2024 - Neuromancer, the novel that created cyberpunk, becomes a series

Neuromancer, by William Gibson, will be adapted by Apple TV+ into a 10-episode TV series. This book is the pioneer of a fundamental trend in SF: cyberpunk.

In the second part of the 20th century, a cult SF genre was born: cyberpunk. It will give rise to typical imagery, such as that of Blade Runner. The pioneering novel of cyberpunk is the Neuromancer by William Gibson, published in 1984 in the counterculture movement. Several decades later, it arrives on our screens: the streaming service Apple TV+ has ordered an adaptation, as Variety announced on February 28, 2024.

The series will have 10 episodes. Graham Roland (Jack Rayan) will be the showrunner, and JD Dillard the director of the first episode (we owe him episodes of The Outsider, The Twilight Zone And Utopiain 2020).

Welcome to the matrix

Neuromancer presents all the hallmarks of cyberpunk: a futuristic and dystopian world held by unbridled technological capitalism, where transhumanism (cybernetic augmentations) and synthetic drugs are found galore on every street corner. William Gibson’s book was also one of the first to describe a “cyberspace”, a virtual reality world now nicknamed metaverse. In Neuromancer, this world was called “Matrix”. In France, the book was republished in 2020 by Au Diable Vauvert, in a new translation by Laurent Queyssi.

The official synopsis of the series takes up the story of the novel: we will follow a “ broken super-hacker named Case who finds himself thrust into a network of digital espionage and high-risk crime with his partner Molly, an eye implanted criminal, in an attempt to pull off an entire heist dynasty of companies holding unspeakable secrets “.

The series team will be faced with a problem: where Neuromancer was innovative and helped create an entire genre, which has since infused all of pop culture. Literature, films and series almost seem to have gone around cyberpunk, the public is now looking for new types of SF. It will be difficult to demonstrate originality, and demonstrate inventiveness, by adapting the very first novel of the genre. But this return to basics could also provide an interesting perspective on the evolution of our world – based on the perception that science fiction had in the 1980s.

Chloe Grace Moretz in Peripherals // Source: Prime Video

This is Gibson’s second work adapted into a TV series. On Prime Video, Peripheral devices adapted his work of the same name, between virtual reality and time travel, with Chloe Grace Moretz in the main role. This adaptation is now canceled, after only one season.

Apple’s streaming service seems decidedly determined to invest in science fiction. After For All Mankindfrom the creator of Battlestar Galacticawe were treated to the first adaptation of Foundation or even to that of Siloto which is added Invasion, Severance, See, Hello Tomorrow, Extrapolations, The Big Door Prizeand, in 2024, Constellations.