Michael, from the article on Neuromancer: "I'd never, ever choose to spend fantasy time in a drizzly, silicon-implanted, cyber-decaying, back-alley Tokyo. This world looks like a nightmare to me, and not an alluring one. It doesn't turn me on and make me want to battle it out with bad guys; instead it makes my brain hurt."

Michael, here: "...taking along a bunch of noir and detective novels...."

So you're OK with drizzly, cigarette-smoking, booze-soaked-decaying, back-alley Chicago, LA, New York, wherever? I guess I'm curious about what you see as the difference.

For me, one of the more striking things about Neuromancer was the minimal difference in tone and atmosphere between it and, say, Chinatown. Sure, the props are different, but the dominant theme is "little guy versus the corrupt establishment".

And the language, "The bartender's smile widened. His ugliness was the stuff of legend.... She looked [protagonist] in the eye and made the softest possible spitting sound, her lips barely moving. But she left." William Gibson or Dashiell Hammett? If you hadn't just listened to Neuromancer, could you be sure?

And FWIW, I'd probably put Sam Spade into the group of men who see women as accessories, along with most hard-boiled action heroes.

Lest I be misunderstood, I'm not trying either to denigrate your choices of what to read or to change them. I'm just curious about your (seemingly) visceral dislike for anything that smacks of SF.

Posted by: Doug Sundseth on June 25, 2004 12:19 PM