# Neuromancer Was Published Thirty Years Ago **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 5, 2014, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neuromancer-was-published-thirty-years-ago/687698 "2014-05-05T07:28:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2014, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neuromancer-was-published-thirty-years-ago/687698/1 "2014-05-05T07:28:20Z")
William Gibson’s _Neuromancer_ was published in 1984, 30 years ago. That means that we stand at almost exactly the same historical distance from it as it did to Ray Bradbury’s _Fahrenheit 451_, which was published in 1953. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2014, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neuromancer-was-published-thirty-years-ago/687698/2 "2014-05-05T07:35:57Z")
The book has aged pretty well, IMHO. But I always found it amusing the semi-famous opening line has almost totally reversed its meaning: > [@](#): > > The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel Gibson of course means grey and black, making the port seem ominous and dark. But anyone younger then 20 or so is only going to be familiar with TVs that turn a pleasant sky blue when they don’t have a signal. Anyhoo, always amused me, since the unintended change in the mood set by the first sentence due to a quirk of technological progress seems vaguely Gibsonish. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2014, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neuromancer-was-published-thirty-years-ago/687698/3 "2014-05-05T10:13:31Z")
And oddly enough both meanings fit the tone of the novel, flickering grey static or a cold and artificial blue. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2014, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neuromancer-was-published-thirty-years-ago/687698/4 "2014-05-05T11:04:03Z")
> [@Penfeather](#): > > William Gibson’s _Neuromancer_ was published in 1984, 30 years ago. That means that we stand at almost exactly the same historical distance from it as it did to Ray Bradbury’s _Fahrenheit 451_, which was published in 1953. Fascinating. And we are just at the beginning of the Internet Age, the age of the online collective. So much has changed in the second 30 years vs. period from 451 to NM… ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2014, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neuromancer-was-published-thirty-years-ago/687698/5 "2014-05-05T11:05:09Z")
William Gibson wrote in an introduction to the twentieth anniversary edition of _Neuromancer_ that the comparison between TV screens and the sky didn’t even make sense in 1984, let alone in 2004 when he wrote that introduction. He says that in writing that sentence he was thinking of the TV’s of his childhood in the late 1950’s, not of those when the book came out in 1984. The TV’s he was thinking of were black and white, and already by 1984 the static didn’t look like the image he had in mind as he wrote that sentence. He says further that lots of things don’t make sense from today’s perspective. Where are the cell phones, for instance? He notes that not only did he miss them, but he actually had one scene where the hero walks by a bank of pay phones, where each one rings as he passes it, this being the only way the A.I. knows to try to get hold of the hero. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2014, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neuromancer-was-published-thirty-years-ago/687698/6 "2014-05-05T12:53:30Z")
Gibson also said he never saw a personal computer until after the book was published. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2014, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neuromancer-was-published-thirty-years-ago/687698/7 "2014-05-05T13:12:17Z")
And he wrote the book on a manual typewriter. ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2014, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neuromancer-was-published-thirty-years-ago/687698/8 "2014-05-05T14:33:03Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > William Gibson wrote in an introduction to the twentieth anniversary edition of _Neuromancer_ that the comparison between TV screens and the sky didn’t even make sense in 1984, let alone in 2004 when he wrote that introduction. He says that in writing that sentence he was thinking of the TV’s of his childhood in the late 1950’s, not of those when the book came out in 1984. The TV’s he was thinking of were black and white, and already by 1984 the static didn’t look like the image he had in mind as he wrote that sentence. He says further that lots of things don’t make sense from today’s perspective. Where are the cell phones, for instance? He notes that not only did he miss them, but he actually had one scene where the hero walks by a bank of pay phones, where each one rings as he passes it, this being the only way the A.I. knows to try to get hold of the hero. Like in Person of Interest. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2014, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neuromancer-was-published-thirty-years-ago/687698/9 "2014-05-05T16:27:08Z")
