Neuromancer

Neuromancer

1st edition cover
Author	William Gibson
Language	English
Series	The Sprawl trilogy
Genre	Dystopian, Science fiction, Cyberpunk
Publisher	Ace Books
Publication date	July 1, 1984
Publication place	Canada
Media type	Print (Paperback
ISBN	ISBN 0-441-56956-0
Followed by	Count Zero

Neuromancer by William Gibson is the most famous early cyberpunk novel and won the so-called science-fiction "triple crown" (the Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award, and the Hugo Award) after being published in 1984. It was Gibson's first novel and the start of The Sprawl trilogy.

Set amidst the cities of a future world that many readers see as dystopian and find chillingly plausible, Neuromancer tells the story of Case, an out-of-work computer hacker hired by an unknown patron to participate in a seemingly impossible crime.

The novel examines the concepts of artificial intelligence, virtual reality, genetic engineering, multinational corporations overpowering the traditional nation-state and cyberspace (a computer network called the matrix) long before these ideas were fashionable in popular culture. Gibson also explores the dehumanizing effects of a world dominated by ubiquitous and cheap technology, writing of a future where violence and the free market are the only things upon which one may rely, and in which the dystopian elements of society are counterbalanced by an energy and diversity that is perversely attractive (and provides some of the book's appeal).

Synopsis

Neuromancer tells the story of Henry Dorsett Case, a talented computer hacker and thief in the high-tech dystopian future of the novel's setting. The novel's opening finds Case working as a low-level street hustler in the back streets of Chiba city, living out the last days of a self-destructive arc of risky behaviors and fast deals in the high-tech underworld of Japan.

Formerly a talented hacker, Case made the mistake of stealing from his employers who retaliated by damaging his central nervous system with a Russian military mycotoxin, leaving him unable to use the direct brain-computer interfaces required for high-speed access to the cyberspace representations of the global computer network. With his career effectively ended, Case journeys to the Chiba city "black clinics" which deal in quasi-legal and illegal biomedical engineering techniques and cybernetic implants, in a desperate attempt to reverse the damage. When Case finally depletes his resources without finding a cure, he finds himself trapped in the underworld of Japan, surviving as a street hustler. Unable to return to the life he knew, and unwilling to create a new one, Case embarks on a self-destructive path of drug addiction and high-risk crime, subconsciously wishing to die, and waiting for his high-risk life to kill him.

Case is saved from his arc of self-destruction when he is forcibly recruited by Molly, a "street samurai": a combination street-fighter/bodyguard/hired killer whose reflexes, strength and speed have all been artificially enhanced. Molly's most notable alterations are her "mirrorshades" - protective lenses surgically inset into her face to protect her eyes - and a set of 4cm retractable razors concealed beneath her fingernails. Molly is a "working girl" - a mercenary - who has been retained by Armitage, a shadowy ex-military officer whose intentions and loyalties are unclear, and charged with retrieving Case.

Armitage also recruits Case, offering to cure his neurological damage in exchange for his services as a hacker. Case instantly jumps at the chance to regain his lost life as a "console cowboy", even though neither he, nor Molly, know what their "mission" really is, nor who (or what) Armitage's mysterious backers are.

Case has his nervous system repaired at an illegal clinic using brand-new technology that Armitage gives to the clinic in return for their work. Armitage also pays them to leave several sacs of the same mycotoxin in Case's blood vessels that will eventually burst. He promises Case that if he completes his work, he will remove them. Modifications are also made to render Case unable to use most street drugs.

Case and Molly develop a personal relationship and secretly begin to inquire into Armitage's background. Armitage's first job for them involves a daring theft at the corporate headquarters of media conglomerate Sense/Net. A group of anarchists calling themselves the Panther Moderns are hired to create a massive diversion in the form of a simulated terrorist attack, allowing Molly to penetrate the building while Case directs her to the location of a priceless ROM module that contains the saved consciousness of McCoy Pauley (AKA "The Dixie Flatline"), a deceased cyberspace jockey who, in addition to being a legendary cyber-cowboy, was also one of Case's mentors. Apparently they will need Pauley's expertise for whatever job Armitage has for them.

Case and Molly continue to investigate Armitage's background and soon discover that he was formerly known as Colonel Willis Corto, one of the few surviving veterans of a famous Cold War military operation known as Screaming Fist, a covert operation in which a glider-mounted commando force augmented with cyber-hacking capabilities was ordered to attack a Soviet military base.

