Book Review: Neuromancer by William Gibson

Neuromancer by William Gibson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

In the future the line between humanity and machine is getting blurred thanks to cybernetic implants that allow people to enter cyberspace for both positive and nefarious activities then there is artificial intelligence that at any moment could go from machine to human. Neuromancer by William Gibson was a science fiction classic from its publication that became the go to example of the cyberpunk subgenre.

I’m not a picky reader and I’m willing to follow any character whether good or bad or doing very nefarious things to others or having deplorable personal habits, and with caveat I can say the main character of Case was frankly boring as hell. In fact, no character was interesting save Molly even though she was seen from Case perspective and frankly I wish she would have been the main character even though she didn’t enter cyberspace. Honestly, I didn’t understand Gibson’s vision of cyberspace until the latter half of the book when Case was in it a lot and it got easier to figure out. So it can be no surprise that I really didn’t get into the book until roughly two-thirds of the way through when things were building up to the climax that in the end was meh. Maybe if I had read this book closer to when it was published it might have been more impactful but given the slow start then the rapid climb in anticipation to an indifferent ending I don’t understand the hype for the book.

Neuromancer made the cyberpunk subgenre and William Gibson a major science fiction author, however to me I don’t understand the hype for the book.

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Book Review: The Creators by Daniel J. Boorstin

The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination by Daniel J. Boorstin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Aesthetic and intellectual innovations from great art to great architectural to philosophy have been a major part of the shaping of Western culture, but they didn’t appear out of nowhere and we have people thank for them. The Creators by Daniel J. Boorstin is a historic tale of the individuals that innovated in the styles of art, architecture, literature, music, and more from Vedic India to the 20th Century.

Boorstin over the course of almost 750 pages covers the development of various cultural aspects that have grown and evolved over the course of Western civilization. When possible, individuals are highlighted in biographical sketches as well as their contribution to the subject being discussed, though whenever the origins of the beginning of are murky or more communal in nature before individuals began to impact them Boorstin ready provides the information as such. Yet this approach of highlighting the Western tradition over the rest of the world through either ignoring it or simply writing off the rest of the world as disingenuous—his covering the Japanese long use of wood for architecture didn’t factor into the reality of how many earthquakes the nation dealt with and how quickly rebuilding homes were put back up with wood in comparison to stone. Also, some of Boorstin’s information was incorrect and he overlooked individual’s negative aspects in almost making them myths to illuminate. While some might believe Boorstin is being subjective in what he included, given wide range of time and the cultural aspects involved not everything could be included and so some selection is required in which an author’s personal preference will undoubtedly play a big role since they are writing the book. Overall, the volume is informative for someone looking for a general cultural history of the West, but if you want something more authoritative then this wouldn’t be the book.

The Creators is the middle volume of a trilogy by Daniel Boorstin on “Knowledge”, a hefty book that covers the development and evolution of Western cultural history.

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