Editions of Neuromancer have had some awesome cover art but my favorite remains this cover art by Josan Gonzalez for the Brazilian edition – although it was a close call with cover art featuring my girl Molly Millions

(16) WILLIAM GIBSON –

NEUROMANCER (1984)

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”

The godfather of cyberpunk – with the archetypal cyberpunk novel Neuromancer in 1984 (part of the Sprawl trilogy)

Neuromancer is where it’s at for cyberpunk, the origin of the genre, “showcasing its characteristic contrast between low-life and high-tech”. Not only can most modern cyberpunk works be largely traced back to it, but also cyberspace or other tropes, as well as much of its language, because everyone started using Gibson’s words for actual things.

It’s even more impressive, as I understand that Gibson neither owned a computer nor had been to Japan when he wrote it, those quintessential elments of cyberpunk.

I also have a crush on Molly Millions, its cyborg razorgirl street samurai.

Oh – and he’s also responsible for steampunk as well as coining raygun gothic.

RATING:
A-TIER (TOP TIER)