★★★★★ Bring the Seedy...

Neuromancer

William Gibson

I discovered William Gibson's Cyberspace trilogy by finding Count Zero in an airport bookstore. Consequently I read the series out of order, beginning with Count Zero. Each book rotates point-of-view among four or five characters, but just as Count Zero seemed to me to be mainly the story of cyberspace cowboy Bobby, Neuromancer is the story of former cyberspace cowboy Case. (That's Henry Dorsett Case, a series of names he never uses.) Some years before the start of the book Case made the disastrous mistake of trying to roll a business partner, who retaliated by poisoning him with a toxin that destroyed his ability to surf cyberspace.

When we first meet Case, he's in someplace that used to be Japan, and he is circling the drain. He's very obviously trying to commit suicide-by-failed-deal, a talent in which he of course has form. He is approached by Molly/Sally -- the one major character who runs through the entire Cyberspace trilogy. She's been approached by someone or something that claims it can correct Case's problem, and wants to do so, then hire him has a cowboy.

The decayed-world dystopia that I had learned to know in Count Zero appears, from Case's point of view, to be even more desperate. And seedy! Case is a very hard guy to like -- impossible for me. Understand, when I say that I can't like him, I mean Case as a person. Case as a character is absolutely splendid. Molly is somehow the opposite of Case -- she's as dangerous and corrupt as he is, but there is somehow still a feeling of strength about her. And Joy!

The Cyberspace trilogy is a classic, and deserves to be.

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