Cyberpunk discussion

Just wanted to let you know that Neuromancer is being discussed this month in the SciFi and Fantasy Book Club.

I don't know about the rest of you. But I got maybe 100 pages in and threw the book away. Gibson's prose is too thick for my pea-brain.

Really? He's a minimalist. I don't get thick prose from him at all, if anything too little explanation. But while he does have complicated ideas he wants readers to feel things as much as think about them, IMO, so maybe that's what you were getting.


I find the SF&F book club too... pedestrian for my tastes. I can't get along with people who like books like "His Highnesse, Thee Dragonne", and "Up to My Lips In Elves!" as much as SF.

I agree with you Molly. Anything with Elves makes me nauseous.

Neuromancer was a "first of a kind" and quite wondrous at the time. In retrospect, here is where I am with Gibson:

Neuromacer - 3.5*
Count Zero - 2*
Mona Lisa Overdrive - 4*
Burning Chrome - 4*
Virtual Light - 3.5*
Idoru - 3*
All Tomorrows Parties - 2*
Pattern Recognition - 3*
Spook Country - 3*

Gibson might not be my favorite author, nor did he give me any 5* material. However, without him, we would still be reading Wizards and Star Fleet Captains wearing gold braided uniforms.

As a frame of reference, Neal Asher puts out 4* and 5* books. The Skinner is a 5*+++ book. Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan is a 5*+++ book.

My "stars" for those books:

Neuromacer - 4*
Count Zero - 3*
Mona Lisa Overdrive - 3*
Burning Chrome - 4.5 (mostly on the strength of two stories)*
Virtual Light - 3.5*
Idoru - 4*
All Tomorrows Parties - 2*
Pattern Recognition - 1*
Spook Country - 2*

And I dunno if I agree about what would have been coming out of the presses without Gibson, John Shirley's Eclipse volume 1 came out in 1985, his City Come a Walkin' came out in 1980, a full four years before Neuromancer, Rudy Rucker's Software came out in 1982 and I don't think there IS a cyberpunkier novel than that.

Also Pat Cadigan and Bruce Sterling were already writing, though I think it can easily be said without them Neal Stephenson woulda had nothing.