Joe Canzano Says Hello

Our cruise ship vacation is almost over. I was afraid I hadn’t brought enough books with me, but as it turns out, I spent too much time eating to read most of them.

But I did read “Neuromancer.” Actually, I read most of it twice, just to clear away all the WTF moments from the first time.

This was the first book to ever win the “triple crown” of sci-fi book awards (Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick) in the same year. The author, William Gibson, coined the term “cyberspace,” and more or less defined “the matrix,” and it’s pretty wild to imagine he wrote this book before the internet was a normal part of everyday life.

So, what’s this novel like? Gibson’s style is to toss the reader into a jargon-filled, electric sci-fi fish tank without a whole lot of background information. And you might just drown (I almost did). But if you keep reading, it starts to make sense.

The story revolves around a burned out “console cowboy” computer hacker who meets a few mysterious people who make him an offer he can’t refuse. Of course, there is a price—and a lot of lurking danger as he begins to uncover who these people really are and what they really want. And they might not even be people at all.

This is the not the easiest read on the shelf, but I highly recommend it.