Teaser

Cyberspace, body augmentation, spaceflight. Technology has wrought many changes on the world, but one thing that remains the same is human fallibility. There is still greed, still violence, and still crime . . .

Review

Some books leave a legacy that shapes the genre. Frank Herbert’s Dune, for example, fundamentally rewrote the expectations of space opera. Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers set a new standard for military SF. These books cast a long shadow across the science fiction that follows in their footsteps. William Gibson’s Neuromancer is one such book. Without it, we would still have cyberpunk, but it would be a markedly different genre.

I’ll be upfront, and admit that I don’t particularly care for cyberpunk. I enjoyed the first Matrix film, and the Deus Ex computer game series is a favourite of mine, but as a whole, cyberpunk fails to thrill me. It’s all very stylised, very edgy, and maybe comes across as too try-hard. The technology employed is curiously analogue for the future it projects, and the fetishisation of Japanese culture is startlingly prevalent. Thus, properties such as Altered Carbon and Cyberpunk 2077 feel as though they’re evoking an outdated view of the future. Which makes sense, because what they’re doing is putting a new spin on an old idea. William Gibson’s idea.

Neuromancer deserves its place as a cornerstone of cyberpunk. Even forty years later, its fingerprints are all over the genre. The problem I have is that the genre it represents is a mixed bag at best, and Neuromancer is filled to the gills with the genre’s worst excesses. I don’t have a problem with a book doing things for shock value. Shock, like any other reaction, is perfectly valid for a book to create in the reader. Yet Neuromancer is a chain of shocks. One after another, until there is nothing else. Like jump scares in a horror film, they quickly lose impact.

The cyber aspects of the novel are its strength. It’s incredibly easy to draw lines from Gibson’s imagination to every cyberpunk novel that followed. Virtual realities. Body modification. Computer viruses. It’s all here. What drags the book down is the punk. Like so much of the musical punk genre, Neuromancer is so focused on breaking the mould and rebelling, it forgets to create anything interesting amid the ruins. So it is that we have a deluge of sex, drugs, and violent rock and roll. All thrown at the page with nothing sticking in the imagination. It is, as a far greater writer once said, sound and fury, signifying nothing.

This would have been a much tougher read to finish were it not for the audiobook. There are a few versions out there, but the Jason Flemyng edition is the version I recommend if you’re Neuromancer-inclined. UK science fction fans might recognise Flemyng from time-travel drama Primeval, which is where I first knew of him, but he crops up in supporting roles all over the place. This is hardly surprising, as his versatility is on full display in Neuromancer. Every character has a unique voice, and the narration is far clearer than the words alone would lead you think.

Neuromancer was a buddy read of this year’s #SciFiMonth, and having people to bounce around discussion with made the listening experience all the better. Especially with a book as historically significant as this one. Ultimately, I do place Neuromancer alongside Dune. A book that is better for what it inspired than for what it is in its own terms.

Audio Stats

• Narrated by Jason Flemyng
• Sprawl Trilogy #1
• First Published 1984
• Runtime 8hrs 32 mins