/lit/ - Literature

>>22656261
I read it, thought the same, kinda liked it despite that.
The later books are less "cluttered" yet they are worse nonenetheless, so yea don't get the others.

I didn't think it was bad, I just thought the pacing was so frantic, I was rarely sure if I had overread some key exposition or he meant for me to infer it from the dialogue. I can appreciate how influential it was to cyberpunk as a genre. Reading it, I was like "Wow! Literally all of the tropes are here, but this was published before it was cliche!"

>>22656261
Science fiction is pretty shit on the whole.

>>22656261
The bank robbery or whatever it was with the kids who are super modified towards the beginning of the book was by far the highlight of the entire thing IMO. Felt like that one scene really embodied all the aesthetics and ideas he had for the book and after that point it was just totally aimless nothing more was added in the last 2/3rds of the book. The space rastas also really took me out of it.

>>22656261
>70-75%
So Molly has just gone into Straylight? You can't give up on her now, dude.

Just power through it. It's not so tough if you don't take it too seriously. Remember you don't have to take it all that seriously or think about any deeper meanings. He puts absolutely everything right there in the shop window. There's nothing hidden.

>>22656349
>The space rastas also really took me out of it.
I too hate black people.

>>22656357
Ohyea molly, what a raunchy skank lol. Gibson should've gone into smut.

Great book, hit the spot just right.

>>22656261
>You keep having to re-read just to see that you missed an important line between 4 pages of information dump.

Are you saying you don't read everything on the first read-through?

Why would you buy a book just to not read every word?

>>22656371
Have you read neuromancer?

>>22656368
Molly was by far the best thing in Neuromancer. That's why it was so cringe when she has sex with Case early on. She shouldn't be that sort of character. Would have been much better for her to remain aloof. But I guess Gibson wanted to keep his 13-year-old male fans turning the pages.

>>22656381
Yes, and Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive.

Loved all three, I think Neuromancer is my favorite sci-fi novel of all time.

But that might be because I don't skip around when I read, I actually go line by line.

>>22656383
I think what molly went through before the books explains her non committal approach to sex but I do get where you are coming from. I was surprised when she started massaging his butt and balls too but it was funny I won't lie.
I do like women like molly in fiction a lot, her robbing the fashion house was pretty cool.

>>22656383
She was literally hired to bring Case onto the job. The easiest way to get him to trust her is to spread her legs.

>>22656397
I see, then congrats on not being bothered too much by the weird pacing and style. It took some getting used to personally so I understand OP but I don't want to disavow your experience either.
I'm glad he toned down in the later books.

>>22656408
I'm really confused here. Are you honestly saying you skip words and sentences when you read?

>>22656349
That part is awesome, really good, after that tough, not much has happened.
>>22656357
I stopped reading after the Riviera presentation where Case is on a drug withdrawal
>>22656371
It's a needle on a haystack kind of situation, there's a lot of useless information and one important thing that just goes unnoticed between all the shit, like the explanation that Riviera can make illusions, i didn't see that, so when they meet him I didn't understand anything.

>>22656411
Not intentionally no, but reading this the words dance far more chaotically over the page than for other novels.
If you don't get it that's fine, it means you had no trouble adapting to Gibson's style. Don't turn this into a pissing contest, discussing the book is far more fun.

>>22656418
I'm not trying to be offensive, but you legit might have dyslexia.

"Words dancing on the page" is the most common symptom.

Gibson’s work is gratuitously sexual, kaleidoscopic, and unfocused. I think Mona Lisa Overdrive is better than Neuromancer in some aspects, but I feel like it’s just as shit. I understand that some people excuse Gibson’s style, saying that it helps create the intended atmosphere of nauseating stimuli, but the belabored descriptions of irrelevant objects is brutal

>>22656422
I don't have it but thankyou for worrying, just had trouble adapting to this book. Gibson's usage of 80s drug slang is not common to the average joe. Now can you focus on the contents silvous playete?

