Neuromancer was the second 'cyberpunk' book that I ever read. (The first was Snow Crash.) I already dug Stephenson's "second-generation" cyberpunk writing, and wanted to see what all the fuss about Neuromancer was about. And I wasn't dissapointed. Gibson's style was dizzyingly quick paced, and unlike anything I had ever read. I remember at one point where several plot lines collided, I was reading on the bus. The action had accelerated to a breakneck pace, and I was caught up in the Sprawl, in Case's hack, in Molly's progress through the Tessier-Ashpool universe. And I remember looking up, and looking at the rush-hour traffic on I-35 and shuddering. It was at that point when I looked out at the sea of cars that I realized that Gibson's fiction is such a believeable future, that it's both frightening and exhilerating at the same time.
And, I have to admit that Molly is my favorite character in any Science Fiction book I have ever read. I am amazed at the way Gibson broke down so many barriers that encapsulated female characters in SF. She's tough and sexy and smart; and definitely not someone to mess with.