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Originally Posted by Toeknee
How are you liking Neuromancer? It keeps getting listed as one of the science fiction "must read' books. I tried reading it a couple of months ago and gave up about half way through. It was just too confusing. You never knew what was real and what was not plus all of the made up words were wacky. I guess if I had the time to sit down and read it through in one or two sittings it might be better, but reading it in snippets just didn't work for me.
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I'm about 91% through it now. I'll probably finish it tonight. The first half was tough. He launches right into jargon and doesn't give the reader enough clues what things are. About halfway through the book, he's just about done debuting new words and jargon. After that, there are a few new locations, which are sometimes hard to tell if they're physical or mental or net locations.
I think you have to like hardcore sci-fi. By hardcore, I mean more hardcore than Star Wars & Star Trek.
I think you should start again from the beginning. You'll remember what most things are, and there won't be so many to figure out that it is so confusing. It does get easier from the second half onward. Half of it is attitude. It isn't like a lot of books where you can just blaze through it. You have to take your time.
Another way to look at it is that it is just one book. Some sci-fi series' are 3-10 books long. They can afford to introduce everything properly, but then you have to keep buying and keep reading for 10 books, and just get bored of it by the end, wishing it was over. (I never finished the Wheel of Time series for this reason; got through about 5 or 6 books then felt like I was being taken advantage of)