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| Nothing what so ever to do with magicians bringing dead brains back to life to perform evil. Ah. Hmm. Maybe also the opposite. |
A disservice both to William Gibson and to myself, then, perpetrated by a youthful reactionary who robbed me of years of smug sanctimony whenever some twat mentioned how The Matrix changed his or her life***. Indeed, as far as I know, this novel contains the first gem of the literary idea of an alternate, virtual reality created by and in the streams of data flowing between linked mainframes and servers, ridden by hackers called cowboys, thrill seekers looking for the rush in avoiding ICE (that's online security measures to you and me although I forget what the acronym means) and by guzzling stimulants. Amazingly prescient considering it was first published in 1984, a full 14 years before the incorporation of Google, and 15 years before the Bros. Wachowksi cottoned-on and cashed-in.
Our link to this dubious world is a suicidal ex-cowboy named Case whose predilection for bucking authority leads him to an injudicious betrayal of an employer who in return decides to destroy his ability to connect to the matrix with a viscious virus - no claims to be the first to use the term virus however as work on self-replicating programs was underway by the end of the 1940s by John von Neumann. Case, wandering the streets of Night City, losing friends and influencing people (to kill him), is an easy mark for a team of specialists looking for a cowboy with motivation to make a big score, a huge score, but of course, nothing is quite what it appears, especially when he learns that there's AI involved.
There are clunky terms, overuse of what might be now almost archaic brand names (but highlighting the trend towards the use of such as common nouns and even, in some cases - shudder - verbs) and of course, with recent advances in technology, some aspects of the tech described are anachronistic given the advances outlined in neurological sciences. But screw that shit. This is a bloody marvellous novel, whether you like sci-fi or not, whether you're into the internet or not, whether you're a gamer or not. It's a crime caper, a spy story, a dystopian view of the future; it's a hipster novel, a jazz novel; it zings and pops with latent energy, and I gnash my teeth together that I didn't pick it up in the nineties when my brother left it lying about the house (I think). Of course, I did pick it up, back in the noughties, when my own prejudices were challenged by some twat I met in a bookshop, who told me what I wouldn't enjoy (which was this book) and what I should stick too. I nearly told him what to stick and where. And what makes me cross, makes me fizz with embarrassment and shame, is that it took one tweet from the lovely Scarlett Thomas:
Opening line from one of my favourite novels: 'The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel'.
— Scarlett Thomas (@scarthomas) June 18, 2015
AND a surprising but not unreasonable cameo appearance on screen for a mere five seconds in AMC's decent series Halt And Catch Fire (set in 84 and 85) to make me remember how much I loved it and how I longed to read it again. Why oh why did I wait? Well, now I have finished waiting and I can only urge you to follow suit. Don't be put off by covers or family or allow yourself to be goaded into things by people in bookshops. Just do as I tell you.
*Except for music for which I had no frame of reference other than his so mostly adopted*.
**'Mostly' is quite important, as he had (and still has as far as I know) a penchant for terrible Manc-folk Indie bands with flutes and tin whistles and whatnot, and I damned well did/do not. That much I could figure out on my own.
***And I don't think I'd deserve a challenge here if I were to drop the 'or her' part.
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