I grew up on neuromancer and the burning chrome short stories, count zero, etc... I thought those books were excellent. Pretty much from The Difference Engine (awful) forward, I haven't liked anything he's written.
The thought that runs through my mind whenever I read his non matrix stuff is "what the hell am I reading and why am I spending time on it?"
I realize it doesn't matter if I like the books or not, other people obviously do. I'm just jealous because I enjoyed the early books so much, and they were so influential in my life. I wish I could like his more recent works, but they just aren't for me.
I think personally the main difference is that the matrix novels were aggressively futurephilic right from that famous opening line.
The more recent novels are more tempered by demonstrating the present is a strange and wonderful place that is accessible in our own lives. That requires a non-aggressive feel.
I like both. The futurism and technophilia and edginess is more inspiring in work. I feel more bad ass. The modern day is wonderful novels remind me of the joy of living now and that I can actually live the dream I want.
I think there's a huge opening for a talented new author to revisit cyberpunk as seen through the lens of what's actually happened since Neuromancer was published, then project that new understanding forward into the next near future. So much of what the early genre saw has come true in a way (or feels like it's about to), I think it might be useful to clean out what it didn't get right, or revisit how things have changed (the rise of China, advances in computing, etc.) and set those wheels in motion.
I think of cyberpunk, and an awareness of what it talks about as more of a tool for understanding the changing world, in a similar way that 1984 helps provide mental tools for understanding the world.
A very different style and language, but I felt Richard K Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs series' had a similar non-relenting future-technology somatic pressure as I was reading them. http://www.richardkmorgan.com/books/broken-angels/ (using Count Zero as reference)
The thought that runs through my mind whenever I read his non matrix stuff is "what the hell am I reading and why am I spending time on it?"
I realize it doesn't matter if I like the books or not, other people obviously do. I'm just jealous because I enjoyed the early books so much, and they were so influential in my life. I wish I could like his more recent works, but they just aren't for me.