Book club - The first book we're reading is Neuromancer

Post by **snarl** » Fri Jul 16, 2004 11:49 am

I'm going to read "The cuious incident of the dog in the night-time" when my sister is finished with it.

Sounds interesting from what she's told me.

angloconvoy · Post by **angloconvoy** » Fri Jul 16, 2004 3:02 pm

I've been meaning to read are you dave gorman for ages. Loved the show.

Post by **Best First** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 12:53 pm

snarl wrote:I'm going to read "The cuious incident of the dog in the night-time" when my sister is finished with it.

Sounds interesting from what she's told me.

yah, my gf has readit, i'm gonna give it a go at some point. very good alledgedly.

The Gormon book is ace.

Eline · Post by **Eline** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 8:34 am

Heard it's pretty good, but haven't read it yet.

The Da Vinci Code is very good though! Read it now!

Impactor returns 2.0 · Post by **Impactor returns 2.0** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 4:40 pm

Denyer - id have to check the Inq series to be sure.
im a bit of a space marine fan so anything with them in makes me happy.

Warriors of ultramar is great.

A facinating story of a few marines trainning a planet to defend against a tyrannid invasion. an impossible task. theres some great space battles as they try to slow down the fleet, an entire planet gets destroyed, and the finnal seige on this outworld planet brings the full horror that is the tyranids.

What i loved about the book, is the way u see how the marines train men, and set up tactics and ready the supply lines. the battle itself is mental due to its shear scale and main character is fantistic as he realizes just how stuborn the average human with no superhuman powers like his own can be in the face of almost certain death.

it even contained a nice twist at the end that made me smile. loved it!

Post by **Computron** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 9:50 pm

Neuromancer won the poll with 4 votes, narrowly beating 1984.

If you can't find the book, I can send you a pdf version of the book.

I think 4 weeks is more than enough time to finish this?

So August 18th is "You'd better have Neuromancer finished or you're banned" day.

Post by **Denyer** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 1:17 am

And if anyone would prefer a plain HTML version, drop me a line.

A weekend is plenty of time to read it, but give it a few weeks and everyone should have chance to read and re-skim. Perhaps we could have a spoiler thread for "first impressions" as people are reading? Or would that detract from the eventual discussion we're reading towards?

Post by **Computron** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 2:08 am

Denyer wrote: Or would that detract from the eventual discussion we're reading towards?

I wouldn't think so. If anything it'll lay a prmitive groundwork for the more in depth discussion later on.

Eline · Post by **Eline** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 7:42 am

I'll try to find a copy.

Though since my local library has closed down for the holidays

I might as well buy the book, if it's good.

Yay to the book-club!

Are there going to be t-shirts?

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 8:54 am

w00tness! Neuromancer is one of my favourite books ever. I re-read it last week as well. Let the Matrix comparisons commence!

KingMob · Post by **KingMob** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 2:24 pm

Time to go and dig my old battered-copy out, then. I was stupid enough to write notes all over it when I had to read it for uni. I'm not looking forward to reading them again and seeing how pretentious/stupid I was.

Post by **Denyer** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 3:01 pm

Yeah, pads (or card inserts) are good for notes. 'Specially when you know you have no intention of holding onto most of your texts beyond the year you study 'em.

Eline · Post by **Eline** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 9:39 pm

hmmm... haven't got the book yet, but just found out it isn't a Warhammer book (which I thought it was)

I'm very curious what kind of book it is then. Literature?

Post by **Denyer** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 10:39 pm

Neuromancer can be considered one of the original science-fiction punk novels -- although it hasn't dated, we're fairly used to concepts such as cyberspace and virtual environments and they aren't quite the leap they seemed in the 1980s. Gibson also grounds his writing in traditions (such as a character with strong ties to reggae dub) so it shouldn't feel too alien.

Writing is pretty tight and controlled -- some similarities with noir detective fiction, and you may want a dictionary on hand for a handful of composite science words.

The plot is fairly linear thriller stuff: Case (a freelance hacker) is hired from a shady underworld to perform a shadier task—and I'll, er, stop there, because I don't want to spoil anything.

I don't think anyone will be disappointed, anyway.

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 12:44 am

Oh hell no.

Magna Prime · Post by **Magna Prime** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 3:20 pm

I had to read part of Neuromancer for a class a couple semesters ago (along with parts of Dawn, Snow Crash, and Holy Fire). Too bad I don't have my copy of it with me at my apartment, but at the moment I'm busy reading a book called Year Zero. So far seems rather interesting.

