About this Episode
When William Gibson's debut novel, Neuromancer, came out in 1984 most people didn't have computers in their home, never mind a conception for the what the hell cyberspace was. But Gibson wasn't just helping to create the new genre of cyberpunk, he was pointing to the future and how we'd all be interconnected through this "consensual hallucination" we call the internet. We might not have all of the cybernetic implants and body-mods - or cool hacker edge - but what our present lacks in superficial similarities to Gibson's neon-soaked dystopia it more than makes up for in the technological dependencies he predicted.
This is Matt's first time reading Neuromancer, and Tony was excited to revisit. They discuss the challenges of approaching a seminal work of art, ignoring familiar tropes when going back to their original source, and wrestling with having an appreciation for something even when you aren't on its wavelength.