Oh cool! I’ve actually just started ‘reading’ that book via an MP3 loan from my local library. I’m a few chapters in, pretty cool so far. And it included the 20th anniversary intro with the dead-channel static imagery, and the missing portable cell phones, and also Gibson talking about how he felt he had to keep the USSR intact after letting ‘the sprawl’ take over the USA. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2014, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neuromancer-was-published-thirty-years-ago/687698/10 "2014-05-05T16:35:59Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > He says further that lots of things don’t make sense from today’s perspective. Where are the cell phones, for instance? He notes that not only did he miss them, but he actually had one scene where the hero walks by a bank of pay phones, where each one rings as he passes it, this being the only way the A.I. knows to try to get hold of the hero. Don’t forget the infamous line about “His buyer for the three megabytes of hot RAM in the Hitachi wasn’t taking calls.” Because three megabytes of RAM would be worth stealing in a world advanced enough to have direct mind/machine interfaces. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Q](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@Johnny\_Q](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Q)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2014, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neuromancer-was-published-thirty-years-ago/687698/11 "2014-05-05T20:02:01Z")
Remember that at the time 640K was thought to be more than you could ever hope to need. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2014, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neuromancer-was-published-thirty-years-ago/687698/12 "2014-05-05T20:10:42Z")
> [@Johnny\_Q](#): > > Remember that at the time 640K was thought to be more than you could ever hope to need. It was supposed to be enough for anybody. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2014, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neuromancer-was-published-thirty-years-ago/687698/13 "2014-05-05T20:50:31Z")
As a society we keenly lack both seedy Elite Hacker bars and Rastafarian Space Truckers. I did like Gibson’s view of the space program, though, it seemed both feasible and plausible, although by 1984 it was already clear that his vision belonged to the past. In hindsight, it looks like Arthur C. Clarke with corporate logos and gang graffiti. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2024, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neuromancer-was-published-thirty-years-ago/687698/14 "2024-07-01T14:57:29Z")
> **[‘Neuromancer’: Briana Middleton Joins Callum Turner In Apple TV+ Series](https://deadline.com/2024/06/briana-middleton-neuromancer-apple-tv-1235986115/)** > > Briana Middleton has been tapped as the co-lead opposite Callum Turner in Neuromancer, Apple TV+'s sci-fi drama based on the novel by William Gibson. No date given as to when it will be available. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2024, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neuromancer-was-published-thirty-years-ago/687698/15 "2024-07-01T15:05:44Z")
With my new computer, when it wakes up, the monitor sometimes displays gray noise at first (it clears up after a random amount of time, or quicker if I turn the monitor off and back on). I think it’s due to using a DVI monitor through HDMI. I’ve described it as “The monitor looks like the sky at the start of Neuromancer”. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2024, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neuromancer-was-published-thirty-years-ago/687698/16 "2024-07-01T15:22:46Z")
Does _Neuromancer_ ever give a precise date when the story is supposedly taking place, like all good sci-fi stories don’t? Who says it is in the “future” or even past the 20th century? Similarly to _Snow Crash_ in which both by the tech level (leaving out all the blatantly sci-fi stuff) and the characters’ personal histories (the guy’s father was in WW2, and many more examples) you can kind of narrow it down (to a time firmly in the past, relative to now). ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2024, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neuromancer-was-published-thirty-years-ago/687698/17 "2024-07-01T16:53:50Z")
> **William Gibson:** I had written three novels in the mid-to-late ’80s, and they were all set—although the books never say—around 2035. > **[William Gibson: The future will view us "as a joke"](https://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/10/william-gibson-peripheral-vision-time-travel-interview/)** > > The dystopian author on time travel, cronuts, and his 22nd-century novel. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2024, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neuromancer-was-published-thirty-years-ago/687698/18 "2024-07-04T04:41:33Z")
They spend time on an orbital station, so it’s not the near feature. His second series (Bridge) takes place “15 minutes in the future” while the later one (Blue Ant) is essentially contemporary. I read Snow Crash more recently than Neuromancer but still years ago. It was enjoyable but I wish he fudged the dates back just a little more than he did, with recent Vietnam references and such. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2024, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neuromancer-was-published-thirty-years-ago/687698/19 "2024-07-04T21:03:28Z")
Maybe not that exact kind of orbital station, but I will point out that even in 1984 there were (small) operational space stations. I can buy that Gibson meant that by “2035” there would be medium to large corporate-owned and operated space habitats, not necessarily the far future. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2024, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neuromancer-was-published-thirty-years-ago/687698/20 "2024-07-04T21:52:22Z")
> [@Penfeather](#): > > As a society we keenly lack both seedy Elite Hacker bars and Rastafarian Space Truckers. I kind of miss the vat-grown corporate ninjas with monofilament thumbs. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neuromancer-was-published-thirty-years-ago/687698.md?page=2)