INTRODUCTION

Neuromancer was the first cyberpunk novel I ever read. "The sky...was the color of television" was all it took to form a major addiction. From that point on I grabbed anything that even hinted of the genre. I hunted down long out-of-print paperbacks in used book stores, I kept my eyes peeled for any new sci-fi novel that carried the well known catch/tech phrases like cyberspace, cybernetics, or the obvious corollaries (in novels like Hardwired, Software, Synners). Years later (and I was already late to the game) cyber/virtual became the over-used prefix to anything new, hip, and cutting edge. I blame cyberpunk, The Movement, and in particular Neuromancer. I would argue that this novel was the most important work of sci-fi of its decade. It is the essential work of the genre, it defines practically every term, theme, direction, technical creation. Gibson's writing style was so consuming, so awe inspiring that I raved about it endlessly, for months in high school. Sure, some people think it is taken too seriously, and maybe it does have its faults and its overdose of dark paranoia. But Neuromancer is important. Not just because it epitomizes the genre, not because it is really good sci-fi (after all, it did win a number of very important awards) but because it helped define science and technology, the computer industry, digital pop culture. Gibson has flooded our society, our media, our world, and his influence is still on the increase. Keep your eyes open...

==JPC==