Neuromancer Review

William Gibson's Neuromancer
-A Book Review-

James Glavin
Period F
1.12.00
English

Some people ridicule science fiction. Some people think that it is trivial to fantasize about what the future might hold, arguing that we never really know how everything really turns out. People open science fiction books written long ago, some about the “future” which has now become the past, and laugh at their inaccuracies. Although these books are sometimes very well-written, people tend to believe that since the book’s technological merit is obsolete, so is the writing. Although Neuromancer has yet to be obsolete, it was written a surprisingly long time ago. In 1984, there was no Internet, to speak of. It was a time when the world was still a fairly big place. William Gibson had a vision of what it would become in the future. His vision still remains quite realistic to this day, and enables this book to serve as a gloomy look into the inevitable.

Henry Dorsett Case was a cowboy. Although the term had been reserved for the rugged man in leather boots high atop a steed riding through the country, it was reassigned after the horse became extinct and the country became too crowded with cities. Case was a cyberspace cowboy. He spent his days jacked into neurotransmitters, lived his life in the internet of the future, a vast amount of data represented visually as a virtual world. He was a thief, and worked for bigger thieves, stealing data and selling it. It was an honest living, until an employer damaged his nervous system, making him unable to access the matrix. He wandered aimlessly between bars and alleys, wasting his life away with amphetamines, until another employer offered him a second chance in return for his service. Case got himself into something he should have just as well stayed out of, and was in for one hell of a ride.

This book is extremely visual, with stunning description throughout. Gibson takes as long as he needs to create the future, and from there takes you on an incredible adventure. He experiments with a lot of different concepts, and aids the imagination to create images and settings that one wouldn’t ever create on their own. The accuracy of his vision of the future will probably hold for at least another ten years. His frequent reference to things that actually exist, like drugs, corporations, even a thing so simple as the name of a country, plays a big role in making it seem more real. He certainly did his homework for this one.

Overall, I consider this book required reading for anyone even considering the science fiction genre. It stands out as a defining piece of literature, with an incredibly high entertainment value. The Earth-shaking reality of everything hits home so well in this book that you will come out of it with a totally new perspective. And, well, quite fankly, it will make you hope you don’t live long enough to see what the future holds.