Unbeknownst to the commandos, however, the raid was engineered by high-ranking military commanders to examine the effect of EMP weapons against unprepared troops. Corto's men were slaughtered, but he and a few survivors commandeered a Soviet military helicopter, escaped over the heavily guarded Finnish border and were all killed, with the exception of Corto, who was almost fatally wounded by Finnish defense forces upon landing.

The trail leads Case and Molly to a powerful Artificial Intelligence (AI) known as Wintermute, constructed by the plutocratic Tessier-Ashpool clan, whose members alternate control of the family wealth and spend periods in cryogenic preservation in the family mansion at the Freeside space resort. Wintermute engineered the individual known as Armitage from the remains of Corto, whose body and mind were devastated during his attack on the Soviets and subsequent escape to Finland. However, when the Armitage persona proves to be less than stable, Wintermute is forced to open lines of communication with Case directly.

In Istanbul, the team recruits another member, Peter Riviera, an artist, thief, and drug addict who is able to project detailed holographic illusions with his mind with the aid of sophisticated cyber-implants. He is very dangerous, but is coerced by Armitage into joining the team.

It is gradually revealed that Wintermute's goal is to free himself from the hardware that keeps him bound to the Tessier-Ashpool computer system, and which prevents him from becoming a part of the larger cyber-matrix. The only way to do that is for Case to enter cyberspace and use a Chinese icebreaker (a virus-like software) of unprecedented sophistication to hack through the advanced security measures around the Tessier-Ashpool computer system, while Lady 3Jane Marie-France Tessier-Ashpool, the current leader of Tessier-Ashpool SA, speaks a code-word into an elaborately decorated computer terminal that is located in the heart of Villa Straylight, the Tessier-Ashpool clan's fortress.

Wintermute is revealed as only a (rather independent) part of the full Tessier-Ashpool AI, Neuromancer. As Molly and Riviera gain entrance to Straylight, Wintermute helps Case escape from the Turing Police, whose job is to regulate AIs and who have found out about Wintermute's plan.

Armitage finally comes undone and reverts back to Corto, but is killed by Wintermute. At the same time, Molly is captured by Lady 3Jane and Riviera, who by this point has switched allegiances. Aware that Molly is in trouble, Case enters Straylight with Wintermute's help.

At that point, Neuromancer attempts to trap Case within a cyber-construct that feels very real to Case, and where he finds an old girlfriend with whom he has unresolved issues. However, Case manages to escape back to the real world after discovering the true nature of Neuromancer's cyber-construct with the help of Wintermute.

Case confronts Lady 3Jane, Riviera, and a cybernetically enhanced ninja named Hideo. Riviera tries to kill Case, but Lady 3Jane is sympathetic toward Case and Molly, and so Hideo prevents the killing. Hideo then chases Riviera and later kills him.

They go to the computer terminal, where Case jacks into the matrix to check the status of the Chinese virus under Pauley's guidance. Lady 3Jane speaks the secret words at the right time and Wintermute succeeds in its task, allowing it to unite with Neuromancer and fuse into an even greater entity, becoming a part of the matrix itself.

Case and Molly are rewarded handsomely for their efforts. Molly eventually leaves Case, because she couldn't handle a peaceful, boring life. (In Gibson's later books, we learn that Case eventually married, settled down and had four kids.) The new AI that used to be Wintermute/Neuromancer tells Case that it has found another entity like itself, by decoding transmissions received over the course of eight years in the 1970's, transmissions that originated in Alpha Centauri.

Literary importance

Neuromancer is considered "the archetypal cyberpunk work" , and its winning the Hugo, Nebula, and Dick Awards legitimized cyberpunk as a mainstream branch of science fiction literature.

Cultural importance

The novel has had significant linguistic influence, popularizing such terms as cyberspace and ICE. Gibson himself coined the term "cyberspace" in his novelette "Burning Chrome", published in 1982 by Omni magazine. It was only through its use in Neuromancer, however, that the term Cyberspace gained enough recognition to become the de facto term for the World Wide Web during the 1990s. The portion of Neuromancer usually cited in this respect is:

The matrix has its roots in primitive arcade games. … Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts. … A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding (69).

Neuromancer is sometimes believed to be the first work to refer to cyberspace as "the Matrix", possibly inspiring the title of the film The Matrix. However, the Doctor Who story The Deadly Assassin introduced its own Matrix eight years earlier, with substantial similarities.

