SciFi and Fantasy eBook Club discussion

I finished the book last night. It's been many years since I've read it and I was amazed at how well it holds up. It's hard to believe it was published in 1984. In 1984, I was a senior in college and my roommate, an accounting major, was using punch cards to write programs. She quizzed me one day and laughed because I had no idea what the difference was between hardware and software. Wow. The world is such a different place and yet the book feels to me like it could have been written today.

I gave it 4 stars. There were times I didn't know what the heck was going on and after such a great build up I thought the ending seemed very abrupt.

I really enjoyed revisiting this book.

Each time I read this book, it is like the first time. It is just that damn good.

What technology that is part of Case's world do you want most?

I always wanted Molly's eyes. And claws.

I would love to have the see-in-the-dark eyes instead of having to use a flashlight every time I step outside the house to look for rattlesnakes.

Molly is my favorite character. I want to know more about her. Her backstory. I had/have quite the girl-crush on her.

Ok, I just stayed up till 1am to finish this, must mean its good, right? I did like it a lot, even if I had no more than a general idea of what was going on most of the time.

I'm about 75% through it now, and still don't really care much about any of the characters. I was holding up some hope that I might actually like the "Wintermute" AI character, but it seems about as self-centered and nihilistic as everyone else. The writing is fine, helping me to keep plodding along -- but unless the author pulls out a major coup of some sort in the last quarter of the book, I doubt I'll have any particularly fond memories of it.

This book has been on my to-read list for a long time and I took its nomination here as an invite to finally do so.

The book started out very promising. I like the writing a lot. The setting is just awesome and there's a good dynamic of things going on. However, as I progress (currently at 30%) I find myself wondering why I am still reading this. I am not enjoying it much anymore since the shininess wears off. There are some memorable scenes and I am sure there's more to come, but it's not worth the effort anymore.

It is exactly because of what Charles pointed out. The characters are just flat and I stopped caring what will happen about 80 pages ago.

I started on the first short story of Dunk and Egg (George R. Martin) and that confirmed I wasn't tired of reading. I was just tired of reading Neuromancer.

I felt a little lost through the book. The slang can be difficult to keep up with. But you wing it, and get the gist of it, and keep on going.

I did like Molly, but our hero was... eh. The villain was pretty creepy and offers some food for thought as far as his special talent is concerned. I thought the Rastafarian colony was pretty awesome. But it was just bits and pieces I really liked, and the story as a whole I pushed through mostly just to see how it ended.

I think Gibson wanted a hero we might not fall in love with. Someone who is just a guy, with more flaws than perfections. He does have some strengths, but it's just not enough to make me really root for him.

The ending did make me want to know what kind of changes would take place (not spoiling!!), and I wanted to move on to the sequel. I started it and decided to drop it. I've been averaging 3 days to read a book, Neuromancer took me 6 days. 2 days into Count Zero and I'd barely made an impact.

Anyway, I still gave the book 4 stars. I can see how the style might appeal more to some than it did to me. And I do think it's an interesting idea, that Gibson was very innovative and far-seeing. It's a little surprising that this book was published in '84.

I agree that I felt lost at times in the book, not sure what was going on. I think what impressed me most by the book is how new and different it was (when published) as far as the technology goes. I'm remembering reading it way back when and I thought it held up well. But I can see why people wouldn't get into it. I have to say I didn't have any desire to continue the series.

stormhawk wrote: "What technology that is part of Case's world do you want most?

I always wanted Molly's eyes. And claws."

Give me Peter Riveria's crazy hallucination skills.

Finished it last night, and have no idea at this point what rating I want to give it. The writing was generally very good, and some aspects of the plot were quite interesting (especially taken in the context of it being written before there was this thing called the Internet).

However, the characters were generally difficult for me to empathize or sympathize with (perhaps intentionally?), and there were certain stylistic aspects that nagged at me (why does nobody ever just smoke a cigarette -- it's always some specific brand name?).

I suspect it would have made much more of an impact if I'd read it soon after publication versus now, when it has been imitated and used as inspiration by so many others that it no longer feels new and ground-breaking?

Oh well, probably a 3-star rating from me, since I thought it was worth reading, but not one I'd ever consider re-reading.

I forgot about this book. I'll have to revisit.