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Title:
Neuromancer
Series: The Sprawl #1
Author:
William Gibson
Rating: 0.5 of 5 Stars
Genre:
Cyberpunk
Pages: 251
Words: 84K
Because
this might be seen by more than the usual suspects, I spoil my
reviews. So read at your own risk. But if you’re reading
Neuromancer, you deserve whatever you get. No sympathy from
me. This is a rage fueled hate re-read of this book and I plan on
venting my spleen at John Wick levels, and I have pencils. You have
been warned.
PART
I
Chapter 1 – In which Bookstooge meets some Main
Characters, and Hates them.
Having
read this once before, back in 2011 (2011
Neuromancer Review) I was passably familiar with what I was
getting into. My review back then left a lot to be desired, even by
me, someone who is usually pithy and pointed and rather economical
with my words. However, it bloody well sums up this whole first
chapter to a flipping Tee. Maybe my pithy pointedness was more spot
on than I realized.
We
are introduced to Case, a drug addicted hacker who stole data from
the wrong people (those employing him, dumbass!) and they burnt out
his nervous system so he could never jack into the system (here
called The Matrix. Hmmmmm, sound familiar?) again. Case is 24 and on
such a downward trajectory that he’ll commit suicide by risky job
within a month.
Everyone
who Case knows, or comes into contact with, is as much a junkie and a
loser as himself. We are talking scum of the Earth here. Case’s
dealer is trying to steal from him, his ex-girlfriend lies to him to
steal 3megabytes of RAM (oh, did I laugh out loud at THAT!!!). Case
is so strung out that he can’t function without drugs.
Speaking
of drugs, Gibson for sure was a damned junkie himself at some point.
His use of terminology and slang is way too prolific to have been
learned using a dictionary and thesaurus. I HATE drugs. They destroy
the very essence of a person and leave them a shambling wreck that
only causes pain and ruin to those around them. As far as I’m
concerned, drugs are the physical embodiment of spiritual evil. And
our main character Case has deliberately placed himself within that
web of evil.
Rage
fueled hate read? Oh, game on!
Chapter
2 – In Which Bookstooge meets some other characters
At
chapter’s beginning we meet Case’s new employer, an Ex-Special
Forces military guy and his crazy teched out assassin girl. Who has
Wolverine style fingernails. Case gets his matrix jockey ability
back, has sex with the tech assassin, watches his ex-girlfriend get
whacked by a former employer and is disappointed that his new mods
make drugs of no use to him any more.
Wow,
what a bunch of scumbags killing each other. I wasn’t sad about
that at all. Case proves what a man whore he is and between that and
his former drug use, if he dies I’ll be happy. When you hate the
main character from the get-go, and that hatred only grows in the
second chapter, it just doesn’t bode well for the book as a whole.
Gibson
really throws around a lot of tech terms in this chapter. I don’t
know enough to tell if he was using some real terminology or if it
was just mystical mumbo jumbo garbage. I think it was all complete
bullshit, but then I’m not exactly unbiased about Gibson.
PART
II
Chapter
3 – In Which Bookstooge reads a metric ton of technobabble and
rolls his eyes a lot
I seriously thought of giving up
in this chapter. Chase gets his online mojo back, has a lot of sex
with Molly the ninja/assassin/thingy and finds out that he is
biologically boobytrapped to help him stay loyal to his employer.
Then Gibson throws around even MORE technobabble, to the point where
it didn’t make any sense to me and my mind just skipped over it.
And I didn’t feel like it made one iota of difference to the story.
Chapter
4 – In Which terrorists help our protagonist to steal something
from a library
Booo! Stealing from a library,
booo!!!!!! I don’t care if it’s some super duper secret locked
down online only library, it’s just plain despicable to steal from
one. Even if it’s a digital version of Case’s old mentor who
taught him every cowboy trick he knew (apparently Gibson didn’t
foresee that Brokeback Mountain would be a thing in the future and
that we could make endless jokes about cowboys). While the graphic
sex scene happened earlier in the book, there’s still pornographic
levels of description included. Bad people, worse people, and then
people I don’t know how to describe other than plain and simple
evil, doing bad things, doing worse thing and doing evil things.
Chapter
5 – In Which Bookstooge learns that AI are really pulling the
strings and Case meets the digital version of his old boss
I have such issues with how AI
are used in stories and in popular culture. Digital selves as well.
