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/lit/ - Literature

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10487234 No.10487234 [Reply] [Original]

So, is this book 'worth reading' in 2018? I mean, I never even tried, and I'm interested, but I suspect that it deals in a lot of subjects that were totally cutting edge and futuristic at the time of publication, but now are probably much less impressive or even outdated (hackers, computer networks and such). I fear it would be like being in a post-Earth era in the year 3300 and reading sci-fi about trips to Mars. I guess it can also have its charm, right?
Opinions?

>> No.10487271

>>10487234
It's never been more relevant. It's not flying cars and Star Wars. It's about artificial intelligence, computer-brain interfaces, mind-altering drugs, decadent aristocrats living in a gilded bubble, hyper-capitalism...

The only thing dated about it is its dark and edgy Gen X attitude.

>> No.10487280

>reading scifi only to predict the future
tsk tsk tsk...

>> No.10487469

>>10487271
ok thanks. I'll put it in my soon-to-read list then.

>> No.10488909

>>10487469
If you're not in an amphetamine fueled psychosis by act 3 you're never gonna make it

best bet's to start neuromancer on day 2 of a dexamph binge and just hit it all in one go

>> No.10489694

>>10487234
it's still a pretty good treatment of how to represent an AI that is superior in intelligence to humanity and, presumably, the author.

i find it more entertaining than Gibson's later books. like the one that was about stealing the pattern for a pair of pants.

>> No.10491538

literally unreadable

>> No.10492296

>>10491538
so, you couldn't read it? oh well, there's still harry potter. you still have that.

Interview in Virus#23
Cyberpunk Influences:

William Gibson: (back to the list) Alfred Bester, yeah. Bester I'll go for. [William Burroughs'] Naked Lunch, yes. Philip K. Dick, though, had almost no influence.

Tom Maddox: Right, you've really never much really read...

William Gibson: I never really read Dick because I read Pynchon. You don't need Dick if you've read Pynchon. I mean Dick was the guy who couldn't quite do it.

Tom Maddox: Ah, I think that's different, but you haven't read Dick, Bill (laughs).

>> No.10492346

>>10492296
kek
love Dick and Pynchon. Someone in some other thread was saying no one compared the two, but I've been seeing the comparisons everywhere. Makes sense to me.

>> No.10492815

>>10492296
>William Gibson: I never really read Dick because I read Pynchon.

Interesting in another quote he said he never read Dick because he read Ballard, which seems like a better fit.

>> No.10493176
File: 87 KB, 710x443, 3c24922d4d7c03d76eed1249d16f7c06d9be6fcf98d6c90acaa2e96e35ad7914.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
10493176

>>10488909
I read it on a dim midnight train to Chicago on a few mgs of adderall. The train was freezing and my brother and I were bundled in whatever mismatched clothes we'd packed. I was wearing a black cowlneck shirt under another two flannels, a denim fishing hat, and a pair of adidas soccer pants. We were surrounded by several Amish families and a few tourists, some junkies and one or two outright weirdos. It was like a refrigeration car.
I think I got the optimal Neuromancer reading experience.

>>10492296
>[William Burroughs'] Naked Lunch, yes.
I knew it! I saw some direct (maybe unintended) references: the mention of an eel's ass (the anus amputates spontaneously on the migratory route to Sargasso).