Adaptation

In 1988, a video game adaptation, designed by Bruce J. Balfour, Brian Fargo, Troy A. Miles, and Michael A. Stackpole, was published by Interplay. The game had many of the same locations and themes as the novel, but a different protagonist and plot. It also featured, as a soundtrack, a computer adaptation of the DEVO song "Some Things Never Change". It was available for a variety of platforms, including the Amiga, the Apple II, the Commodore 64, and for DOS-based computers.

According to an episode of the American version of Beyond 2000, the original plans for the game included a dynamic soundtrack, as composed by DEVO and a real time 3d rendered movie of the events the player went through. Tim Leary was involved, but very little documentation seems to exist about this incarnation of the game, which was quite possibly too grand a vision for 1988 home computing.

In 1989, Epic Comics published a 48-page comic version by Tom de Haven and Bruce Jensen. It only covers the first two chapters, "Chiba City Blues" and "The Shopping Expedition", and was never continued.

There have been several unsuccessful initial attempts at film adaptations of Neuromancer, with drafts of scripts written by British director Chris Cunningham and Chuck Russel. The box packaging for the game adaptation had even carried the promotional mention for a major motion picture to come from "Cabana Boy Productions". None of these projects have come to fruition, though William Gibson has stated that he thinks Chris Cunningham is the only director who has a chance of doing the movie right.

American River College (in Carmichael, California) produced a stage adaptation of Neuromancer directed by Pamela Downs. Mr. Gibson recieved a copy of the script before production began, and he gave the project his blessing.

Characters

Case (Henry Dorsett Case)

The anti-hero, a drug addict and cyberspace hacker. Prior to the start of the book he attempted to rip off some of his partners in crime. In retaliation they used a Russian mycotoxin to damage his nervous system and make him unable to jack into Cyberspace. When Armitage offers to cure him in exchange for Case's hacking abilities he jumps at the offer. Case is the underdog who is only looking after himself. Along the way he will have his liver and pancreas modified to biochemically nullify his ability to get high; meet the leatherclad Razorgirl, Molly; hang out with the drug-infused space-rastas; free an artificial intelligence (Wintermute) and change the landscape of the Matrix.

Linda Lee

Case's girlfriend in Chiba. The book hints that she is killed by Julius Deane.

Julius Deane

A black marketeer in Chiba, a 135-year-old Welshman with a fetish for fashionable, if archaic, suits. He is very paranoid, even around friends, and is constantly chewing Ting Ting Djahe ginger candy. Case often went to him for information or jobs.

Molly

A "Razorgirl" who is recruited along with Case by Armitage. She has extensive body modifications, including retractable, double-edged blades under her fingernails which can be used like claws, an optimized reflex system and implanted lenses covering her eyesockets with added optical enhancements. Molly also appears in a number of other stories by Gibson, including the short story "Johnny Mnemonic". Molly is a classic cyberpunk heroine.

Armitage

He is (apparently) the main patron of the crew. Formerly a Green Beret named Colonel Willis Corto, who took part in a secret operation named Screaming Fist. He was heavily injured both physically and psychologically, and the "Armitage" personality was constructed as part of experimental "computer-mediated psychotherapy" by Wintermute (see below), one of the artificial intelligences seen on the story (the other one being the eponymous Neuromancer) which is actually controlling the mission. As the novel progresses, Armitage's personality slowly disintegrates. Armitage's real name may be a reference to the right-wing figure Willis Carto.

The Finn

A fence for stolen goods and one of Molly's old friends. He has all kinds of debugging and sensor gear that allow Case to confirm Armitage's mycotoxin sac threat. Later in the book, Wintermute uses his personality to talk with Case and Molly.

Lupus Yonderboy

Leader of the Panther Moderns, a technofetishistic Sprawl youth gang. Has pink hair, a chameleon suit, and many ear ports. He and the Moderns help steal the Dixie Flatline (see below) from Sense/Net. In John Brunner's influential 1968 New Wave SF novel Stand on Zanzibar, "yonderboy" is futuristic slang for commercial astronaut.

The Dixie Flatline

A famous computer hacker named McCoy Pauley, known for surviving three "flat-lines" or brain deaths while trying to crack an AI. Before his death, Sense/Net saved the contents of his mind onto a ROM. Case and Molly steal the ROM and Dixie helps them complete their mission.

