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Depends on your criteria, I guess. As a poetic fantasy, they are superb. But it's maddening how little sense they make as a way to navigate computer networks. (

Depends on your criteria, I guess. As a poetic fantasy, they are superb. But it's maddening how little sense they make as a way to navigate computer networks. (Why would you visualize servers and executing code in a 3D space that you have to physically navigate, when you could just... execute a command. Gibson's genius was recognizing that real computer hacking wasn't cinematic, and making up his own system.) I still love his vision.

narism 5y ago
I think that’s mostly because he didn’t know anything about computers when he wrote it :) “I was actually able to write Neuromancer because I didn’t know anything about computers,” he says. “I knew literally nothing. What I did was deconstruct the poetics of the language of people who were already working in the field. I’d stand in the hotel bar at the Seattle science fiction convention listening to these guys who were the first computer programmers I ever saw talk about their work. I had no idea what they were talking about, but that was the first time that I ever heard the word ‘interface’ used as a verb. And I swooned. Wow, that’s a verb. Seriously, poetically that was wonderful. “So I was listening to it as an English honours student. I would take it back out, deconstruct it poetically, and build a world from those bricks. Consequently there are other things in Neuromancer that make no sense. When the going gets really tough in cyberspace, what does Case do? He sends out for a modem. He does! He says: ‘Get me a modem! I’m in deep shit!’ I didn’t know what one was, but I had just heard the word. And I thought: man, it’s sexy.” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/11/william-gibson-i-was-losing-a-sense-of-how-weird-the-real-world-was https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/11/william-gibson... His other inspiration for cyberspace is presciently metaverse-like: The idea came to him from watching kids playing arcade games – "it seemed to me that what they wanted was to be inside the games, within the notional space of the machine" – and an advertisement at a bus stop for Apple computers. "Everyone is going to have one of these, I thought, and everyone is going to want to live inside them. And somehow I knew that the notional space behind all of the computer screens would be one single universe." https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/22/william-gibson-beyond-cyberspace https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/22/william-gibson...
vidarh 5y ago
It makes no sense now, but there were endless experiments with physical metaphors for interacting with computers. At the time it was just not settled that this was not right around the corner and workable.
pmoriarty 5y ago
"As a poetic fantasy, they are superb. But it's maddening how little sense they make as a way to navigate computer networks." Neuromancer is not supposed to be a manual on navigating real-life computer networks. It's science fiction. Readers are expected to suspend disbelief.

narism 5y ago

I think that’s mostly because he didn’t know anything about computers when he wrote it :) “I was actually able to write Neuromancer because I didn’t know anything about computers,” he says. “I knew literally nothing. What I did was deconstruct the poetics of the language of people who were already working in the field. I’d stand in the hotel bar at the Seattle science fiction convention listening to these guys who were the first computer programmers I ever saw talk about their work. I had no idea what they were talking about, but that was the first time that I ever heard the word ‘interface’ used as a verb. And I swooned. Wow, that’s a verb. Seriously, poetically that was wonderful. “So I was listening to it as an English honours student. I would take it back out, deconstruct it poetically, and build a world from those bricks. Consequently there are other things in Neuromancer that make no sense. When the going gets really tough in cyberspace, what does Case do? He sends out for a modem. He does! He says: ‘Get me a modem! I’m in deep shit!’ I didn’t know what one was, but I had just heard the word. And I thought: man, it’s sexy.” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/11/william-gibson-i-was-losing-a-sense-of-how-weird-the-real-world-was https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/11/william-gibson... His other inspiration for cyberspace is presciently metaverse-like: The idea came to him from watching kids playing arcade games – "it seemed to me that what they wanted was to be inside the games, within the notional space of the machine" – and an advertisement at a bus stop for Apple computers. "Everyone is going to have one of these, I thought, and everyone is going to want to live inside them. And somehow I knew that the notional space behind all of the computer screens would be one single universe." https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/22/william-gibson-beyond-cyberspace https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/22/william-gibson...

vidarh 5y ago

It makes no sense now, but there were endless experiments with physical metaphors for interacting with computers. At the time it was just not settled that this was not right around the corner and workable.

pmoriarty 5y ago

"As a poetic fantasy, they are superb. But it's maddening how little sense they make as a way to navigate computer networks." Neuromancer is not supposed to be a manual on navigating real-life computer networks. It's science fiction. Readers are expected to suspend disbelief.