Neuromancer

Case is a Chiba hacker who stole from his employers, and they damaged his nervous system: he can't jack into the matrix anymore. Molly, a mercenary, recruits him for Armitage, who offers a cure along with a slow-acting poison that will only be flushed if the job gets done. The crew steals the construct of dead hacker Dixie Flatline, learns Armitage is Colonel Corto and reaches the Tessier-Ashpool family's Villa Straylight on Freeside. Footing the bill is Wintermute, an AI that wants to merge with its other half, Neuromancer. Lady 3Jane gives up the password, the two AIs become one and Case is cured. Molly leaves, and the new AI tells Case it has found another like itself, in Alpha Centauri.

1. Behind the scenesAn Ace commission

   Gibson wrote the book on commission for Terry Carr's second run of Ace Science Fiction Specials. It was his first novel.

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2. Behind the scenesRewritten 12 times

   Gibson rewrote the first two-thirds of the book 12 times and worked with no real outline, in what he called "blind animal panic." He also admitted he didn't know much about computers.

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3. Behind the scenesThe triple crown

   It's the only novel to win the Hugo, the Nebula and the Philip K. Dick Award. In 2005, Time named it one of the 100 best English-language novels since 1923.

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4. ReferenceVocabulary borrowed from the stories

   Cyberspace and jacking in had already shown up in the 1981 story "Burning Chrome." The novel took those ideas worldwide, along with terms like ICE and flatlining.

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5. Behind the scenesFinally on screen

   After decades of movie attempts that never got made, the book became an Apple TV series, with Callum Turner as Case and Briana Middleton as Molly. It premieres January 22, 2027.

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