# Neuromancer > [!abstract] What this note is > *Neuromancer* by William Gibson (Ace, 1984), described the way its publisher describes it, with a short note on why it sits in the [[AI Reading List]]. The description follows Penguin Random House's own page for the book, paraphrased rather than copied. ## The book, in the publisher's terms The publisher leads with the awards: *Neuromancer* won the Hugo, the Nebula and the Philip K. Dick Award, and the page calls it "a science fiction masterpiece." Its account of the story runs like this. Case was the best data thief working in the matrix, until he crossed the wrong people. They damaged his nervous system and shut him out of cyberspace for good. Then a mysterious new employer offers him one last chance: a run against an artificial intelligence of enormous power. He goes in with two companions, a dead man and Molly, a mercenary with mirrored implants for eyes. The publisher's claim for the book is a large one: that it was the first full picture of humanity's digital future, and that it changed how people think about technology. That is the whole of the publisher's description, and it is enough. It is the first novel of the Sprawl trilogy, followed by *Count Zero* (1986) and *Mona Lisa Overdrive* (1988). Gibson had coined the word **cyberspace** two years earlier, in the story "Burning Chrome." ## Why it is on this list The publisher's one-line premise already contains the reason: the target of the job is an artificial intelligence. Gibson's machine is not a killer robot. It is powerful, legally constrained, and it gets what it wants by working through people. Forty years on, that is close to how the risk is described by the people who study it, which makes the novel an odd companion to [[Nexus]] and to [[AI Security for Users]]. ## Adaptation An Apple TV+ series premieres 22 January 2027. ## Sources 1. [Neuromancer — Penguin Random House (Ace)](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/293994/neuromancer-by-william-gibson/) — primary: the publisher's own description 2. [Neuromancer — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer) — reputable secondary: trilogy titles and the coinage of "cyberspace" 3. [Neuromancer series announcement — Apple TV press release, July 2026](https://www.apple.com/tv-pr/news/2026/07/apple-tvs-highly-anticipated-cyberpunk-series-neuromancer-hacks-into-san-diego-comic-con-with-first-ever-teaser/) — primary ## Related - [[AI Reading List]] · [[Nexus]] · [[Daemon]] · [[Colossus]] - [[AI Supply Chain Risks]] — software that turns your own tools against you