Gibson's early novels are very much under the spell of classic hardboiled detective fiction. He claims to favor Dashiell Hammett while disliking Raymond Chandle

Gibson's early novels are very much under the spell of classic hardboiled detective fiction. He claims to favor Dashiell Hammett while disliking Raymond Chandler, but if you read The Big Sleep and Neuromancer in parallel it's clear Chandler was a significant influence. They have the same strengths (e.g. style) and the same weaknesses (e.g. plotting). > They aren't only inaccessible but actually off putting to anyone but a dedicated reader. Can't really agree with this, but I'm not sure how to respond without sounding like an elitist prick. If someone made the same comment about, say, functional programming languages, wouldn't you say it's not so much a matter of them being inaccessible and off-putting as simply different? And isn't there some value -- a lot of value, actually -- in those differences?