . . . You’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but these new Penguin Galaxy hardcovers make it really hard.” —Gizmodo

“Serious science fiction and fantasy readers cannot resist the classics. . . . That’s what makes the Penguin Galaxy series so appealing. . . . Each of the novels here has earned their place in the halls of literary history. . . . Their small form factor and minimalist covers call out to readers and make them fun to read all over again.” —Kirkus Reviews

“The quintessence of cyberpunk . . . An amazing virtuoso performance.” —The Washington Post

“[Gibson] invented the future with Neuromancer.” —Entertainment Weekly

“Unforgettable . . . The richness of Gibson’s world is incredible.” —Chicago Sun-Times

“Freshly imagined, compellingly detailed, and chilling in its implications.” —The New York Times

5 stars for coolness, 3 stars for give-a-heckness

This is a book that, if you are approaching it for the first time, suffers from having been imitated so much that it seems derivative of its own successors. Neuromancer was genre-defining and it blew a million little geeky minds back in the day, but reading it in 2012, I failed to be enthralled by the goshwow factor. 'Cyberspace' is mainstream now, and stripped away of the novelty that made fans back in 1984 say "This is so freaking cool!" the book is kind of a techy-tech high concept thrill ride with cardboard characters.

So, Case is a 'cyberspace cowboy' who used to "jack in" to the Matrix and go on 'runs' (stealing data from big corporations, governments, etc.) in a near-future where the U.S. has fragmented into tribal/corporate nation-states, but the USSR is still around. (In the foreword to this edition, Gibson comments on his own prescience or lack thereof, acknowledging also all the other things he didn't get right which will strike modern readers, like the existence of payphones and the lack of cell phones.) He tried to steal from one of his employers, and in retaliation they poisoned him in a way that left him unable to jack into the matrix again. Now he's a down-and-outer in Chiba City (yes, there's a taste of 80s "Japan is so cool!" weeabooism here) when he gets recruited for a job by a mysterious guy named Armitage who says he can fix him up. Case also meets Molly, a "razor girl" street samurai. With the rest of his motley crew, Case goes on an adventure that takes him into high orbit to the playground of the super-rich. There are futuristic ninjas, artificial intelligences, and your basic cyberpunk RPG adventure. Again, not really fair to dismiss it like that, because this book invented cyberpunk RPGing and cyberpunk everything else, but unless you really love all things cyberpunk and/or Gibson, you may find, as I did, that Neuromancer just doesn't quite live up to the hype it earned in 1984 with its Hugo and Nebula awards.

William Gibson's writing is superbly clever and descriptive, and boy does he spin ideas. But this is the third book of his I've read, and while I appreciate his craft on a technical level, his stories just don't do much for me. I don't care about his characters.

For SF fans, this may be a good book to read to be familiar with, you know, the "seminal" works of the genre, but I just don't feel compelled to go read the rest of the Sprawl trilogy.

Excellent ideas. Poor execution

After listening to this audiobook it's obvious that Neuromancer has been a source of inspiration to many other creatives in the field. Movies like the Matrix and also every cyberpunk anime in existence have borrowed heavily from this book. If you like those works this is required listening.

However, for all of it's landmark ideas, this book seems poorly written. I haven't read the book so perhaps its just the narration. Of the 30 some audiobooks I have listened to so far, this has by far been the most jarring, disjointed and hard to follow of them all. If you're not into the genre, or the concepts it spawned, I would avoid it.

Not quite sure about this one

This was the genesis of the "Cyberpunk" sub-genre of Sci-Fi, so I'm told. Well, to me this book was reminiscent of Philip K. Dick's more mediocre stuff. Think "Martian Time Slip" or "Valis", It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either. As far as cyberpunk is concerned, the sub-genre has taken off and is world's beyond this stuff. Most recently "Ready Player One" has taken kiddie-cyberpunk to a whole new level. For hardcore cyberpunk no one can top Neal Stephenson and "Snow Crash", or some of that dudes other stuff. But considering where this book originated from and when it was written, it deserves credit for being the forerunner of the cyberpunk.

Now the reader is another matter. The book probably would have been a whole lot better with another narrator. This guy was not very good, and I think he kind of ruined it.

Good book, boring narrator

The story was a little hard to get into mainly because the narration between dialogue sounds like Ben Stein narrating it.

Hard to follow in audio

Suggest you review a synopsis periodically while reading. But an awesome story, and clearly an incredible place in sci fi history.