E.B.'s Reviews > Neuromancer

Wow. What a terrible book.

First, let me just say that I read for entertainment value. Anything else that happens is gravy. That being said- the biggest reason this book is so awful is that Gibson's characters are completely hollow. Gibson makes it up as he goes along. He'll introduce a character, barely describe him and then 10 chapters later toss in another description. As if to say "Oh, yeah did I mention his hands were chainsaws? Yeah, they were totally chainsaws. Cool right?"
The reason this is such a headache is that once your mind's eye has cast the characters, as shallow as they are, all of a sudden there's a new dimension tossed in. He doesn't just do this with characters, he does it with locations as well. Never giving you a chance to really place the characters in a setting. Other than "a dark city street." I mean, Try a little harder Gibson. I'm not a writer, but isn't that a sign of BAD WRITING?

The second reason this book is so bad, is Gibson's writing "style". I hate writing "styles". Stop trying to show off and just tell me a story. The "style" makes Neuromancer a very difficult book to read. I'd read 2 or 3 chapters and literally have no idea what was going on. Gibson will write a whole page with four lines of dialog and the rest of the page will describe absolutely nothing. Reminds me of the Mark Twain quote: "Don't say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream."

Now- for the positives. Gibson clearly just wanted to write a string of action sequences and techno-babel. Being a computer nerd myself, I found all of that interesting. Towards the end the characters actually have dialog with each other and as things come to a head it actually get's entertaining here and there. Another huge plus is that this book is considered the first true Cyberpunk work and has been heavily mined by Hollywood, Anime and pop-culture in general. Coining phrases like Matrix, Cyberspace, etc. For me, this was probably the first book I ever read just to say I read it. I don't regret it, but believe me, I'm glad it's over because I literally forced myself through it. Just wait for the movie. It'll probably make more sense.