For the past few weeks I’ve been re-reading Neuromancer, a bit here and there - sitting on the bog, before going to bed, etc. Pick the book up, read a page or two, put it down again.

Then tonight I just hoovered up 142 pages to finish the book. I remember starting at about 5pm, and now it’s somehow 7pm. Thing is, when I read a book, it’s not words on a page - that’s just how the story gets into my head. No, my brain fills out the world of the story in a way that plugging my brain into my computer would have a hard time beating. I don’t see words, I don’t see letters, a film-strip plays inside my head complete with audio. Time also seems to match the story.

… and that’s the bit that totally screws me up. For those two hours I [i]was[/i] the story. I wasn’t sat on my settee listening to The Chillies reading a book, I was in the story, running around the corridors of Straylight. Then the story ended and there was a large jarring sensation as reality took over, followed by a few minutes of slight confusion. A bit like being woken suddenly from a dream. For a few minutes your brain isn’t sure what’s going on.

And like in the story when the characters jack out, I’m hungry and need a pee