I read the first few pages of William Gibson's Neuromancer today. I am always astounded when I come across an old book that predicted the present well. As soon as computers started talking to each other, a few books pushed the experience as far as it will go. Snow Crash (1992) did it, focusing on the social aspects of the 'metaverse'. Ender's Game (1985) did it, calling it 'the nets'. Two children take on identity-less roles and debate politics in public forums, eventually becoming the faceless voices of their age.
Neuromancer was published in 1984. For comparison, AOL for DOS came out in 1991. Netscape Navigator, 1994.
The term 'cyberspace' was coined here. It's the start of the cyberpunk genre, and from what I can tell also the start of modern life. Perhaps not the best book to be reading while adding to and revising my own scifi opus, what with the inherent comparison between this giant of the genre and my paltry puppet-show, but hey.
Look on my posts, ye mighty, and despair.
1 comment:
Ooooh! Great stuff!
(Do you even notice if I comment on something far back?)
Oddly enough, I was thinking about Neuromancer on Sunday and realized I still have not read Snow Crash. I'll need to fix that this summer. I also need to read the rest of the Ender series. (Although I know they are very different from the first.)
Have you ever played System Shock on PC? Awesomely creepy cyberpunk, that is. There's also a fun Shadowrun game for SNES, but I don't really like magic mixed with my cyberpunk.
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