Neuromancer, written by William Gibson and published in 1984, is a science fiction novel best known for being one of the first examples of the "cyberpunk" genre. Upon publication, Neuromancer received critical acclaim, winning the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award, and the Philip K. Dick Award—the only novel to win all three prestigious science-fiction prizes. The novel was Gibson's debut work, although Gibson had previously explored many of its characters and themes in his short stories.
The novel explores the relationship between humans and artificial intelligence, focusing on the potential dangers posed by corporate power, artificial intelligence, and criminality. Its protagonist, Henry Dorsett Case, is a criminal hacker who works for-hire jobs venturing into cyberspace. After being recruited for a mysterious mission by a man named Armitage, Case works alongside the "razorgirl" Molly Millions and discovers the presence of a powerful AI, Wintermute. Case eventually comes to face the novel's titular AI, Neuromancer.
Although the novel was not the first example of cyberpunk fiction, it popularized terms like "cyberspace" and "matrix," which are used to this day in discussions of technology and in speculative fiction. Films like The Matrix have since popularized the term and further explored the cyberpunk genre, which portrays the future as a mix of technological advancement and gritty dystopian reality. The novel has also endured as an example of late 20th-century American postmodernism in its exploration of consumer capitalism and global cities. Neuromancer's rapid movement between scenes, as well as dizzying oscillations between reality and cyberspace, convey the distortion of society and human perception at the hands of technological advancement.
While Neuromancer was not an immediate commercial success, it rapidly became an underground hit and amassed a cult following. It endures to this day as an example of cyberpunk literature, with some referring to it as the "archetype" for the genre. Although Gibson did not originally intend to write any sequels to Neuromancer, he published two more novels as sequels to Neuromancer. The "Sprawl trilogy" consists of Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive, published in 1984, 1986, and 1988, respectively.
