Imagine a world where computer hackers can directly link their consciousness to the Internet through wires. Henry Case is such a hacker, or used to be. Case, addicted to cocaine and uppers, embezzled money from his criminal employers to finance his addiction. They repaid him by damaging his nervous system so he could never hack again. On the brink of suicide, Case is made an offer too good to refuse: a benefactor will pay to have his nervous system repaired through radical surgery if, in return, Case pulls off a very dangerous and illegal assignment. He can't even begin to suspect the trouble he is about to experience.
Gibson's tale is told in the best noir fiction style, but with a twist. The seedy hotels and the even seedier characters that inhabit them exist in an indeterminate future of bionic implants and orbiting space colonies. The action takes place in the dark urban underbellies of Japan and America and moves, seemingly naturally, to outer space and back again. There is death, deception and double-crosses as the plot unfolds and mysteries are revealed.
Some novels are of their time, some are timeless. Neuromancer belongs to the former category. It was new and startling when it appeared in 1984, winning both the Hugo and Nebula awards for that year. In many ways it was visionary, anticipating the rise of the Internet and popularising the term 'cyberspace'. Thirty years on, it seems quite dated. The Internet and cyberspace are old hat now, and it is hard for the 21st century reader to get excited about the idea of an extra 3MBs of RAM (back in the 80s we would have been selling our grannies for that).
Neuromancer can be enjoyed in its own right as an action thriller, and quite a solid and engaging one at that. It is certainly an interesting historical document in the annals of speculative fiction.
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