![]() ![]() Gibson would pull me through, and he did. The story moves faster than the speed of thought, but even when I wasn't sure what was happening, I felt confident that Mr. Gibson's style is all flash, and his characters are all pose without substance but the emphasis on surface seems more a statement about Case and Case's world than an attempt to manipulate the reader. Like everyone else in his world, Case can think of nothing to do with his talent except sell it to the highest bidder, which inevitably turns out to be one of the giant corporations whose no-holds-barred rivalries transcend nationality, ideology and even the normal constraints of space and time: ''Viewed as organisms, they had attained a kind of immortality.'' Gibson's protagonist, known only as Case, is one of a new breed of ''cyberspace cowboys,'' computer hackers who plug into their machines so intimately that they experience the electronic transmission and storage of data as physical sensation - mostly visual, but also tactile and olfactory. Advances in computer technology and bioengineering have made it possible to create human beings of preternatural strength and agility. The 21st-century world of ''Neuromancer'' is freshly imagined, compellingly detailed and chilling in its implications. Now that I have read the book, I would like to cast a belated ballot for Mr. Gibson an injustice when this novel (the author's first) won both of the important 1984 best-of-the-year awards in science fiction: the Nebula (voted by members of the Science Fiction Writers of America) and the Hugo (voted by the fans). What put me off, I think, was the title, which struck me as an ungainly play on words, hinting at some trendy hybrid of sword-and-sorcery fantasy and high-tech adventure, with perhaps a bit of heavy-breathing sex thrown in. I have to apologize for failing to review William Gibson's NEUROMANCER (Ace, Paper, $2.95) when it appeared last year. ![]()
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