Nick DiChario

My Sci Fi Book Club read William Gibson’s Neuromancer for our September 2026 meeting. I first read the book back in the mid-1980s and didn’t remember all that much about it. I was delighted to read it again with 40 years of computer technology behind me to help me grasp some of the concepts that I’m sure went over my head back then.

It was a lively discussion. The group agreed that Gibson was a prophet when it came to predicting artificial intelligence and the power of the internet, especially considering that he wrote the novel when personal computers were in their infancy. (When I first read it, 5 1/4″ floppy disks were new and exciting innovations.) Gibson had a powerful driving force to his prose, a unique vision, and a prescient wariness about what computer technology could bring to humankind.

The group also noted that the plot was hard to penetrate, the characters withdrawn and not easy to love (or like), and Gibson had missed on some of the technology that has since come to pass, i.e., the rise of cell phones, social media, and wireless computing. But I won’t quibble. What great sci fi novel hasn’t swung and missed at a few things. It’s inevitable. Let’s give him credit for popularizing “cyberpunk” and giving us so much reading pleasure.

If you’ve never read the book, or if it has been decades since you’ve cracked it open, I highly recommend going for it. The cover in this post is from the 1984 paperback edition I first read.

Next up for our group in October is The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson.

I hope you’re reading along with me.