The Sword and Laser Podcast: Neuromancer Ch. 3-4
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Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 1:28AM
Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 1:28AM Episode 2 of the Sword and Laser podcast is here! We're having some funky audio issues, so stick with us. On today's show we talk about chapters three and four of Neuromancer, and we also touch on some other sci-fi/fantasy things that we've been reading and watching lately! As always, please leave questions and comments here, or in the forums!
Reader Comments (2)
Tom was a bit distorted, and Veronica a bit quiet, but apart from that it was really good. :)
And yes, I got lost as well. Gibson uses a lot of story specific words too much and too early without explaining them. It's quaint and interesting first on, but then you get sentence after sentence that make no sense. It's a very steep learning curve, which makes it hard to get into. You have to delve further into the book to reap the rewards.
A study guide would have been useful.
Awesome podcast again :)
BTW, what's the Yahoo/Talkshoe link?
My response to the comment on the podcast about the reader who gave it a "meh" is that Neuromancer is very much an author's "first novel" and should be taken as such. From a storytelling point of view, it really isn't that good. It's convoluted, haphazard and a little juvenile. If you stripped all the futuristic trappings from Neuromancer, you probably wouldn't have much of a book and that's a tell-tale sign of a bad sci-fi novel.
But seminal works in any genre or artform aren't necessarily as good as the ones that come later once the ideas have been refined (by the original artist or others). Compare the original Flash Gordon serials (pretty terrible aside from kitsch value) with, say, Star Wars.
Neuromancer does have, though, probably has one of the best opening lines ever. It completelty sets the scene for tone of the universe he creates and the cyberpunk genre as a whole. Brilliant.