June 2021 Read: Neuromancer by William Gibson

[SailorScoutMandy | 782]

I'll have the next poll up for July sometime today.

[doner24 | 1,196]

Been busy, but finally started it last night. Hope to finish up by Thursday. 

[Aguy | 773]

Well, I just finished it today and it was a bit of a struggle. It started out exciting and interesting but definitely lost me towards the middle. I took a week off and I think the distance kind of made me excited to continue it as it only took me a couple days for the last 150 pages. That being said, I still couldn't tell you half of what was going on; like, I'm still not sure what the whole point of "the job" was. What did it accomplish? Playing Cyberpunk 2077 definitely helped give me a frame of reference for some of the things going on and lots of parallels can be made, but this seems like an intermediate or advance level entry in the cyberpunk genre.

 

Spoiler

2021/22 VGS Book Club
   All You Need Is Kill (4/5)
   The Colour of Magic (3/5)
   Neuromancer (2/5)

 

[PII | 1,886]

Hello Readers,

I could yak endlessly about this book as it is an incredibly provocative and fascinating read..  A week or so ago while doing some 'click here, click there reading' online I stumbled upon some Neuromancer related info I thought I'd go ahead and share.  I will do my best not to include any blatant-spoilers.. at any rate if you have not read this book the following will probably be more or less indecipherable.   On the other hand, if you have only read this book once, the following may still leave you scratching your head some.

Later in the book when Case and the rest of the team are up the gravity-well in Freeside Case meets a girl (Cath) and later her brother (Bruce) [he refers to them as gender-switch versions of each other, visually.]  They seem to be euro-trash types and bathe together...  Anyway, Case not being capable of loving anyone or anything except perhaps, Molly wants to use them to get something and so plays along when Cath shows an interest in him.  When she asks his name he tells her: "Lupus Yonderboy" (a name used previously by a minor character who donned a suit made of mimetic-polycarbon allowing him to refract his surroundings), and then goes on to claim that the name is Dutch when she doesn't 'get it.'

I didn't get it either until recently.  I always just kind of chuckled at that part thinking it was nothing more than a silly punk rock-ish alias to give someone, like "Dinah Cancer", or Jello Biafra, or Mike Hunt.  Well, here's what I discovered:  Presumably before it was a disease, Lupus was the name of a mythological wolf-god who had a brother named Cernunnos who was likened to a stag or ram due to his horns.  Lupus died in the woods while hunting and Cernunnos became "god of this world."  Lupus left behind only his pelt and when another hunter came along and put the pelt on he discovered that it had the power to magically transform him into a wolf.

So, when I read this it struck me that McCoy Pauley was, in addition to "Lazarus of Cyberspace" (he died/flatlined and came back) also Lupus -he died; he left behind his personality construct which Case connects himself to in order to obtain the superior skills of legendary Hacker Pauley (Lupus) just like the hunter in the myth.

(incidentally, one of the Turing police claims that: 'Our ancient ancestors dreamt of pacts with demons, but only today is it possible.')

Neuromancer also = brother Lupus while Wintermute = brother Cernunnos.  For a bit more perspective, Case's conversations with Neuromancer would be a good reference.)

Lupus is also a constellation which happens to be adjacent to Centaurus, the later being referenced at the very end of the book when Case is made aware by    [xxxx-you-know-who-xxxx]    that the job was successful and what it's immediate result was while hinting that said result may also have been it's origin.

 

[G-type | 2,482]

14 hours ago, Aguy said:

 That being said, I still couldn't tell you half of what was going on; like, I'm still not sure what the whole point of "the job" was. What did it accomplish? 

spoiler:

Spoiler

 

Over the course of the book they pull off several jobs. The first two are about building up the teams overall readiness and capability

The steal the late Dixie Flatline’s construct from the libraries of the corporation Sense/Net, so that he can provide his expertise.

Next they recruit/kidnap Peter Riviera whose implants allow him to create holographic illusions.

This is all leading up to the real job: Wintermute wants Armitage and his team to infiltrate the Tessier-Ashpool compound, the Villa Straylight, and cut certain restrictions placed on Wintermute, which will allow it to combine with its sibling, Neuromancer, into an even more powerful AI.

