Of its time

Looked forward to this as a classic of the genre but I struggled to get into it and returned it after half way, having given it a fair crack.
It set a good, visceral atmosphere which put me in mind of classic neon city environments which you'd expect in a cyberpunk genre.
Unfortunately as it went on the word salad of tech words became distracting and slightly cringe-worthy. The dialogue was very much of an 80s action film.
Perhaps it's unfair of me to criticise what must have been revolutionary at the time and perhaps I've been spoiled by subsequent works by the likes of Neal Stephenson.
The narration was a bit "east end" for my liking. Not a bad job, though. Perhaps slightly fast, hence that sensation that the word salad of tech words was just washing over me.

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14 people found this helpful

Great story & narration, yet somehow impenetrable

I had read Neuromancer years ago, and figured I'd refresh myself with the audiobook. The story is and world created are interesting, and Jason Fleming does a great job of breathing individual life into the characters, but there was something I simply didn't connect with in it. Maybe this is true of the original text too. I remember enjoying it, but I had forgotten most of the story. I'm not sure what the issue was here, but I just found it hard to take in the story. I'd get to the end of a character and only have the vaguest idea of what had happened. There's something off with the pacing, I think. I had to read up a synopsis afterwards to clarify everything. I thought it was just me until I saw some of the other reviews. I'd still recommend this, but just be warned that you really need to pay attention to everything little detail.

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Need the rest of the sprawl set

Brilliant need the rest of the sprawl series but doesn’t look like there being uploaded in English so bought the books

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Couldn’t finish this. Part due to performance and part story

I know it’s a modern classic and introduces all these wonderful concepts but the start at least is a confusing overlay of characters and events. The “voices” of each character are indistinguishable or for some people the narrator uses weird accents, But then the narrator slips in and out of the accent while the character is talking. Some of these accents are borderline stereotypical as well. As there are sections where characters just take turns speaking it is really hard to follow what is going on when there is no distinction between them.
There is lots of rich description of places and new technology but it is mixed with old technology, so it’s not THAT innovative. For example the book describes computer printout around a room. In a civilisation where people can enter an otherworldly matrix of cyberspace.
I’ve had it in my library too long to be able to return it, so I’ll keep it and may try again another day.

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I am still not quite sure what to think

Part of me enjoyed and loved the book, the other part was quite confused about what was actually going on.

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Dazzling but opaque, with hammy narration

William Gibson's techolust fever dream is creatively novel as it is near impenetrable. At times you wish his obsession with descriptive writing was as equally applied to his story beats. This is not an easy listen. But worth a go, particularly if you're a fan of the genre.

Narration overall is OK, but the awful US and Jamaican accents are as distracting as they as regrettable. A more judicious editor would have had a quiet word and advised against it.

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Great book. reader not so much

performance started lacking in second half. microphone picking up outside conversations. isolate the reading booth better. it started getting very distracting by the end. low rumble speaking overlapping the reader.

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Easily the best audiobook version

I've tried to get into this as an audiobook previously and it just didn't work. Flemyng's narration is spot on and made this an easy listen, engaging, and well presented.

I really hope he's doing the other books in the series too

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Can't follow it

It's a complete mess. So hard to know what is going on, feels like characters have multiple names, people pop from nowhere with no explanation. Narrator is far too fast and not distinct enough in transitions. Generally feels like it needed 20% more content to ground you and explain what was going on and for the narrator to be clearer.

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lost

struggled to keep track of all the characters and where they were some chapters really jumped
Good story though just had to wrap my head round the time line a bit

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