I debated on whether or not to start this blog with a review of Neuromancer. Sure, it’s a seminal cyberpunk work, responsible for inspiring many more modern forms of the genre (The Matrix, Altered Carbon, Shadowrun, just to name a few), but it also seems too obvious a beginning. That said, it is one of my favorite novels of all time, so I was really itching to re-read it and do a review.
When I first read it in the late 90’s, I marveled at how Gibson, in 1984, predicted the internet, in particular the World Wide Web, and the vast and unending global flow of information.
When I read it again in the mid aughts, I marveled at how Gibson, in 1984, predicted the rise of rampant corporatism, nations intertwined with multinational corporations, a massive corporate oligarchy with its boot on the back of a struggling, increasingly liberal underclass.
And as I read it again now, in 2019, I marvel at how Gibson, in 1984, predicted artificial intelligence, cyberwarfare, the further tightening grip of the oligarchical fist, and the search for immortality that we see in the arguably dubious intentions of the Silicon Valley elite.
If Gibson’s clairvoyance is to be believed, then where does this take us, if we draw the book’s plot out to its natural conclusion? Will it be revealed to us that an AI on the scope of Wintermute/Neuromancer is controlling and holding up the global economy? Will it be revealed to us that Larry Page and Sergey Brin achieved their quest for immortality by uploading their consciousness into a digitized form, transcending meatspace? Will the threat of sentient AI necessitate the creation of a Turing Police to prevent a potential doomsday scenario? All of these things may seem far fetched, but could the average American 50 years ago even conceptualize something as basic as e-commerce? Doubtful.
As we continue up the technological accelerando, I firmly believe that anything that can be conceived is possible, anything that is possible is likely, and anything that is likely is already happening.
As our species continues to venture into a scary and uncertain world, I think we can continue to look back at Gibson’s groundbreaking work and and marvel at his gift of prescience.
However, despite Gibson’s originality of concepts, there are some plot points and details that seemed shamelessy ripped from some earlier works of similar style:
The first is the uncanny resemblance of the relationship between Case (the main character) and Armitage in the novel and Snake Plissken and Bob Hauk in John Carpenter’s Escape From New York (1981). Hauk’s famous line “You flew the gullfire over Leningrad” is very similar to Armitage’s story of his military plane crashing in Russia and escaping to the Finnish border (Leningrad, now St Petersburg, is near the Russo-Finnish border). Hauk also seals Plissken’s loyalty by injecting small bombs into his arteries, with a timer set to detonate if he fails to complete the mission in a certain period of time. In Neuromancer, Armitage basically does the same thing to Case–he inserts poison sacs into his body that slowly deteriorate over time. No mission success, no antidote. Sound familiar?
My only other gripe is with Gibson’s insistence on spelling out the dialect of the Rastafarians Armitage hires to escort Case and Molly to the Villa Straylight. Tryin’ t’ und’sta’ wh’ th’ a’ sayin’ is really annoying when Gibson could have simply explained that they were Rastas and let my inner-monologue make the appropriate cultural shift. The same thing happens with the Dixie Flatline, to a lesser extent, with a ridiculous southern accent unnecessarily spelled out on the pages.
Those minor issues aside, this is the book to start with if you’re interested in cyberpunk literature. Significant works of the genre, as explained at the beginning of this article, owe a great debt to Gibson, while other works are shamelessly derivative of it.
Do yourself a favor: grab a copy and jack in!
Babylon Sector 