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The Technology of Neuromancer After 25 Years
William Gibson's Neuromancer was first published 25 years ago. Dr_Ken writes with an excerpt from an article at MacWorld that delves into the current state of some of the technology that drives the book: "'Neuromancer is important because of its astounding predictive power. Gibson's core idea in the novel is the direct integration of man and computer, with all the possibilities (and horrors) that such a union entails. The book eventually sold more than 160 million copies, but bringing the book to popular attention took a long time and a lot of word-of-mouth. The sci-fi community, however, was acutely aware of the novel's importance when it came out: Neuromancer ran the table on sci-fi's big three awards in 1984, winning the Hugo Award, the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award, and the Nebula Award.'"
A reality check for all the litcritty and ther types who like to suggest that Gibson somehow created the web in this novel: Tim Berners-Lee and CERN created it.
The much-quoted descriptions of "cyberspace" in this oddly soporific novel may or may not be interesting but they're hardly prescient. Cyberspace is described as "unthinkable", but here we are thinking about it. There are "huge, shining, cities of data", uh, where exactly? Et cetera, but let's not labor the point.
For me, Neuromancer worked well as a sleeping pill; your dosage may vary.