Here’s another fun nitpick from Neuromancer. The opening line says the sky was the color of a TV tuned to a dead channel, which in Gibson’s day would have been analog static that looks like a messy grey from across the room.

But later, with computerized channel tuning, a dead channel was shown as a screen of solid bright blue, and even later, solid black. So different generations of kids have grown up with very different mental images of the background lighting for the opening of Neuromancer.

So many plots in Seinfeld would have been trivially solved with cellphones. Get separated in the parking garage? Call each other. Need help carrying an armoire? Call each other. Trying to meet up at the movie theater? Call each other.

Hamlet is set in (what is currently) the past. It is self consistent. Neuromancer is set partially in the future, and partially what is our past. The inconsistency is what throws people. It can be a good book, but people might still find those elements jarring.

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