Neuromancer
William Gibson (1984)
“The novel that invented cyberpunk, written by a man who had never touched a computer, on a manual typewriter.”
Short Summary
Henry Dorsett Case, a washed-up computer hacker in the slums of Chiba City, Japan, is recruited by a mysterious ex-military officer named Armitage and a street-samurai named Molly Millions for a run against a powerful artificial intelligence. Case's nervous system is repaired so he can jack into cyberspace again, and the team discovers that their employer is actually Wintermute, one half of a twin AI owned by the Tessier-Ashpool dynasty, trying to merge with its other half, Neuromancer. After infiltrating the orbital arcology Villa Straylight and surviving betrayals, hallucinations, and corporate defenses, Case helps the two AIs unite into a single superintelligence that becomes the entire Matrix.
Detailed Summary
Henry Dorsett Case was once the sharpest data thief in the matrix — the consensual hallucination of cyberspace where hackers navigate vast corporate databases as geometric landscapes of light. But Case made the mistake of skimming from his employers, who retaliated by damaging his nervous system wit...