Neuromancer by William Gibson Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Neuromancer
Book Review: An excruciating read
Summary: 1 Stars
William Gibson has the worst writing style I've ever seen. Basically, he says some word you don't understand, and only after a few paragraphs or pages, does the meaning of that word become apparent. He also states ideas in the fewest possible words, and the reader is supposed to discern what is meant. Generally, it's not too difficult to understand it when he writes like that, but it's an incredibly ugly style.Book Review: Awful.
Summary: 1 Stars
If you want to know how seriously this book should be taken, you have only to look at the kind of people who give it rave reviews. I'm afraid that an endless series of techno-jargon does not a novel make, and the fact that the jargon is never explained confirms the book's pretentiousness. When a new item of tech-terminology is introduced and not elaborated on, the reader can only conclude either that the author is being lazy or that he is hoping a simple-minded readership will assume that he knows better than them. The whole novel is suffused with the sensation of the author chancing his arm.Neuromancer is an uninteresting, unimaginative and ultimately daft book whose inexplicable popularity is just further evidence that the tendency to mistake opacity for profundity is becoming as common in fiction as it is in literary criticism. Truly dreadful.
Book Review: Beautiful
Summary: 5 Stars
When I first read it, it went over my head. I read it again and... it's strange, but I can't think of how to describe it without using either the most ridiculous superlatives or the most over-the-top images and words (icy, crystalline, searing, brilliant, stunning, wonderful).It's not an easy novel to get into. But it is so worth the journey. The storyline is not as brilliant as general concensus would have it, but it's the images that stay in your mind. The words are convoluted, but perfect.
Book Review: Before "The Matrix", there was... Neuromancer
Summary: 5 Stars
I am not an expert on Science Fiction. I cannot tell you who started the cyberpunk genre, or just how long such thoughts about the ultimate convergence of man and machine have been around.However, I can tell you that William Gibson, in "Neuromancer", is the Picasso of his age: taking a known form of literature, twisting it about, and arriving at a wholly new art form. Neuromancer is slick writing and great story telling in a world heretofore not imagined (or, perhaps, imagined like this).
I've read other Gibson work -- Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Virtual Light, The Difference Engine, and his short stories (Johnny Mnemonic and Fragments of a Hologram Rose). I regret to inform you none of them approaches Neuromancer.
Read this one and put it on your shelf. You will be attracted time and time again to reopen it to your favorite passages and relive the imagery. Gibson paints an unforgettable picture.
Book Review: Before there was the Web, there was Neuromancer.
Summary: 5 Stars
Considering that William Gibson composed Neuromancer on a typewriter and published it in 1984, the convincing nature of the novel's world still amazes me. Gibson did coin the term "cyberspace," but in Neuromancer he paints a gritty and bleak capitalist future that has proved more accurate than his computer landscape--but only because technology hasn't caught up with his vision. He couldn't very well have depicted characters drumming their fingers in irritation waiting for their page to load! Neuromancer is the perfect introduction to Gibson's works and a helluva whirlwind tour through the next century