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Neuromancer (SF) - William Gibson *****

Sometimes it's good to revisit the classics - in this case not H. G. Wells or Asimov, say, but the archetypal cyberpunk novel. William Gibson did not invent the genre, but this 1984 contribution is standout. (Interesting side note: Gibson makes use of the term 'matrix' for an immersive virtual reality world, admittedly 8 years after it was used on Dr Who, but well ahead of the movie.)

Even the opening line has a certain fame. There are some such lines that resonate whether for their quality, such as Austen's 'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife,' or for different reasons with 'It was a dark and stormy night,' made infamous by Edward Bulwer-Lytton and beloved by Snoopy. Neuromancer gives us an opener that immediately establishes that cyberpunk feel: 'The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel.'

The central character Case is a former super-hacker who lost his ability to plug into the matrix after an attempt to rip off some criminals. Now he has a chance to get back in by taking part in a complex mission, run by a mysterious high roller, and assisted by Molly, effectively an enhanced bodyguard. In the best cyberpunk tradition it is fast, sometimes confusing and dark, with drug misuse, murders and more. The final section particularly is a real page turner.

One thing that's fascinating when reading this now is the technology. Of course Gibson gets things wrong - he uses a lot of brand names, many of which have all-but disappeared. What's particularly striking is that from his early 1980s perspective it looked as if Japanese manufacturers would dominate the personal computing market where in reality it was American companies. A big AI plays a major role in the story - in a sense this is nothing new - we saw intelligent computers in 1950s novels - but because Gibson's orientation is software-based, and he calls them AIs, it feels very modern.

My only real criticism is that the excursions into the matrix are sometimes hard to follow - we're not talking a Snowcrash style metaverse, but something more like the world of Tron, where software interactions are presented as 3D visual interpretations. This is particularly dramatic when Case uses a virus, which appears in the matrix to physically attack its target. But overall it lacks any narrative drive. Having said that there are also examples where there is more of a virtual reality environment, controlled by an AI. Even this, though, does slow the real world plot down. Nonetheless, it is still highly impressive.

It's a book with driving intensity, littered with almost comprehensible jargon you have to pick up as you go along. The aesthetic particularly shaped, for instance, the look of the movie Blade Runner. And it's astonishing to think it was written over 40 years ago.

If you are an SF fan and haven't read it, it's time you did.

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