Neuromancer seemed like it was quite good, from what I got of it. Those of you who haven't read it yet will likely enjoy it. I would also have to recomend Snow Crash, as I've read most of that one and it was quite entertaining.

Eline · Post by **Eline** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 12:58 pm

Bah. Can't find the book

Bookstore doesn't have it, and won't for sometime, because they're reprinting. Or something.

Library doesn't even have it in the collection. Except in Dutch, but that would make a confusing discussion I guess.

So, a PDF would be appreciated

, if it's not too large. Can I download it somewhere? Or just the html version? I might just print the whole book instead of buying it then. Bah.

Eline · Post by **Eline** » Sun Aug 22, 2004 6:42 pm

Erm, are we going to start discussing the book?

It took me quite some time to find it, and lots of time to finish it too (especially at the beginning I didn't understand anything, and I'm not sure I do now)

So I don't have much useful to say at the moment...

Post by **Denyer** » Sun Aug 22, 2004 7:18 pm

I'm ready if others are. I'll be rereading it as we're talking...

I expect Compy will kick things off when he's back properly.

Post by **Computron** » Mon Aug 23, 2004 6:02 pm

Sorry about the delay, but let's get going.

Initial reactions to the book? Anything jump out at you that you wish to comment on?

I found myself visualizing Bladerunner quite often as the setting for the storyline. Anyone else do similar?

Eline · Post by **Eline** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 5:51 pm

I had quite a lot of trouble reading it, because at first I didn't understand anything! I had no clue what kind of world it was, what the main character was doing and why, what exactly this matrix was...

There were many technical terms and difficult words and weird things happening. I still don't really understand what exactly they did and why.

I have found a webaite about the book, so I'm going to read that to appear a bit more knowledgeable.

In the end, it seemed like a cross between a future world and something a bit old-fashioned, because it was written 20 years ago.

Post by **Denyer** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 11:40 pm

I think most science fiction has strong links to older tech, especially the dystopian futures we get in William Gibson, Philip K. Dick, James Cameron, etc. First, there's the polarisation which occurs: you frequently find ghetto arrangements develop where the less mobile of a society get by with equivalent (often less resources) than we have now. An example of this would be the Sprawl—for all that plastic surgery is cheap and commonplace, Case is still living from deal to deal, sleeping in the worst and most unsafe environments, etc.

Second, the "old tech" equivalents of things (eg, live meat raised on farms rather than grown in vats) become very expensive luxuries. These are the economics of mass production, which are in full swing even in our societies—a handmade table commands a far greater price than a kit bought from Ikea.

I still don't really understand what exactly they did and why.

This should be useful for people:

http://www.antonraubenweiss.com/gibson/ ... euromancer

Case and Molly are working for Armitage (Corto), who in turn is working for Wintermute (the concealed protagonist of the story, who turns out to be an AI.)

Nate, might be an idea to either branch this into a new sticky or to rename the thread.

sprunkner · Post by **sprunkner** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 4:40 pm

Not that I read Neuromancer... but I'm up for a new book... especially since Gaiman's American Gods is f***in' genius.

Post by **Denyer** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 7:30 pm

Agreed. Fantastic book.

Eline · Post by **Eline** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 7:33 pm

good plan!

Never heard of it, but I'd be happy to try out a new book.

Post by **Denyer** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 8:24 pm

Compy, we still going to have an interactive session on Neuromancer, or think through how we could hold one whilst going through another book?

Out of curiosity: quick show of hands—how many people have read Neuromancer now?

Post by **Computron** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 11:09 pm

I just finished American Gods, so I am more than ready to discuss that piece o' work.

As for Neuro, I'd like to have the discussion, but I'd need to know just how many people did read it...

KingMob · Post by **KingMob** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 11:42 pm

Read it and interested in discussing it, although it was a while ago now. And there were't as many embarrassing notations on my copy as I feared.
Also happy to read a new one for Book Club. I already have American Gods so I'd be happy with that if that was the choice.

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 11:47 pm

Haven't read American Gods, but I can always discuss Neuromancer...though I'll probably just wibble on about how much I liked it...

Eline · Post by **Eline** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 1:30 am

I didn't really like/understand Neuromancer, but I could try to joint the discussions.

Other book is good too.