Book Review: Neuromancer by William Gibson

Intro

Neuromancer is a science fiction novel written by William Gibson in 1984. It takes place in a future cyberpunk genre. In the novel, the author imagines a digital environment just like the widely known Matrix, called cyberspace; where people casually get in and out of, and in the main character’s case, commit crimes. Some people have lost, what we may call, their ‘humanity’ as they have integrated advanced mechanical and electronic parts into their bodies. In the case of the main character, he also had a body part that allowed him to enter the cyberspace, so that he could steal data from huge companies. However, he lost that part, and some functionality of his brain when he tried to steal from the company he was working for, but now he might have a chance to get back into his old job...

The Language

Personally, I believe I can understand 90% of what someone is saying, or someone is trying to say in a paper, book, novel etc. unless the person uses older English terms, slang, or poor grammar to reflect the characteristics of someone with my current English level. William Gibson used these techniques to present the background, location, time, and characteristics of the characters in his novel; making it difficult to understand for someone like me who does not have experience with 1984’s English, and slang. If someone as young as me, with the same level of English tries to read this novel, they will have to look up half of the sentences, and quarter of the words used in this novel. It is not an easy to read novel at all.

The Story

I will try not to give any spoilers while commenting on the story as there might be people who want to read or reading this novel.
The story is very fascinating for someone who loves science fiction, technology, cyberpunk, and The Matrix series. It had more than what I wanted in it, which is great; but understanding, and putting pieces of it together was difficult. I needed to keep a lot of background information, characters, and flashbacks in mind starting from the first chapter. This made things complicated, I had to go back and read previous chapters again and again just to understand what was happening in the current chapter.

Overall Impressions

Although the story is complicated, the language is old and hard to understand, my overall impression on this novel is positive, not great, but positive. Some people may hate this novel while reading it, but after completing, and understanding the story, you realize how lively, interesting, and enjoyable the novel was.

3/5 Stars