Neuromancer is a science fiction novel by American-Canadian author William Gibson. Set in a near-future dystopia, the narrative follows Henry Case, a computer hacker enlisted into a crew by a powerful artificial intelligence and a traumatised former soldier to complete a high-stakes heist.
It was Gibson's debut novel and, following its success, served as the first entry in the Sprawl trilogy , preceding Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive Gibson had primarily written countercultural short stories for science-fiction periodicals before Neuromancer.
Influences on the novel include the detective stories of Raymond Chandler , the comic art of Jean Giraud , and William S. Burroughs 's Naked Lunch Neuromancer expanded and popularised the setting and concepts of an earlier Gibson story, " Burning Chrome " , which introduced cyberspace —a digital space traversable by humans—and "jacking in", a bio-mechanical method of interfacing with computers.
Neuromancer is agreed as foundational work of early cyberpunk , although critics differ on whether the novel ignited the genre or if it was lifted by its inevitable rise. They agree it highlighted the genre's key features, like the placement of technological advancement against societal decay and criminality.
Gibson's novel also defined the major conventions and language of the genre—cyberspace, jacking in, and ICE. Critics discuss the novel in the historical context of the s and s, a period marked by conservatism , deregulation , and free-market economics.