>>22656427

Did you mean to say s'il vous plaît?

I feel like I'm having a stroke talking to you, are you a chat AI?

>>22656434
Can you actually interact in a normal way you niggerfaggot holy shit. Kys or talk about the book instead of being snarky like a woman.

>>22656438

>Can you actually interact in a normal way

CAN YOU?

>>22656415
>after that tough, not much has happened.
That's how I felt about the entire book after that point. Maybe the impact of all the wintermute stuff being developed was ruined because I had already been repeatedly exposed to the grander ideas in neuromancer about AI and network sentience and stuff like that through later works that were influenced by it.

>>22656424
I think Gibson had trouble coming up with terms to talk about things that didn't exist (yet). You want it to sound technologically advanced but to the average joe this seems like rocket science. Kinda hard to find a good balance. His style still sucks though and he said so himself.

That being said, for other anons who find his style offputting, knowing how his sentences flow might help with reading his shit.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fm_cOUc1Ce0

It kinda reads like a noir, but a bit more autistic.

>>22656404
>She was literally hired to bring Case onto the job. The easiest way to get him to trust her is to spread her legs.
Yes, but she wouldn't want to do it. She used to be a prostitute but she's got out of that business into a much more exclusive and skilled and expensive profession. She wouldn't slum it as a whore; it would be going back to a life she's escaped. Also they don't really need Case to trust her on a personal level. He respects her on a professional level and they've got him by the balls with the poison sacs. That's enough. He can screw prostitutes if he wants to.

>>22656415
>I stopped reading after the Riviera presentation where Case is on a drug withdrawal
Right. Well there's a nice bit where he finds Molly and she explains her cool-tragic backstory. Then, in she goes into Straylight and the main heist begins. There are three or four fun set-pieces and a happy ending. I think the space rastas are ridiculous and annoying, but I got used to Maelcum eventually. Don't give up on it.

>>22656483
>She wouldn't slum it as a whore; it would be going back to a life she's escaped.

Did you miss the part in the middle of the book where she literally goes back to slumming it as a "brain-dead" whore?

>>22656483
Didn't she give an explanation for it? It was not that good but "we are very similar" and the constant loneliness are still good enough for me to find it believable. Chase was a cutie too.

Of all the ways to tie in some mystical spirituality to your philosophical tech novel, Rastafarianism has to be the absolutely most retarded choice I can imagine.

>>22656487
Huh?

>>22656574
>"not ready to give up puppet time"

>>22656261
I literally never got past the opening sentence of that book. I dropped the thing in a fit of laughter.

>>22656672
That was her talking about her past — exactly the past she's put behind her.

>>22656690
It's unironically one of the best opening lines of all time

>>22656693

She's implying she still goes moonlighting as a meat puppet, especially given where Case finds her when she says that line

>>22656753
She really isn't. She's staying in a room in the brothel because she can get total privacy there, that's all.

>>22656838
For how shit Gibson's writing is, this was made pretty obvious

>>22656747
The fact that Gibson fans genuinely think that is what makes it so hilarious.

>>22656855
>go to thread
>whine
>snarkiness
woman moment

The last 100 pages of Neuromancer was fun. Stations of the Tide is better cyberpunk in my opinion.

>>22656261
It has its place in the genre but it's very dated and at its core still beholden to the worst excesses of boomer coomer schlock typical of it. Good on ye

>>22656516
lmao

>>22656861
Not an argument. Read better books, you illiterate fuck.

>>22656261
Neuromancer was good wtf are you talking about. You just have to have read other stuff which deals with the same concepts.

>>22656909
>Go to thread
>Bitch and moan
>Get called a woman
>Bitch and moan some more
>Use a standard phrase that can't be applied in the context
woman moment

>>22656861
NTA but he's right, I'm reading Neuromancer and liking it, but the opening line is really not that good.

