“The sky above the port was the color of television tuned to a dead channel.”
William Gibson, Neuromancer, 1984
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Imagine creating an entire genre and coining the names of future tech decades before they happened… all in your first book?
Case is a lowlife hacker, whose brain was once adept at plugging in to “cyberspace” to pull off high stakes digital heists in the virtual world. After double crossing an organized crime syndicate, his brain was fried and he was left to waste away in the crime-ridden back-alleys of the dystopian “sprawl.”
At the bottom of his reckless spiral Case is approached by a mysterious woman with cybernetic enhancements who offers him a deal: do one last job and regain his ability to hack into the limitless worlds of cyberspace. He agrees to experimental surgery which allows him to regain his abilities, but, as insurance, he is also implanted with sacs of toxin which will burst if he doesn’t finish the job.
This is the setup for Gibson’s gritty noir novel. When people talk about “cyberpunk” as a genre, they are building on what this book started: cybernetic implants, designer drugs, spray painted antigravity ships, brain integrated tech, vast neon cities, concrete and rust, emerging artificial intelligence, plastic prosthetics, and dyed hair. It all started with Neuromamcer in 1984, decades before the internet and “cyberspace” became household names.