Comment by mingus88
The prose is the art. In Blade Runner, the world is built with dense backdrops of an alien city, people walking around in strange clothes, etc. All that is imprinted on you without a single line of dialogue.
With Gibson, all that world building happens with prose. It reads like poetry sometimes where what is written implies a half dozen connections to things never mentioned directly. Unpacking what lies beneath the surface is the immersive bit of his fiction.
If you feel that’s a waste of time and you can get all you need from a Wikipedia plot summary then you’re missing the whole point of the work.
This. I recall an interview with Gibson where he said that he hung out in watering holes frequented by IT folks. He spent a lot of time picking up the atmosphere and cadence of the language, which he imitated in his works.