Neuromancer: the birth of an SF classic

Malcolm Edwards

The early 1980s was a time when change was in the air for science fiction. New ideas, taking their cue from advances in computing and virtual reality, became the hot topics in what swiftly acquired the label 'cyberpunk'. The new writer who quickly became identified as the spearhead of this movement was an unfeasibly tall expatriate American living in Vancouver, William Gibson. Gibson had only published a handful of short stories, but their impact in the small world of SF was explosive - not just the content but also the language, hyper-modern with a command of vernacular that set them apart. He was immediately embraced by the glossy new magazine Omni, a mix of futuristic non-fiction with a smattering of SF, which paid rates previously unprecedented in the SF world and which therefore became the first choice for writers of the genre. I had the great good fortune to be the relatively new editor of an SF list, eager to make its mark, and it was obvious that Gibson was the author any editor would target. I was also deeply immersed in the SF subculture, knew the editor who had commissioned Neuromancer (Gibson's first novel), and shared several acquaintances.