I recently found the book at a used book store and I’ve heard good things. Of course they said it will have a “modern twist” and I hate to make assumptions but seeing the showrunner I have no doubt it will be like every other modern adaptation.
Also heard a rumor that an Elric adaptation is in the works, and I’d be shocked if Netflix respects the Narnia source material.
On the bright side, whenever I see that a book or comic is being adapted and the story sounds interesting I just get the source material because an actual adaptation is low on the list of Hollywood priorities
Man. Neuromancer is one of my favorite novels ever. I re-listen to it as an audiobook while exercising probably once a year. It's going to be a shame reading how about they shit all over this (won't really matter, though, as they can never take the novel away from me).
I'm guessing what they'll do here is lean crazy hard into making Molly (for anyone who hasn't read Neuromancer, it's basically what they based the Trinity aesthetic from The Matrix on) into the main character, and Case will be a total loser (even more so than he already is. lol).
You know, that's the crazy part here. If they just faithfully adapted the book, it already has everything they like (other than the male being the primary protagonist). Molly is a cybered up female merc, who does most of the ass kicking in the book, while Case is just a burned out semi-pathetic hacker guy. It's got exactly what they want as antagonists (the human ones, anyhow): 3Jane is a powerful female, and sympathetic, as her "father" Ashpool is the classic white male ultra-rich scumbag (he literally thaws a clone of his daughter out to rape/kill). It has a badass Asian ninja guy. Fuck, it even has a dreadlocked Rastafarian that helps Case storm the enemy "fortress" at the end.
They could literally just leave the entire story alone, and do it as written, and we could all be happy. We all know they won't, though. ::sighs::
I'm guessing were going to get stuff like:
What else do people anticipate?
Neuromancer is one of my favorite, too, if not outright number one. It's such a shame, I've never found anything else that does cyberpunk justice. At best, it's all just aesthetic without any pathos. Altered Carbon came close, but Morgan isn't as good a writer as Gibson.
Even the other Sprawl books are fun, but not on the same level. It's weird, but I consider "cyberpunk" a genre with exactly one entry.
Are you me? :)
Neuromancer is exactly as you say - it's the one book that just defines the genre.
Yep. Even Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive felt like derivative fanfics.
My general feeling is anything that describes itself overtly as "Cyberpunk" is bad because of this. Near future - Dystopian future - Fine. But specifically pinning that label on is a warning sign for junk.
I really like the AI voodoo gods, but not as much as the cosmic position the AI are left in at the end of the first book. I get why Gibson needed to reset the scope, but it's still a little disappointing.
The sequels still have genre defining moments. The extraction that Count Zero opens with is pure cyberpunk. And I like them as stories. Molly babysitting a little girl is fun. But they just aren't perfect the way Neuromancer is.