Neuromancer Radio Dramatization Up For Download
Along with Snowcrash, William Gibson's Neuromancer is one of the novels that most define that cyberpunk genre.
Neuromancer is the story of a talented computer hacker and thief, who makes the mistake of stealing from his employers who retaliate by destroying his central nervous system, making him unable to plug into cyberspace. Eventually, with the help of Molly Millions — a street samurai and assassin with enhanced strength, speed and reflexes — he is given a cure to his neurological damage in exchange for pulling off one last and seemingly impossible crime.
It's a fantastic read: if you've never read it before, you'll be amazed at how many of the concepts and ideas Gibson came up with twenty years ago have since become commonplace. Movies like The Matrix and Johnny Mnemonic owe a huge debt to Gibson.
A film version is currently in the works, disconcertingly headed by the same guy who directed the cheap Fast and the Furious clone, Torque.
But if you're too lazy or illiterate or just plain busy to read Neuromancer, you've got another option: a fantastic radio dramatization of the book is now up online. There's worse ways to wile away the drudgerous limbo of rush hour.
Hey, you realize that Gibson _wrote_ Johnny Mnemonic (or at least, the short story the movie was based on), right? Molly is even in it; the story is part of the same plot/continuity/whatever as Neuromancer.
Even though I'm not entirely happy with the choices they made in order to condense everything for this radio version, I really like how they placed the classic first line, "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel," in the middle of the opening credits to sort of set the tone, by changing "was" to "is".
That was slick.
"Movies like ... Johnny Mnemonic owe a huge debt to Gibson."
That's damning with faint praise. At least you didn't toss in "Freejack" along with it...