the problem with the sprawl trilogy, is once i’ve read it, i read it again. this book will always be in the process of being consumed by me.. again and again

Yeah, I’m finally coming clean about all the books I just haven’t been able to finish. :-) I’ve actually gotten almost all the way through Neuromancer, but I think making it to the last page just isn’t going to happen. I’ve read and loved other cyberpunk novels, but I don’t know what it is about this—I think it’s the lack of humor that eventually made it it impenetrable for me. I’m so used to experiencing noir as ironic that I don’t know how to deal with it when it’s serious. Or something.

Not only for the foundation it laid for much of the scifi that followed, but also for the aesthetics of Gibson’s prose, which is alternately turgid (but in an effective way) and pointedly simple. Gibson is great because, at least in this novel, he avoids the common pitfall of vapid characters floating in lush and detailed environs. On top of the literary merits of the book, it is so entwined culturally with our modern technological era that it could be read as a reference work as well as a story.

A highly suggested read.

This is, in my opinion, the best of Gibson’s cyberpunk novels.