edit: A lot of Gibson's stream of consciousness writing style can be attributed to the effect of beat writers like Burroughs on him. It's unique but it's also an intentional stylistic decision. Not really an attempt to capture the aesthetics of logging into the net. And as you may know, Snow Crash may seem pulpier but Gibson grew up on pulp like Edgar Rice Burroughs and it affected his work a bit.
As an interesting aside, There’s an old Canadian documentary film about Rochdale and the hippie scene in Toronto, shot around 1970, that, by pure chance, features a very young William Gibson well before he had published anything - I stumbled across this by chance in the York University film archives about 30 years ago - no idea if it’s available anywhere online and may no longer exist anymore.
It allows him to disguise a literal plot device, which is a nice twist. But overall I thought it was heavy going compared to the Neuromancer trilogy.
I read Neuromancer originally in 1984 and again a few years ago, and for me it still holds up. It's not the greatest book or anything, and I found Count Zero to be much better, but apart from those two books I've yet to read anything else cyberpunkish that comes even remotely close.
Before someone mentions Greg Egan or Vernor Vinge, as they have elsewhere in the thread, I read a lot by these authors and didn't like them either. Way too dry, boring, and unimaginative for me. I know some people love them, but they're just not for me.
But he wasn't a Texan, so I suppose I see your angle. Interesting bit of flavor.
Snow Crash is built around an airport novel style narrative.
Neuromancer has a far more literary tone, and is trickier to digest.
That's the entire reason Snow Crash is cited. Airport novel readership is far more widespread.
I found Neuromancer and and Count Zero eminently forgettable. I never read Snow Crash, so I can't really speak to it though I've read a half dozen of Neal Stephenson's other novels, all of which I found rich with ideas. While I appreciate the literary style, I honestly can't remember the plot of either Neuromancer or Count Zero.
Yes, I get that the post-singularity world is supposed to unpredictable/unimaginable in principle... but it's the author's job to imagine it anyway, else why am I even bothering to read his books on the singularity? If he doesn't/can't imagine it, I judge it a failure and a disappointment.
I don't remember details about Egan's work, except that nothing in it seemed particularly interesting and nothing wowed me... hence I really can't remember much about it except the premises of some of his novels, like Permutation City.
This is contrary to works by authors like Gibson, Herbert, and Dick, for instance, which I'll never forget. They're just leagues ahead of lesser authors like Vinge and Egan.
The point of introducing the fantasy element of the Zones of Thought was to allow Vinge to write a FTL space opera without having to deal with post-Singularity speculation.
When species transcended, they left the Beyond and went into the Transcend.
For instance, Gibson frequently skips exposition, and he delivers the narrative with a disconnected, stream-of-consciousness feel that is meant to evoke the sense of disconnection when “channel-hopping” or digging through large amounts of information on the internet. Combined with the frenetic pace of the story it can be confusing if the reader isn’t paying close attention. I’ll add that this was also Gibson’s first novel.
Compare to Snow Crash, which has a pulpier writing style (it was original envisioned as a graphic novel) or even The Matrix, which has a tight narrative. Those are more accessible to a mainstream audience.
Edit: formatting