So glad I'm not the only one who feels that way about The Difference Engine. (And I don't generally dislike Sterling...this book just didn't work for me.)
I listened to Neuromancer on a long drive one time, and I will say that it's a wonderful book but not one that's particularly suited to the audiobook medium. It's hard to follow at times because it avoids a lot of big picture narrative and instead focuses on very small scale scenes of events happening within a broader story. It means that it can be confusing at times, as you are often as in the dark as the characters are.
This is an abridged version, so maybe it streamlines some aspects of the narrative, so take that into account.
You might have to slow it down to 0.75x on the audiobook so you can savor and have time to construct the visuals of the scenes in your head. For fluff business books I listen at 1.25x or even higher if it is garbage, but for very difficult but worthwhile prose like Borges I slow things down to 0.75 and enjoy and savor the brilliance of the author.
Years ago I was blown away to learn about this "Gibson reads Neuromancer" audio book only when I heard it sampled in a song[0] by Haujobb (the band, not the demoscene group). I recognized the words as being from Neuromancer, one of my top favorite books, but I wasn't aware of where it was from. Had to do some searching online to discover the audio was sampled from Gibson's reading of his own book. Very cool surprise! (as an aside, if you like cyberpunk-esque music, can absolutely recommend this band - check out "Solutions for a Small Planet")
I love how W.G. still reads well to this day. Have so many good memories as an early teen ripping through his work as fast as I could. Enjoyed every single page.
I am currently teaching Neuromancer as the primary text for a first-year studies course on cyberspace. It is absolutely incredible re-reading that text and marveling at Gibson's vision of the future (which with science fiction is really a commentary on the now).
A real classic. As an author who was asked by my publisher to perform my own audiobook:
1. There is a reason 'reader of audiobooks' is a profession - it is stupid difficult. I will never do it again.
2. I loved this tape so much. It does such interesting things with its soundscape (from memory - if it actually is just Gibson reading it, then he must have embedded those memories through the sheer brilliance of his performance.
3. My fiancee is partially-sighted (I see her as an investment that will appreciate as biohacking becomes more and more prevalent) and she reads mostly by audiobook.
It's not really how I prefer to read - I get distracted too easily - but I've been appalled at the production quality of what I've overheard. While Gibson's work is a special case, an audiobook is only one dimension away from a film adaptation.
4. Literally all my millennial-Gen-Z-cusp friends who are non-readers opted for the audiobook of my book, not the book-book. Anecdata, but interesting. They would just switch Rogan or whatever out during their commute until they felt they'd listened to (what I assume as) enough of it to be socially acceptable.
5. I have no market knowledge other than that I signed my audiobook rights away to my publishers in the industry-standard way.
6. I'm sure it'd be very easy to procure data that made a case for audio fiction that was well-produced and incorporated soundscape-like elements, being incredibly commercially successful. It strikes me as a form that is ripe for innovation. And everyone loves books on tape.
7. There has been so much really interesting innovation in 'aural mood amendment' over the last decade or two. Some of it seems like pseudoscience, some of it seems legit - I wish I had sources to share. Apologies that I don't.
8. I assume someone has already built this concept - well-produced, soundscape-driven longform audio fiction - I'm not a consumer of that market well enough to know it. It'd be a really, really fun project. I'm sure it'd be very tough to get profitable, but it's almost too fun to care. This could be another reason it doesn't exist.
9. Gibson's 2003(?) novel Pattern Recognition is insanely underrated - probably not by people here - but I think the prose is better, and in a decade or two it will feel just as (if not more) prescient. It's a really, really good example of a literary classic that didn't get attention from book dweebs because it's from a 'genre' guy. If you like Neuromancer, and want to think about the next couple of decades in a similar way, you will really love it. I always thought it'd make a great double-bill with the movie Children of Men .
Oh, I have those cassettes and listened to them on a 6 hour drive a couple weeks ago.
Hearing it from start to finish, all in one go was very emmersive. I just needed a little bit of nicotine gum to stay awake through Gibson's drawling voice and U2's dub accompaniment.
The return trip was Einstein's Dreams on cassette read by Michael York. That voice is a treat.for the ears.
A number of years ago driving late one evening an interview of his came on the radio. It might have originally been WGBH or a Canadian affiliate I can't recall, but just listening to him talk and expound on his views of the world gave the same thrill as reading Neuromancer and that same thrill of exploring the world through a phone line.
I've been reading Neuromancer, had it on my list for long time... But I just can't get through it. It moves slowly, the main character makes dumb choices (facepalm level), has a flat personality, sex is very male-centric and flat/unimaginative (but that is in most older scifi "here an interesting female with a loose sexual morale to spice up the story").
I stopped somewhere half way. Someone spoiled the plot so I know it should get epic at some point but I just can't get there. Am I the only one?
