NZ political life continues to be ridiculous (media training protip for Hone Harawira: when you are giving an apology, do not issue the opinion that another politician should be shot), global climate change progress continues to flounder in a commons dilemma, the US right wing continues to devour itself, and the Breakers continue to suffer without Kirk Penney. So I don’t have much to say about any of that.
Instead, I get to write a 25-year-anniversary reconsideration of Neuromancer, because I read it by the pool in Thailand. Here’s the review:
Yep, still good, and I understand it much better now.
Not that I read it when it first came out, of course, I was only eight. Neuromancer is about a dude who wants to live in cyberspace, but he got kicked out because he screwed over the wrong person. The first chunk of the book is straight-up Noir, then it switches seamlessly into a Caper story. It seems an odd sort of book to have changed the world; coming back to it, its narrative seems more contained than ever, smaller and more of an inward spiral. But its a smart and pleasing read. It’ll still be in circulation in a hundred years, and William Gibson will no doubt be bemused by that, but why not?
The two 25-anniversary articles to read are these:
Mark Sullivan writes about what it got right (e.g. the web), what it got wrong (e.g. AIs).
Joe McNeilly at GamesRadar gives an interesting overview of the book in its context and its legacy.
And this site is a good hub for more info.