Science Fiction

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Why is Neuromancer so hard to get in to? (feddit.org)

submitted 3 weeks ago by BennyInc@feddit.org to c/sciencefiction@lemmy.world

57 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I just started reading Neuromancer, and finished the first two chapters. Can someone encourage me to keep on reading? It’s just so… disorienting. Very quick scene changes, hard to follow dialogues (who is actually talking?), too much jargon (I have read up on some, to get the gist), … I just feel lost, and doubt I will enjoy it at some point.

I like various degrees of scifi, and many people recommended the book (and the ones following it). I also fought through some harder chapters in Trisolaris, Children of Memory, The Expanse books, CS Lewis‘ Space Trilogy, … but Neuromancer is on awholenother level.

Is it just me? Did anyone else have a hard time with it? Does it get better? Is it worth it?

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[–] BlueHarvest@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

i read it just a couple of years after it came out, it took me several reads to get into it but has become one of my favorites. That said, some of it, like the opening line, probably doesn't make sense to younger people... "The sky above the Port was the color of a television tuned to a dead channel" evoked a completely different mental image in the days before digital TVs.

[–] droporain@lemmynsfw.com 0 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Man how did the concepts of ai differ back then did you have idea or was it just space magic?

[–] SamuraiBeandog@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

The concepts of AI have been around a long time and weren't really any different back then. Even the fundamental technology that current AI is built on has mostly been around since like the 70s, its just the amount of data that can be used to train them is staggeringly larger, which has lead to the recent breakthroughs in capability.

[–] droporain@lemmynsfw.com -2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Come on dude that info wasn't as mainstream then, how many movies in the 70s were about it? You could say the same shit about the Internet. For crying out loud if people understood cellphones how many shows and books would have been instantly solved?

[–] SamuraiBeandog@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I dunno what you're saying here. Public awareness of AI wasn't as "mainstream" as now, but especially for people that were reading science fiction, it certainly wasn't "space magic". Asimov's I, Robot was published in 1950! People have been contemplating and writing about the potential of AI for a very long time.

[–] droporain@lemmynsfw.com -1 points 3 weeks ago

How was the Asimov series? I tried reading it when I was 12 and yeah it didn't go over to well.

[–] BlueHarvest@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

100% sci fi magic, but the visuals he describes of cyberspace still are how i imagine it

[–] droporain@lemmynsfw.com 0 points 3 weeks ago

That is the talent in sci Fi making me visualize and understand the magic.