>>22656927
Coming to a thread just to whine and type like an insta bitch is faggotshit too. Shitty opening line or not

>>22656921
Still not an argument. You can post about woman moments, but you're the bitch ITT.

>>22656932
>coming to a thread just to whine
The thread topic is how Neuromancer sucks...talk about having a woman moment

>>22656261
Currently reading it about 25% in has not really gripped me yet but im expecting it too since I assume im in for some sort of heist?

>>22656951
I liked the prose and worldbuilding, the plot is a bit generic up until they get to space but theres a lot of really cool elements that hook you in.

>>22656321
Disagree but curious what you have read if you think this

>>22656934
woman moment
>>22656950
If she had given something akin to op where an actual line of thought is given without snarkiness instead of the actual given pretentious wankery it wouldve been cool. But it was just "ohoho how silly is the opening line I didn't even read it". If you can't see the difference you might be slow.
It is deffo a woman moment and dare I say nigger faggot shit.

>>22656958
Not him, but in general sci-fi is ridden with cliches. Ironically, sci-fi writers have no imagination.
Also it tends to be stylistically poor. Nobody reads sci-fi for the prose.

>>22656967
>tfw YWNBAW and resent women for it
Tranny moment.

>>22656972
>ongoing snarkiness
woman moment, just participate in a thread with a topic you actually enjoy

>>22656976
Clearly he enjoys the topic of shitting on Neuromancer, the topic of this thread, you dumb cunt.

I don't get this thread. Is this what genre slop standards do to people? Terminal plotcuckery and pure dialogue delivery in 7th grade English? Gibson's discount Burroughs prose hits just right when it needs to. The world genuinely comes across the pages and even though its foundations are shaky that's by far the only good thing I can say about Neuromancer other than it predicted social engineering. Visualizing death as a black beach in a divine inversion of our deepest origins was neat too though, that's a really good image.
There's some good and some bad but at least it tries. That's more than what I can say for 98% of the garbage out there.

>>22656976
*troonery intensifies*

>>22656992
>Defending his gf's brainless whining
I'm happy to see you defend her though. Here, give here these, extra thick for the heavy period, gl enduring her woman moment.

>>22657001
I felt as if Gibson didn't really know what to do with the AI persona, what he wanted the endless beach to be. If it is indeed cyberdeath wouldn't Chase have been there earlier? Wasn't his first time flatlining

>>22657021
no u

>>22657033
It was death and afterlife within Wintermute's architecture. He hadn't met him the first time.

>>22657040
I thought the first time he flatlined was exactly because he got in contact with wintermute. I will believe chase not being allowed there before he finished the job but what does it say about chase as a person then. Is he even real anymore? Isn't he just an engram? I can believe wintermute keeping him alive for a bit but if you say wintermute wasn't involved the first time it's pretty fucky.

>>22657045
Yeah it's been a while so my memory was fucky. First time Wintermute takes him through a recreation of his own memories, right? That's setting up the "science" (if you can call it that, holographic mind theories are cool though) behind the beach that comes after and foreshadowing Wintermute's actual role.

>>22657060
Ah true, Chase's brain already began being picked apart then. I do wonder if he isn't like Dixie flatline after the beach scene though. Dixie himself said he responds like he would and acts like he would but that he isn't anything more than code. What I'm wanting to say is "Did wintermute's freedom make it possible for AI to get into bio hosts, and if so is chase one of the first examples?" There are two Chases at the end after all.
That situation makes me think Gibson didn't really know what to do with the AI shit and what he wanted the beach to be.

>>22657077
The ambiguity is meant to be intentional, was my take on it. Immortality in cyberspace isn't really a new take though and Wintermute does clear up that he's not a godlike being or anything, the people living in his space are autonomous and of free will. He can't peek into their thoughts.

>>22657097
I thought so too but ehh, felt cheap. Still enjoyed it however. I guess AI spyware didn't exist back then lol.