I don’t write sci fi, one of the reasons it’s relaxing to read. Usually. It’s not something I read often, so to me, every sci fi novel is going to sort of resemble Red Mars or something by Bradbury because those are still my favorites.

In the English section of the Dussmann bookstore in Berlin, I came across the yellow SF Masterworks editions and picked up Neuromancer because. . .I don’t know. Maybe the Japanese setting on the cover. Or the pseudo-noir feel of the back cover blurb. A book about a petty hustler and hacker and a “razorgirl” doing a heist for a corporate overlord looked appealing. 

Cyberpunk! I was excited to read one of the origin texts of the genre.

It took me weeks to get through that book because. . .what in the world was I reading? I read a lot, I came to it with an open mind, and I still couldn’t make sense of some of the style choices. This was Willliam Gibson’s debut novel, written in 1984 so it’s okay that I didn’t buy some of the slang (the “jive” struck me as quaint). I’m not into drug use so I wasn’t swept away by all the trippy language or the main character Case’s addiction. I just kept thinking, “you idiot.” Which is actually good, I sort of cared about him ruining himself. I really liked Molly, Case’s assassin girlfriend who was way out of his league – but that’s okay too; male fantasy is a thing. I love noir, and these were clearly noir archetypes at work. The best part about the book for me – besides the 

Blade Runner-like Tokyo setting at the start — was picking up on words and phrases that I don’t think were common in the early 80s (it’s not like I can remember personally), but definitely are now. Cyberspace, microsofts, matrix and others terms felt pretty current, as well as avatar names like Lady3Jane. I recognize this book must have knocked the socks off of anybody reading it at the time it was published. For me, Neuromancer was a bit too messy in various ways, but who am I to judge a novel that won the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick awards? I enjoyed it enough that I’ll be checking out the upcoming Apple tv series at the very least to see the near future setting brought to life.