Wintermute

Part of the Tessier-Ashpool AI. His goal is to remove the Turing locks upon himself and combine with Neuromancer and become a superintelligence. The name likely comes from Orval Wintermute, translator of the Nag Hammadi codices and major figure in Philip K. Dick's novel VALIS.

Peter Riviera

A thief and sadist who can project holographic images using his implants. He is a drug addict, hooked on a mix of cocaine and meperidine.

Maelcum

A member of Zion, a Rastafarian space station community who pilots a tug named the Marcus Garvey and assists Case and Molly in their final mission against Tessier-Ashpool.

Lady 3Jane Marie-France Tessier-Ashpool

The shared current leader of Tessier-Ashpool SA, a company running Freeside, a resort in space. She lives in the tip of Freeside, known as the Villa Straylight. She controls the hardwiring that keeps the company's AIs from exceeding their intelligence boundaries.

Hideo

A cybernetically-modified, genetically-engineered clone bodyguard / assassin in service of the Tessier-Ashpools. Highly trained in ninja martial arts, loyal, and dangerous, he is in a way reminiscent of Oddjob. He (or one of his clone "brothers") may have been the one who killed Johnny Mnemonic, Molly's former boyfriend.

Cath

A girl Case meets in Freeside with a melanin-boosted tan. She introduces him to the drug betaphenethylamine, a central nervous system stimulant and hallucinogen administered in the form of a derm. The drug bypasses the modifications that have been made to Case's pancreas and liver which prevent him from abusing other stimulants.

Aerol

Another member of Zion.

Glossary

Cyberspace Deck

Also called a deck for short, a deck is a device used to access the virtual representation of the matrix. The deck is a tiara-like device that operates by using electrodes to stimulate the user's brain while drowning out other external stimulation. As Case describes them, decks are basically simplified simstim units.

Derm

A generic term used to refer to a substance absorbed transdermally (i.e. through the skin) in a manner similar to that of a Nicorette Patch. Case uses recreational derms several times throughout the book. At another point, derms are used to administer an anaesthetic substance.

Fletcher

An advanced hand-held ballistic weapon, which uses needle-like parabellum called flechettes as ammunition. It is Molly's primary ranged weapon.

Freeside

A cluster of 'island' habitations situated in high orbit, or as Gibson says, 'up the gravity well'. The Tessier-Ashpool fortress Straylight is at one end of the spindle around which the cluster is centered.

Hosaka

A computer and microchip manufacturer whose products are in wide use in Gibson's world. Hosaka chips and machines occur in all of the Sprawl novels. Hosaka is also used to refer to a television-like device which has information accessing capabilities similar to a computer with internet connectivity. At one point, Case issues verbal commands to a Hosaka to learn more about Armitage and Screaming Fist.

The Matrix

A virtual reality cyberspace where complex data is represented as geometric symbols.

Microsoft

A chip used in conjunction with a cybernetic wetware implant located behind ear. When plugged in, microsofts grant the user new abilities as long as the microsoft is plugged in. For example, a French language microsoft might be used to temporarily allow the user to speak French.

Octagon

A type of Brazilian dexedrine (an amphetamine, specifically dextroamphetamine) in the form of an octagonal pill.

Simstim

A portmanteau of simulated stimulation, simstim is a technology whereby a person's brain and nervous system is stimulated to simulate the full sensory experience of another person. Simstim is usually used as a form of entertainment, whereby recordings of simstim stars in soap operas are transmitted in effect replacing television. However, simstim also has other uses; Case is connected to Molly via simstim during the Panther Modern's attack on Sense/Net. In this way, simstim was used as a sophisticated method of communication although the signal was one-way.

References

• Gibson, William (1984). Neuromancer. New York: Ace Books. ISBN 0-00-648041-1.

See also

• The Sprawl trilogy
• The Sprawl
• The Matrix (movie)
• Chiba Prefecture
• Chiba City
• Molly
• Neuromancer game adaptation
• Ghost in the Shell (movie)

External links

• Study Guide for Neuromancer by Paul Brians of Washington State University
• Razor girls: Genre and Gender in Cyberpunk Fiction
• Influence of Blade Runner
• A Neuromancer Movie?
• The William Gibson Message Board
• The most honored novels: Neuromancer has received numerous honors and is near the top of the list
• Template:Hotu