peteg's blog

William Gibson: Neuromancer

/noise/books | Link

I read this about thirty months ago and didn't remember squat. Indeed, I don't remember much even an hour after completing it. The Matrix-as-vacuous-extension seems stronger than ever: the Rastas, Zion, the dub, the uneven technology. But where did they pull Larry Fishburn from? I fear mrak is right, that technology does undermine all traditional story forms; this plot probably wouldn't fly if it extrapolated from today's gizmos.

Everywhere I go, people ask me: "what impact is kruddnet going to have? What are the applications?" The ambient opinion is more of the same, or at least more of what I've already got (circa 1Mb/s down, 100kb/s up on Exetel, approx 70Gb a month, reasonable price). Sure, there's truckloads one can do with pervasive wifi (err, work in a cafe for starters), but obese pipes? When are we going to get a Wintermute?