Neuromancer - William Gibson

Neuromancer is more than twenty years old now, a fact that's a bit astonishing. Written by William Gibson, the blurb claims that the novel 'invented' cyberspace and virtual reality. Bold claims indeed (and perhaps not entirely justified in the case of VR), but there's no denying the fundamental impact Neuromancer had on the late twentieth century and beyond. This is the source text for the Matrix, not to mention every other film about computers and hackers that you've seen since the late 80s. It has shaped large swathes of the internet, and it has left a huge muddy footprint across science-fiction literature. Set in an unspecified nearish future, full of cowboys and ...

Let me take you back in time – to 1983. Commodore has just wowed the computer gaming world with the release of its Commodore 64 computer, complete with a tape deck that will have you playing classics such as “Pong” and “Space Invaders” after, oh, about quarter of an hour of loading time. The arcades are buzzing with relatively new games like “Frogger” and “Pacman”. The year before, the term “internet” had been used for the very first time and businesses were just beginning to communicate with each other over primitive connections. The Apple Mac, floppy disks and Windows were still years away from hitting ...

I bought the book originally for a long train journey, some years ago now. It was from one of those station bookshops and was from a limited choice. I figured the book would keep me occupied for the journey and it certainly did. So much so that I had to buy the rest of the series later in the week. I was utterly hooked from the first chapter until the third book. More-over, I re-read the entire series every year. The awards and praise given to Gibson for this book make for a long and impressive list. The reason, I believe, is that he creates a world that is at once far removed from our own experience and yet is simultaneously and chillingly believable. ...