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Gibson's language is so heavy, it was almost physically hard to read the book as a non-native speaker. Also he was obviously not really into IT (at least when

by 0ld 8y ago

Gibson's language is so heavy, it was almost physically hard to read the book as a non-native speaker. Also he was obviously not really into IT (at least when he wrote the book), which added to the negative perception even more, and left me with very mixed feelings afterwards.

needz 8y ago
The book was released in 1984. Could it be that his descriptions of tech were just true to the times? I imagine his stylistic embellishments were also important in the same way older movies about technology (e.g. Hackers[0]) stylize digital events. [0]: https://youtu.be/Bmz67ErIRa4?t=69 https://youtu.be/Bmz67ErIRa4?t=69
- kasey_junk 8y ago
  It was routinely criticized as not being true to IT when it came out.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - jhayward 8y ago
    Not that I recall, and I read it within months of release. Can you point to some contemporaneous reviews or critiques that do so?
    - kasey_junk 8y ago
      The literary critiques & reviews were hugely positive about Neuromancer, but its a fairly common take down of the book how bad the technology pieces are. Here is an interview with Gibson where he talks about it: https://www.wired.com/2012/09/interview-with-william-gibson/ https://www.wired.com/2012/09/interview-with-william-gibson/ (For the record he talks about it in agreement, he thinks he himself could write a good takedown of the technology).
      - jhayward 8y ago
        Thanks for that interview link. Note that it was almost 30 years after publication. I suppose a critique of "not sufficiently prescient" is supported by it, but "known at the time of publication that it got the IT wrong", which is what I think the GP was saying, isn't.
  - pmoriarty 8y ago
    I was a huge computer geek when the novel came out in 1984. It completely blew my mind. I absolutely loved it. Criticizing it for not being "true to IT" was the furthest thing from my mind. Though I later found out it might not have been quite the first to go there, to me it seemed to herald a paradigm shift in scifi, towards a much grittier, darker future where one could inhabit (or, in a certain sense, commune) with computers. It was kind of like a darker version of Tron, which came out only a couple of years earlier. Sure, it might not have been like using computers in real life, but it was not pretending to be about the current reality. It was scifi. It was about a possible future.
  - eropple 8y ago
    At the time, there were also very large parts of "IT" where it was a compiler error to write code while not wearing a shirt and (blue) tie. Horses for courses, and all that.
Sangermaine 8y ago
You're missing the point focusing on the inaccurate descriptions of tech. The point, and greatest strength, of the book is in how people interact with the tech, and how it shapes society. Gibson has always been very good at articulating how technology shapes society, and the human response to technology, especially how people always find their own, unexpected ways to utilize technology (as in the famous line from his short story "Burning Chrome", "the street finds its own uses for things"). Frankly, an "accurate" description of tech would almost certainly just badly date it (e.g., "an unbelievable 500MB of RAM!")
beat 8y ago
He was inventing a lot of technology that didn't exist back then. I think not understanding computers was a strength of his, not a weakness. Someone more up on how they worked would never have come up with cyberspace, or with Wintermute. He made the usual "artificial intelligence tries to take over the world and exterminate humans" sound really trite. I read an interview with Gibson way back in the 80s that was very telling. He had never touched a computer when he wrote Neuromancer. He wrote it on a mechanical typewriter, because word processors weren't even a thing then. With the money he made from the novel, he felt as a science fiction writer, he should own a computer. So he went and bought an Apple II, state of the art at the time. He took it home and turned it on, and it made whirring, grinding noises, which freaked him out. He had no idea computers should be anything but silent! He opened the case and looked at the disc drive... a Victorian clockwork mechanism of gears, belts, levers, and pulleys. That's like the most Gibson thing ever.

by 0ld 8y ago

needz 8y ago

The book was released in 1984. Could it be that his descriptions of tech were just true to the times? I imagine his stylistic embellishments were also important in the same way older movies about technology (e.g. Hackers[0]) stylize digital events. [0]: https://youtu.be/Bmz67ErIRa4?t=69 https://youtu.be/Bmz67ErIRa4?t=69

kasey_junk 8y ago
It was routinely criticized as not being true to IT when it came out.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- jhayward 8y ago
  Not that I recall, and I read it within months of release. Can you point to some contemporaneous reviews or critiques that do so?
  - kasey_junk 8y ago
    The literary critiques & reviews were hugely positive about Neuromancer, but its a fairly common take down of the book how bad the technology pieces are. Here is an interview with Gibson where he talks about it: https://www.wired.com/2012/09/interview-with-william-gibson/ https://www.wired.com/2012/09/interview-with-william-gibson/ (For the record he talks about it in agreement, he thinks he himself could write a good takedown of the technology).
    - jhayward 8y ago
      Thanks for that interview link. Note that it was almost 30 years after publication. I suppose a critique of "not sufficiently prescient" is supported by it, but "known at the time of publication that it got the IT wrong", which is what I think the GP was saying, isn't.
- pmoriarty 8y ago
  I was a huge computer geek when the novel came out in 1984. It completely blew my mind. I absolutely loved it. Criticizing it for not being "true to IT" was the furthest thing from my mind. Though I later found out it might not have been quite the first to go there, to me it seemed to herald a paradigm shift in scifi, towards a much grittier, darker future where one could inhabit (or, in a certain sense, commune) with computers. It was kind of like a darker version of Tron, which came out only a couple of years earlier. Sure, it might not have been like using computers in real life, but it was not pretending to be about the current reality. It was scifi. It was about a possible future.
- eropple 8y ago
  At the time, there were also very large parts of "IT" where it was a compiler error to write code while not wearing a shirt and (blue) tie. Horses for courses, and all that.

Sangermaine 8y ago

You're missing the point focusing on the inaccurate descriptions of tech. The point, and greatest strength, of the book is in how people interact with the tech, and how it shapes society. Gibson has always been very good at articulating how technology shapes society, and the human response to technology, especially how people always find their own, unexpected ways to utilize technology (as in the famous line from his short story "Burning Chrome", "the street finds its own uses for things"). Frankly, an "accurate" description of tech would almost certainly just badly date it (e.g., "an unbelievable 500MB of RAM!")

beat 8y ago

He was inventing a lot of technology that didn't exist back then. I think not understanding computers was a strength of his, not a weakness. Someone more up on how they worked would never have come up with cyberspace, or with Wintermute. He made the usual "artificial intelligence tries to take over the world and exterminate humans" sound really trite. I read an interview with Gibson way back in the 80s that was very telling. He had never touched a computer when he wrote Neuromancer. He wrote it on a mechanical typewriter, because word processors weren't even a thing then. With the money he made from the novel, he felt as a science fiction writer, he should own a computer. So he went and bought an Apple II, state of the art at the time. He took it home and turned it on, and it made whirring, grinding noises, which freaked him out. He had no idea computers should be anything but silent! He opened the case and looked at the disc drive... a Victorian clockwork mechanism of gears, belts, levers, and pulleys. That's like the most Gibson thing ever.