There are books that influence a genre, books that redefine it, and then there are books that seem to have had bits of themselves scattered all over everything that came afterwards. William Gibson’s Neuromancer is very much in that last category.

Published in 1984, this is one of the primary roots of so many of the science fiction tropes we’ve become accustomed to over the last four decades that reading it now can produce a slightly odd feeling. Hackers, cyberspace, artificial intelligence, corporate power, augmented humans, chemically enhanced criminals and grimy neon-lit futures all feel wonderfully familiar. Of course, they feel familiar because books like Neuromancer helped establish them.

Which does create a bit of a problem. It is difficult to appreciate just how revolutionary something was when you’ve already seen its descendants everywhere. It’s a little like discovering the original version of a joke after hearing everyone else tell variations of it for forty years. You know the punchline, but that doesn’t make the original any less important.

So, what about the actual story?

Well, we have Case, a washed-up computer hacker living in the criminal underworld of a future where corporations have enormous power and the line between human being and piece of technology is becoming increasingly blurry. Case used to be one of the best hackers around, but after stealing from the wrong people he has been punished by having his ability to access cyberspace removed.

For Case, this is rather like taking oxygen away from a particularly determined fish.

Then along comes the mysterious Armitage with an offer Case can’t really refuse. His ability to enter cyberspace can be restored, but in return he has to take part in a job. Working alongside the deadly and enigmatic Molly Millions, Case is pulled into a conspiracy involving corporations, criminals and artificial intelligences whose plans are considerably bigger than the humans involved in them.

And that is where things get interesting.

Neuromancer is part heist story, part detective thriller and part exploration of what happens when technology starts pushing against the boundaries of human consciousness. Gibson throws all of this at you without necessarily stopping to explain what is going on. Sometimes you just have to hang on and trust that things will eventually make sense.

And sometimes they do.

This is probably the biggest hurdle for modern readers. Gibson’s prose can be dense, particularly when he starts throwing unfamiliar terminology at you, and there are plenty of moments where you might find yourself thinking, “Right, I have absolutely no idea what that means.”

But somehow it works.

Rather than building his future and then giving us a guided tour, Gibson simply drops us into it. The characters already understand the technology, the slang and the social structures, so they have no reason to explain them to us. We are visitors in their world and have to work things out as we go along.

I actually rather like that approach. It makes the Sprawl feel lived in. This isn’t a shiny future where everything has been designed to make life easier. It is dirty, commercial, unequal and frequently unpleasant, populated by people who have figured out how to survive in a world where corporations can possess resources that would make governments nervous.

Case is a particularly good fit for this environment because he isn’t a conventional hero. He is selfish, damaged, cynical and thoroughly motivated by his own interests. His relationship with cyberspace is almost an addiction, so getting his ability back isn’t simply about recovering a professional skill. It is about recovering a part of himself.

Molly is probably the character who most obviously demonstrates Gibson’s influence on later science fiction. The enhanced, hyper-competent, heavily armed operative has become something of a genre staple, but Molly doesn’t feel like a collection of cyberpunk characteristics. There is a real sense of history and damage underneath all that competence, even if Gibson is happy to leave some of it in the shadows.

And then there are the AIs.

Without wandering anywhere near spoiler territory, this is where Neuromancer really starts to show its ambition. Gibson takes artificial intelligence and pushes it somewhere that feels almost spiritual. The story starts asking questions about consciousness, identity and what happens when an intelligence becomes something its creators can no longer properly understand.

That remains one of the most interesting aspects of the novel. The technology may have dated in places, but the questions haven’t.

If I’m being picky, Neuromancer isn’t perfect. The supporting characters can sometimes feel more like glimpses than fully developed people, and the plot can become deliberately opaque. Gibson is far more interested in giving you the experience of being inside this strange future than in making sure you’ve understood every last detail of it.

But even when I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening, I was rarely bored.

There is always another idea coming along. Another strange image. Another piece of technology. Another moment where you realise Gibson is taking something you thought you understood and twisting it into something considerably stranger.

The audiobook is helped enormously by Jason Flemyng’s narration. He does a great job of bringing the characters to life and making the whole thing feel real. His performance gives the various personalities enough distinction without turning them into caricatures, and that is particularly useful with a novel where the technology and terminology can sometimes threaten to overwhelm the human element.

Flemyng also helps give the Sprawl a sense of place. This is a world full of people rather than simply a backdrop for Gibson’s ideas, and his narration keeps that human presence front and centre.

Ultimately, Neuromancer is a classic for a reason. It isn’t the easiest book in the world, and there will be moments when you find yourself wondering whether Gibson has accidentally left a page out. But there is something enormously rewarding about sticking with it.

The biggest surprise may actually be discovering how much of it doesn’t feel surprising any more. That’s the price of being this influential. So many writers, filmmakers and game designers have spent the last forty years building on ideas that Gibson was exploring here that the original can sometimes seem like the copy.

It isn’t.

This is one of the books sitting near the roots of modern cyberpunk and, by extension, a huge chunk of the science fiction that followed. Strip away the layers of influence and there is still a fascinating, strange and occasionally bewildering story underneath.

And with Jason Flemyng bringing the characters to life and making it all feel real, Neuromancer remains well worth revisiting.

Just don’t expect it to hold your hand while you do it.

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