It all springs from the idea that our minds are self-existing
containers and as long as you scoop all the info-goop, you can dump
that goop somewhere else and still have that mind. I call it the
harddrive fallacy. We are more than just containers for data. There
is a reason every human is unique. Genes, dna, bits of broken
biology, etc. It all comes together to make the person. We are our
minds, our bodies and our wills/emotions/spirits. Take away one and
it changes everything. Plus, the idea that sentience can come out of
non-sentience is so bullshit that how any intelligent person can give
it credence in real life is ridiculous. Most of the time I don’t
mind, because it’s just a plot line like “aliens” or
superheroes. We all know the X-Men aren’t real nor can they be. But
imagine if people actually thought they could be and started
irradiating themselves. And a whole culture lived that way. It would
be madness. And our culture is descending into madness and the
promise of “AI” is just one step down along that path.
Chapter
6 & 7– In Which Bookstooge just gives up.
I’m reading the rest of the
book, but it’s not worth any more commentary than these blasted
1000 words I’ve already given it. Pure trash. Drivel. Garbage.
Filth.
There, that’s three pencils in
Gibson’s eye! I hope it hurts, a lot.
PART
III
Chapter
8 – In which Bookstooge keeps writing
because that’s what I do. I
don’t do drugs, or whore around or kill people. I write. So if I
have to suffer this wretched book, then I’m going to make sure you
suffer as much as I possibly can make you with my words. In fact, you
are simply:
USELESS
LOSER
SCUMBAG
UNLOVABLE
WASTE OF SPACE
INSIGNIFICANT
STUPID
GULLIBLE
FAT
UGLY
STINKY
DIRTY
There, did I manage to hurt your
feelings at all? I hope so. Now you don’t have to read this book
and hurt your brain.
Chapters
9-16 - In Which Bookstooge wishes he was dead
This book is only 250 pages and
it feels like I have spent a veritable eternity here. It’s
horrible, just horrible I tell you! This is the book that simply will
not end. No matter how much time I spend reading this, it just keeps
going! It’s like I’m stuck in some sort of horror themed Dr Who
episode where terrible things are happening just offscreen but the
terror is palpable.
I guess, let me put it this way.
Last month I had a needle stuck in each of my eyes. I would rather do
that again than continuing this. But I am so tough, so macho, so
manly and totally a man’s man that I’m going to cry like a little
baby and keep on reading!
~strikes macho pose
Don’t even think about
questioning my utter hatred of this absolute piece of moldering,
maggot infested tripe. I hate this enough to finish it.
Chapters
17-End – In Which Bookstooge proves that nothing is more implacable
than him.
I finished this. I finished this
disgusting piece of shit and I feel bad. I feel terrible. I feel
terrible that I wasted my time. I feel terrible that a person can
exist whose mind is even capable of writing utter drivel and dreck
like this. There is NO justification for this novel or it’s
influence on Cyberpunk. But it explains why I’ve always hated
cyberpunk. I probably blocked out the details of my previous read but
my subconscious kept the truth just out of focus, but still there.
This is the exact scenario I
imagine when I don’t listen to my gut and a read goes disastrously
wrong. I knew I was going to hate this, based on my original read
from years ago, but I had no idea it would be this bad. I know I
haven’t given you analytical details. But when your eyeballs have
been gouged out and your entrails are sliding out of your sliced up
stomach, will you really tell someone “Oh boy, this really hurts.
Gibson just scooped my eyeballs out, cut my abdomen open and is in
the process of ripping my guts out.” No, you’d be screaming and
clawing and too busy dying horribly. That is my experience with this
book. Melodramatic? Absolutely! Is this is horrible book? Even MORE
absolutely.
I have serious regrets about
re-reading this book. It sucked all the joy out of reading for me for
weeks on end. It has burned out my desire to write reviews and I
don’t know when I’ll recover. But as I view the wreckage that is
my literary self, I can cross my arms in satisfaction, KNOWING that I
was tougher than this book. I beat it. I finished it. AND I BLOODY
WELL WROTE ABOUT EVERY EXCRUCIATING EXPERIENCE. I am scalped, I am
gutted, I am sliced to pieces but I stand here, screaming out into
the internet, I STILL STAND!!!! I am tougher than this book. I am
more determined than Gibson ever could be. I am victorious because I
beat this book to a bloody pulp and it’s not getting up and walking
away from this, while I am.
This was a crucible experience
and now I am on the other side. Let the healing begin.
