Neuromancer

This summer, on holiday in France, I found myself doing something I never do : being totally absorbed in an SF-detective story. Even one I read once already, some 20 years ago. Maybe it’s because I read so many boring 19th century literary books these days (which I really like) that William Gibson’s 1984 genre-resetting novel Neuromancer got me so tightly in it’s grip. But more probably it is because it is a mind-blowing and hallucinogenically complex trip you enter right from the first page.

I remember reading it back in the 1990’s and having to start from scratch by midway because I lost the narrative. But I don’t remember it keeping me busy at night thinking about the who’s and what’s and clicking the light back on for just one more chapter.
I guess I just wasn ’t ready for it then. Or maybe I had some stuff messing with my neurotransmitters. I was fascinated nevertheless but had a hard time conceptualizing the matrix and cyberspace and data-spheres. Not so surprising, probably. I had barely begun figuring out my first Atari computer.

The concepts of genetic engineering, bio-electronics, brain-computer interface, data networks, virtual reality and all the stuff that was so excilleratingly futuristic in Neuromancer is today almost still as visionary as it was back in the 1980’s. We have the internet. We’ve seen Johnny Mnemonic and The Matrix. Google ventures into bio-electronics with Ray Kurzweil wandering through the labs and offices. His mind set on creating his father’s ROM-construct, for sure. Graig Venter sequences DNA and manipulates bacteria. Absolutely. New skulls are being 3D-printed. But we’re still a long way from accessing each others sensorium. Not that I’m excactly waiting for such a thing to happen. Having adds trace you on Facebook is bad enough as it is. But still, I wish I could be there, if and when it does happen. Guess I’ll have to go and get informed about cryogenics. Write old Ashpool an email. And maybe send some swing 78’s and a new Victrola up the Gravity Well. Oh, I forget, it's Sci-fi, right?

Makes you wonder what really is going on out there … Poetin and Obama’s minds will probably not be accessible anyway. Donald Trump’s should be a fun ride, though!

No, Neuromancer is not a very easy read. But then again, who said anything should be easy? But the more you work on it the more you’ll get out of it and it will be very rewarding in the end. Even if, I have to confess somewhat shamefully, I’m still not very shure as to the purpose of the whole operation in the Villa Straylight. You know what? I’ll start again! Neuromancer is a rollercoaster joyride all in itself.