“Neuromancer” read by William Gibson | Hacker News Reader

“Neuromancer” read by William Gibson

archive.org

46 pointsmollymillions21 comments

William Gibson came to a local bookstore when I was a teenager. The staff had the public going through a line, issuing a Post-It, a pen and instructions to write the name of the person to whom to make out the book. Efficient and organized, right?

So I wrote "Mother" on my Post-It note. I was curious how the author would react.

I get to the front of the line with my dog-eared copy of "Neuromancer". Mr. Gibson takes my book, reads the Post-It, looks at me briefly, gives a tiny smile and starts writing. Hands me the book. I say "Thank you very much" and get out of the way.

I open the book: "To Mother: Come home. All is forgiven. William Gibson. Summer 1992"

That book was a treasured possession for years. =)

https://twitter.com/GreatDismal/status/833448033635426304

I went to a signing of his a couple of years ago. You'll be happy to know it's still the same process.

Is this copyright infringement? I know HN generally side-eyes IP law, but this seems like a pretty straightforward violation. Neuromancer certainly isn't out of copyright.

EDIT: Listening to this kinda makes one appreciate the virtues of hiring professional voice actors to do audiobooks. Don't get me wrong, I worship William Gibson, but he is... not suited to this task.

For everyone wondering about the copyright:

and, William Gibson isn't the one who uploaded this (unless MollyMillions is him, which I doubt).

Does William Gibson not own the copyright on his own work?

It doesn't matter if he gave an exclusive license for distribution of the audio version.

Authors generally assign the copyright to the publisher in exchange for a royalty, so no probably not.

If it is on archive.org, rest assured that any copyright issues have already been addressed.

[[ EDIT: I'm totally wrong about that. Thank you for the corrections. ]]

And yeah, authors rarely make good voice actors. I am reminded how terrible Wind in the Keyhole was since Stephen King decided to record it himself as compared to all the other books in the series that were voiced by the greats: Frank Muller and George Guidal.

There's a surprising amount of stuff on archive.org which is flagrantly in violation of copyright. Basically all of this, for example:

https://archive.org/details/pc_cdrom

They used to be so scrupulous about the live music archive, always obtaining explicit permission from each artist. Dunno when that all changed.

There is definitely not a rigorous process in place to prevent copyrighted material being uploaded to archive.org, often with obviously inaccurate metadata and political commentary [1].

[1] See this 2013 upload for instance: https://archive.org/details/TheLivesOfOthers-EastGermanZioni...

Uploaded in Cinepack format. Wow. I've flagged it - unfortunately there's no "copyrighted content" flag.

Nope, this is not true. Anyone can upload to archive.org and there's only one person reviewing flagged content AFAICT.

One... Person?..

It's a guess. Someone called Jeff Kaplan seems to be the only person responding to posts on https://archive.org/iathreads/forums.php about stuff needing to be taken down. And don't even get me started on the terrorism videos...

A few years back I tried listening to the audiobook but couldn't push myself to finish it, even though it's fairly short. As I recall, I picked it up after completing Snow Crash. Unfortunately it's been so long that I barely remember any details. I just vaguely remember having a hard time getting into it, as well as finding it hard to relate to the characters, and thinking the slang was confusing.

For Neuromancer fans here, I'd love to read about your perspective on the book. Maybe when I picked it up I didn't have the right mindset. What aspects did you enjoy most? Do any details stand out? How did it impact you?

I'll take this opportunity to remind the Americans on HN that your local public library has access to audiobooks and many other resources, free of charge. I've been living in Santa Clara for a while but I only just found out about all their perks a few weeks back. Just by having a library card, you get access to SO MANY high quality online resources [0]! It includes stuff like eAudiobooks, eBooks, digital magazines, research databases, etc. Two services which I suspect will be of interest to HN readers are: (1) Safari Books Online, which contains technical and business eBooks; and (2) Lynda.com, which has tons of videos for learning new business, software, technology, and creative skills. Although it's sadly worth noting that Safari Books Online only provides access to a subset of their full catalogue :(. Better than nothing, though!

Another great resource you gain access to is this Point of View Reference Center [1] service. It lists controversial issues. Inside each, you find an overview of the issue, along with some background and contextual info, and finally points and counter-points. It provides the information in a way that's very approachable, while remaining fairly unbiased. Oh, and the best part is that everything includes sources, so you know where stuff comes from! If something seems fishy, you can inspect the source. The topics have varying levels of detail, but it seems to be an overall good starting point for trying to understand current events or issues.

[0] http://santaclaraca.gov/government/departments/library/resea...

[1] https://www.ebscohost.com/us-high-schools/points-of-view-ref...

I found Gibson's writing style to be a bit difficult to get into when I first started reading his work. I started with Neuromancer and I'm currently reading The Peripheral.

At first I was a bit mad -- it seemed to me that he left out a lot of detail regarding the scene and the characters -- he just seemed to give the reader a few hints, and left them to construct the rest of the scene on their own. Dialogue often unfolds without explicit reference to who's speaking, leaving you to infer it based on speaking style and content. He'd also provide you with a couple sentences about a city or a structure and then move right on along with the action, movement, and interaction characters have with the environment.

Since I then have to rely so much on my own mental construction of the characters and the story, I end up surprising myself later on in the novels with how vividly I picture things as I'm reading, and the level of detail I can see. It's as if the reader takes as much of a part in constructing the story as Gibson does.

I found Count Zero to be a far better book than Neuromancer. But that was a very, very long time ago (about when the books came out). So I'm not sure if I'd still like them, especially now that the themes in these books have become pretty cliche.

I, too, prefer Count Zero. But I also think the trilogy should be regarded as a whole. Both Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive have mutiple characters and plotlines that converge towards the end, and likewise one can see Neuromancer and Count Zero as two independent strands that converge in the third book.

I found Mona Lisa Overdrive by far the weakest of the bunch, and that's when I stopped reading William Gibson.

If the Neuromancer trilogy is not your first clash with cyberpunk... well at least for me there was hardly anything that was noticibly hard to understand. But if you've played Shadowrun for a while...

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