Molly is actually a fairly interesting and complex character if you follow her from Johnny Mnenmonic all the way through Neuromancer (especially the second half) and Mona Lisa Overdrive.
It's tempting to write off Case's behavior as just a realistic portrayal of a washed up addict, but thematically there's a strong and likely intentional parallel between the way he's coming apart and the way one of the main AIs in the story is coming apart. If you add in Linda Lee and the other AI, what Gibson was trying to do becomes a lot clearer. I'm intentionally being vague to avoid spoilers.
I've had this sequence of quotations from various classic cyberpunk stories burned into my mind for the last 30 years. The slow zoom into the disembodied head on the cover of Neuromancer, while the visual and audio effects increase in intensity over the narration, "lines of light, ranged in the non-space of the mind" is particularly striking: https://youtu.be/VuZonQVN4uw?t=556
I didn't have more problems reading Neuromancer than others, quite enjoyed it, but listening to it is not easy. The names and the random nouns that have acquired new meanings (like sprawl, chiba), are hard to parse for non-native speakers. Harder than in text, IMO.
25 comments
[ 285 ms ] story [ 1187 ms ] thread*EDIT:* There's also the CD version somewhere out there. Here's a Reddit post where someone ripped it (but didn't make it available): https://www.reddit.com/r/Neuromancer/comments/1gr7k4n/audiob...
This is an abridged version, so maybe it streamlines some aspects of the narrative, so take that into account.
William Gibson reads Neuromancer, from tape to mp3 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14021369 - April 2017 (3 comments)
Re. the date:
- The original book was published in 1984
- This abridged audio reading seems to have been published in 1994
- This article was published in 2004
[0] https://haujobb.bandcamp.com/track/penetration-fuck-the-floo... at 2m45s
Hopefully they renew it eventually
1. There is a reason 'reader of audiobooks' is a profession - it is stupid difficult. I will never do it again.
2. I loved this tape so much. It does such interesting things with its soundscape (from memory - if it actually is just Gibson reading it, then he must have embedded those memories through the sheer brilliance of his performance.
3. My fiancee is partially-sighted (I see her as an investment that will appreciate as biohacking becomes more and more prevalent) and she reads mostly by audiobook.
It's not really how I prefer to read - I get distracted too easily - but I've been appalled at the production quality of what I've overheard. While Gibson's work is a special case, an audiobook is only one dimension away from a film adaptation.
4. Literally all my millennial-Gen-Z-cusp friends who are non-readers opted for the audiobook of my book, not the book-book. Anecdata, but interesting. They would just switch Rogan or whatever out during their commute until they felt they'd listened to (what I assume as) enough of it to be socially acceptable.
5. I have no market knowledge other than that I signed my audiobook rights away to my publishers in the industry-standard way.
6. I'm sure it'd be very easy to procure data that made a case for audio fiction that was well-produced and incorporated soundscape-like elements, being incredibly commercially successful. It strikes me as a form that is ripe for innovation. And everyone loves books on tape.
7. There has been so much really interesting innovation in 'aural mood amendment' over the last decade or two. Some of it seems like pseudoscience, some of it seems legit - I wish I had sources to share. Apologies that I don't.
8. I assume someone has already built this concept - well-produced, soundscape-driven longform audio fiction - I'm not a consumer of that market well enough to know it. It'd be a really, really fun project. I'm sure it'd be very tough to get profitable, but it's almost too fun to care. This could be another reason it doesn't exist.
9. Gibson's 2003(?) novel Pattern Recognition is insanely underrated - probably not by people here - but I think the prose is better, and in a decade or two it will feel just as (if not more) prescient. It's a really, really good example of a literary classic that didn't get attention from book dweebs because it's from a 'genre' guy. If you like Neuromancer, and want to think about the next couple of decades in a similar way, you will really love it. I always thought it'd make a great double-bill with the movie Children of Men .
Hearing it from start to finish, all in one go was very emmersive. I just needed a little bit of nicotine gum to stay awake through Gibson's drawling voice and U2's dub accompaniment.
The return trip was Einstein's Dreams on cassette read by Michael York. That voice is a treat.for the ears.
I stopped somewhere half way. Someone spoiled the plot so I know it should get epic at some point but I just can't get there. Am I the only one?
It's tempting to write off Case's behavior as just a realistic portrayal of a washed up addict, but thematically there's a strong and likely intentional parallel between the way he's coming apart and the way one of the main AIs in the story is coming apart. If you add in Linda Lee and the other AI, what Gibson was trying to do becomes a lot clearer. I'm intentionally being vague to avoid spoilers.
Was that read by Gibson himself?
JK I found it -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIDVvhy9Z0I
https://bafybeifvyimyhbmn4ml3ewleepiaahaultucbs6nnzu6qwswld6...