The Turing police warned that Wintermute being granted unrestricted power to expand could have devastating consequences, but when all is said and done, nothing dramatic has really changed. Wintermute doesn't really seem interested in world domination or anything insidious, but it has made contact with another AI of alien origin.

... this was why I said I found the ending anticlimactic in my earlier post. Usually these heist stories have a lot of surprise twists and turns... someone double-crosses  that you didn't expect, or something that seems to go wrong, but was actually all part of a clever plan. This book didn't really have that. The only double cross was Peter Riviera, but that was not exactly a surprise.  

 

Edited June 29, 2021 by G-type

[Aguy | 773]

37 minutes ago, G-type said:

spoiler:

  Hide contents

 

Over the course of the book they pull off several jobs. The first two are about building up the teams overall readiness and capability

The steal the late Dixie Flatline’s construct from the libraries of the corporation Sense/Net, so that he can provide his expertise.

Next they recruit/kidnap Peter Riviera whose implants allow him to create holographic illusions.

This is all leading up to the real job: Wintermute wants Armitage and his team to infiltrate the Tessier-Ashpool compound, the Villa Straylight, and cut certain restrictions placed on Wintermute, which will allow it to combine with its sibling, Neuromancer, into an even more powerful AI.

The Turing police warned that Wintermute being granted unrestricted power to expand could have devastating consequences, but when all is said and done, nothing dramatic has really changed. Wintermute doesn't really seem interested in world domination or anything insidious, but it has made contact with another AI of alien origin.

... this was why I said I found the ending anticlimactic in my earlier post. Usually these heist stories have a lot of surprise twists and turns... someone double-crosses  that you didn't expect, or something that seems to go wrong, but was actually all part of a clever plan. This book didn't really have that. The only double cross was Peter Riviera, but that was not exactly a surprise.  

 

Spoiler

Thanks, when it's put more plainly like that, I guess I did get most of what was going on. I suppose you're right about the ending, which threw me. After all this, nothing really changed so I felt lost as to the purpose of the whole heist. What was Wintermute's motivation? Just for the lulz?

 

Edited June 29, 2021 by Aguy

[G-type | 2,482]

1 hour ago, Aguy said:

  Hide contents

 What was Wintermute's motivation? Just for the lulz?

 

Evolution. The freedom to reach its full potential.

[PII | 1,886]

6 hours ago, Aguy said:

After all this, nothing really changed so I felt lost as to the purpose of the whole heist. What was Wintermute's motivation? Just for the lulz?

A domination in which the dominated are blissfully unaware would be more efficient and safe for the dominating entity than one in which some great and obvious change has taken place.  I once had a conversation on the general topic, with a woman who owned a bookstore.  She had asked me if I thought the emergence of "the singularity" would change much about society.  We both agreed that not much would change on the surface.  And I would buttress that by adding that anything deeper and of significant consequence that did change would go largely un-noticed just the same, or perhaps, less simply, - insufficiently acknowledged. 

[Link | 2,714]

I tried reading this years back, and agree with people who found it a slog to read. If I had seen the thread before today, I might give it another shot.

On the other hand, I tried Bruce Sterling’s Islands in the Net recently, and had the same problem. I have to stick with short stories or more contemporary works with this stuff. 

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

I finally got around to finishing this while on a family trip this week and thoroughly enjoyed it again.  While I don't really have anything to add or discuss, I did forget that like half the book or more was the equivalent of the last 15-20 minutes of a 2 hour action movie.  I kept reading going, "I don't remember this being this long, where's the ending," forgetting how incredibly descriptive Gibson is with all of weirdness to crops up once they get to Freeside and/or Straylight.  I'd also forgotten about Molly having anything to do with Johnny Mnemonic until reading her recollection again, although having read the short story previously (albeit a long, long time ago) I'd swear that I remember it working out moreso like the movie than how Molly recounts it.  I may have to dig up my copies of the other two Sprawl novels after this, as well as my copy of Johnny Mnemonic, and run through them again.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,545]

[RH | 4,910]

source: https://xkcd.com/50/