Neuromancer

Hello out there readers, and thanks for sticking with me as I wrap-up the final few books of My Year of Living (Actually Reading) Fiction. The last fiction work on my list was the epic cyberpunk novel Neuromancer by William Gibson. While I gained some major writing lessons from this epic volume, I wanted to first state emphatically that this was the best Science Fiction book I have ever read. Gibson’s monumental work was a phenomenal mix of futuristic vision and cyber-dread. The fact that he could so clearly see where we were headed as a species, even with the technology available in the mid-Eighties, is astronomical and a great example of how to use the genre to speak about the world. To that end, let’s delve into two important writing lessons I gained from this book.

1. Use of description. This is paramount to a story like this, since the author is literally making things up as he’s writing. As is well known by now, Gibson coined the terms “cyberspace” and “the matrix” during his writing career, both which are in wide use today. Beyond that, I was rapt with attention as he described the various settings and technologies the characters use in the story - from the gigantic metropolitan “sprawl” making up most of the planet to the incredible space station Freeside - both for how detailed he gets but also in imagining how these things may be shaping up in our own lifetimes. And that brings me to arguably the more important aspect of this book…
2. Use of the novel to speak about the future of technology. Of the many crucial elements of this novel, I’d say this tops the list. Gibson was miles ahead of his contemporaries in envisioning the future as a dark world inhabited by faceless, endless corporations that use the wiles of cyberspace to exist forever. But that’s just one part of it: Gibson also conceived of what we now know as the Internet as a place that would be interacted with on the level of consciousness. Case, the main character and hacker, “jacks into” the world of cyberspace and literally sees the information within as made up of buildings and systems. Gibson was also way ahead of the curb when it comes to thinking about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how that type of technology could become dangerous. The AIs the characters are hunting within the story prove themselves to be merciless in several ways, including outright murder and the use of personalities from the characters’ lives (some of whom are dead) to speak to them through the web. I couldn’t help but think about the prevalence of warnings about AI in the media over the last few years as I read this book. I took away a lot of similar lessons reading Bradbury last year, but I would say that Gibson’s view of our future is equally as dark, if in different ways.

You will probably notice that I haven’t given much away in terms of the plot of this novel. That’s because I hope those of you out there interested in the genre will give this one a read. It’s that essential of a book, and even if you’re not into Sci Fi I would highly recommend this book as it has much to teach about the nature of writing, not only about the future but of who or what might exist in that future.

And with that, there’s just one more book to go from my previous list: Bird by Bird, Anne Lamont’s well-regarded work on writing fiction. I hope to post an essay on it by the end of this month, and then it’s onto Another Year of Fiction (AYOF?!). Stay tuned, and thanks for reading!