Neuromancer

How it reads

Neuromancer is science fiction (cyberpunk, specifically), and its dominant mood is dark. It goes to difficult places and doesn't look away. It moves fast: plot-driven and hard to put down, the kind of book that carries you along even when you're tired.

It's set in a big city setting, in the future, told in the third person, staying close to one character. Its central concerns are identity, power and politics and class and society. In weight it sits in the middle: substantial without being heavy going.

It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending is left open, for you to argue about. At 278 pages it's a quick read. It's a mega-bestseller — the book everyone seems to have read.