William Gibson's first and highly acclaimed novel,

Neuromancer

(1984), established him as one of the most admired and influential writers of the 1980s. It also helped to popularise cyberpunk, a new literary sub-genre. Bruce Sterling in his preface to

Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology

(1986) referred to

Neuromancer

as “the quintessential cyberpunk novel” whose fame relied on the depiction of a believably gritty future and the representation of cyberspace as a living space. However, the image of the future portrayed in

Neuromancer

had already been anticipated by three key films, all produced in 1982: David Cronenberg's

Videodrome

with its hallucinatory mass-media world; Steven Lisberger's

Tron

and its visualisation of cyberspace; and Ridley Scott's

Blade Runner

with its grim urban…

2038 words

Citation: Rapatzikou, Tatiani. "Neuromancer". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 July 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=10548, accessed 19 March 2024.]

10548 Neuromancer 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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