This post was brought to you by
SciFiMonth2024 and hosted by various individuals. I’ll hold
Bookforager
responsible this time though ;-)
✬☆☆☆☆
From
Wikipedia
Henry Dorsett Case is a low-level hustler in the
dystopian underworld of Chiba City, Japan. Once a
talented computer hacker and "console cowboy",
Case was caught stealing from his employer. As punishment,
Case's central nervous system was damaged, leaving him
unable to access the virtual reality dataspace called
the "matrix". Case is approached by Molly Millions, an
augmented "razorgirl" and mercenary on behalf of
a shadowy US ex-military officer named Armitage, who offers to cure
Case for his services as a hacker. Case agrees, and his nervous
system is repaired, though sacs of poison are placed in his blood
vessels. If Case completes the job, Armitage will have the sacs
removed; if not, they will burst and cripple him again.
Armitage
has Case and Molly steal a ROM module that contains
the saved consciousness of one of Case's mentors, legendary
cyber-cowboy McCoy Pauley.
Case
and Molly discover Armitage's former identity as Colonel Willis
Corto. Corto was a member of "Operation Screaming Fist,"
meant to disrupt Soviet computer systems. As his team attacked a
Soviet computer center, EMP weapons shut down their flight
systems. He and a few survivors escaped over the Finnish border,
but their helicopter was shot down, killing everyone except for
Corto. After months in a hospital, Corto was visited by a US
government official, who returned him to the United States to receive
psychotherapy and reconstructive surgery. After providing what he
came to realize was false testimony, misleading the public and
protecting corrupt military officers, Corto snapped, killed the
official who contacted him, and disappeared into the criminal
underworld, becoming Armitage.
In Istanbul,
the team recruits Peter Riviera, a sociopathic thief and
drug addict. The trail leads Case to Wintermute, an artificial
intelligence created by the Tessier-Ashpool family. The
Tessier-Ashpools spend their time in cryonic preservation
at Freeside, a cylindrical space habitat which functions as
a Las Vegas-style space resort for the wealthy.
Wintermute
reveals itself to Case and explains that it is one half of a
super-AI entity planned by the family. It has been programmed
with a need to merge with its other half, Neuromancer, and has
recruited Armitage and his team since it cannot achieve this goal by
itself. Case is tasked with entering cyberspace to pierce the
software barriers with an icebreaker program. Riviera is to
obtain the password to the lock from Lady 3Jane Marie-France
Tessier-Ashpool, the CEO of the family's corporation.
Armitage's
personality starts to revert to the Corto personality as he relives
Screaming Fist. It is revealed that Wintermute had originally
contacted Corto through a computer during his psychotherapy, creating
his Armitage persona. As Corto breaks through, he is uncontrollable,
and Wintermute ejects him into space.
Riviera
meets Lady 3Jane and tries to stop the mission, helping Lady 3Jane
and Hideo, her ninja bodyguard, capture Molly. Under orders
from Wintermute, Case tracks Molly down. Neuromancer traps Case
within a simulated reality after he enters cyberspace. He
finds the consciousness of Linda Lee, his girlfriend from Chiba City,
who was murdered by one of his underworld contacts. He also meets
Neuromancer, who takes the form of a young boy. Neuromancer tries to
convince Case to remain in the virtual world with Linda, but Case
refuses.
With
Wintermute guiding them, Case goes to confront Lady 3Jane, Riviera,
and Hideo. Riviera tries to kill Case, but Lady 3Jane is sympathetic
towards Case and Molly, and Hideo protects him. Riviera flees, and
Molly explains that he is doomed anyway, as she had spiked his
drugs with a lethal toxin. The team makes it to the computer
terminal. Case enters cyberspace to guide the icebreaker; Lady 3Jane
is induced to give up her password, and the lock opens. Wintermute
unites with Neuromancer, becoming a superconsciousness. The
poison in Case's bloodstream is washed out and he and Molly are
profusely paid, while Pauley's ROM construct is apparently erased at
his own request.
Molly
leaves Case, who finds a new girlfriend and resumes his hacking work.
Wintermute/Neuromancer contacts him, claiming it has become "the
sum total of the works, the whole show" and is looking for
others like itself. Scanning recorded transmissions, the super-AI
finds a transmission from the Alpha Centauri star
system.
While
logged into cyberspace, Case glimpses Neuromancer standing in the
distance with Linda Lee, and himself. He also hears inhuman laughter,
which suggests that Pauley still lives. The sighting implies that
Neuromancer created a copy of Case's consciousness, which now exists
in cyberspace with those of Linda and Pauley.
