I became completely hooked by WG for so many reasons but if I had to [here it comes] sum them up in one word... that word would be texture.
That opening sentence to Neuromancer has been talked about elsewhere on the board; it's super memorable, it's highly quotable - but the reason i think it's so very good is that it lets you know right away what you're in for. There are so many things implied by that sentence and Henry James couldn't have written it. Nobody could have written it before the seventies who hadn't grown up with several TVs flickering silently around the house.
This is going to be about our relationship to electricity. To what [and how] we can see. To interfacing. To consuming. All that and a kind of Raymond Chandleresque observant and hardboiled wit too.
The quality of his observations, the way he makes connections and refers/implies new ones, the density of the imagery - those are the things that make reading him such a fascinating pleasure. And keep me coming back. You?