Neuromancer Is Still Mind-Blowing

William Gibson published his classic novel Neuromancer almost 40 years ago, but it still feels fresh today. Science fiction author Matthew Kressel has been a fan of the book ever since reading it back in 1987. "When I first read Neuromancer, everything I had read before that was golden and silver age [sci-fi]--Arthur C. Clarke, Larry Niven, Asimov, all that stuff," Kressel says in Episode 477 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "So when I encountered Neuromancer, I was like, 'What is this? Science fiction of the '40s and '50s tended to evoke a consensus future of jetpacks, flying cars, and domestic robots. Neuromancer helped crystallize an alternative view of the future, one dominated by hackers, drugs, and mega-corporations. This darker view, which came to be called cyberpunk, proved far more prophetic. "More than any other science fiction book that I can think of, Neuromancer conveys what the future is going to feel like," says Geek's Guide to the Galaxy host David Barr Kirtley. Science fiction author Sam J. Miller constantly finds himself discarding story ideas because he realizes that Neuromancer beat him to the punch. "The ideas are so dense and exciting," he says. "If you were to rip off half the things in this book and use them in a book now, it would be amazing.