Neuromancer by William Gibson Author: William Gibson Year of publishing: 1984 William Gibson's debut novel Neuromancer gained a cult-status very soon after its publishing by being one of the first novels in a new science-fiction genre called Cyberpunk . So it has become "the definitive cyberpunk book" and the most famous cyberpunk novel of all the time. Neuromancer was book of the year 1984 in the USA, and it also gained 3 sci-fi literature awards: the Hugo , the 1984 Nebula , and the 1985 Philip K. Dick Memorial Awards. Although Gibson used the word " cyberspace " first time in his story " Burning Chrome " already in 1982, in Neuromancer he presented the whole idea of a global information network called the Matrix. "Neuromancer" also introduced the notion of a technology dominated dystopian society in which social decay is apparent everywhere and lasting interpersonal relationships are nonexistant. "Neuromancer" presents an image of the future. There is corruption everywhere and the essence of being human seems to be slipping away.

In his novel Gibson portrays not only what the future of technology may hold, but some of the negative externalities that directly effect human nature and social interaction. In fact, Gibson focuses almost entirely on the ugly aspects of technology which is in contrast to his "matrix". Gibson totally neglects to represent any positive aspects of new technology. The society of "Neuromancer" seems to be utterly advanced in terms of technology. However, upon closer inspection this is not exactly the case. There is no evidence of successfull technology in Gibsons novel. The society of "Neuromancer" willingly allows itself to be directly controled by technology. They create incredible technologies and then use them for evil and material gain, rather than for their social well being. Neuromancer shows the power of technology and how it can control society without producing positive benefits. The society presented is technologically advanced but extremely rude, materialistic, hedonistic, and self-centered. The overall view of the future is pessimistic: Rise of multinational capitalistic corporations forecasting the negative effects of new technologies of everyday human life. Synopsis The book centers on Case, a former computer hacker who makes his living by breaking into security systems.

Caught stealing from his employers, Case is rendered physically unable to withstand the rigors of access to the worldwide computer net. Unable to work, he welcomes suicidal thoughts, entering into deals that can only go bad. Willing to do anything for the chance to work again, he turns to a mysterious figure named Armitage, and by so doing begins a journey out of the gutters of 21st century Tokyo and into an ever-expanding world of multinational intrigue. Armitage pays off Case's debts, repairs his neural damage, and places him under the protection of Molly, a professional killer. As Case progresses through his assignments with Molly and a range of others enlisted by Armitage, he becomes aware of larger forces working to control his activities. Ultimately, Case realizes that it is Neuromancer, a far-reaching artificial intelligence , that he has been working for. The opus ends with Case's realization that he has been controlled by the very technology he uses. Explanation of the word "neuromancer" The word "neuromancer" itself consists of 2 compounds: 'neuro' stands for nerves and artificial intelligence 'mancer' stands for a (white) magician and romance.

It also stands for Case as a computer "hacker" who disrupts the social order (much like an evil magician) by throwing virus programs into society, thus causing chaos in the world. The word is also a pun from the word "Necromancer": magician dealing in evil spirits and death. Scientific Writings Post-Humanism and Ecocide in William Gibson's Neuromancer and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. An essay by Tama Leaver. Links & References Why 'Neuromancer' Is One Of The Greatest Cyberpunk Novels Why ‘Neuromancer’ Is One Of The Greatest Cyberpunk Novels Posted Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011 09:00 pm GMT -5 by Josh Evans For many cyberpunk fans, ‘Neuromancer’ is the first cyberpunk novel and one of the greatest. It was published in 1984, long before the internet was created. There is a myth and joke that Al Gore invented the internet. However, William Gibson — the author of ‘Neuromancer’ — deserves more realistic credit for inspiring those first online pioneers. The novel won the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award and the Philip K. Dick Award.

Another major event in cyberpunk happened during the writing of ‘Neuromancer.’ Ridley Scott’s ‘Blade Runner’ was released in theaters on June 25, 1982. When Gibson saw the film, he feared that the reception to his book would not be ideal because the atmosphere of the film was similar to some of his ideas. Fortunately for the history of literature, Gibson persevered and wrote a book that is one of the best cyberpunk novels, and one of the best novels of the 20th century, making Time magazine’s list of 100 best English-language novels written since 1923. ‘Neuromancer’ begins with the following line: “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” It effectively describes the setting of the novel in one line: a run-down, sprawled and broken world that has become addicted to video and cyberspace, a dangerous online virtual world where hackers can lose their lives if they are tripped up by high-security systems. The protagonist in this novel is a computer hacker named Case.

He is the ultimate anti-hero, a drug addict and a down-on-his-luck console cowboy who has a damaged nervous system that he desperately wants to repair. He is collected by Molly, an assassin with synthetic eye implants and razors grafted to her fingers. She takes Case to her employer, a mysterious man named Armitage, who offers to repair his nervous system damage in exchange for a job that requires his hacking abilities. The novel describes corporations that have gone beyond the monopoly stage and entered a state of incestual perpetuity. Manipulative artificial intelligences try to influence Case and his team, and transform the very essence of cyberspace. Gibson’s powerful story of redemption in a dystopian world reminds us that no matter how bleak the world becomes, the human animal has a need to make the best of a bad situation, and the novel hints that if humans can’t find paradise here on Earth, they will seek out a virtual paradise. According to a July 25 press release from Seven Arts Pictures PLC, the company is hooking up with Prodigy Pictures to jointly produce and distribute a film adaptation of ‘Neuromancer’ with a $60 million production budget.

Vincenzo Natali is slated to write and direct the film. Natali is known for directing the 2009 movie ‘Splice’ and the 1997 thriller ‘Cube.’ The ‘Neuromancer’ film is expected to enter pre-production in the first quarter of 2012. Related posts: Study Guide for William Gibson: Neuromancer (1984) Study Guide for William Gibson: Neuromancer When Neuromancer by William Gibson was first published it created a sensation. Or perhaps it would be more precise to say that it was used to create a sensation, for Bruce Sterling and other Gibson associates declared that a new kind of science fiction had appeared which rendered merely ordinary SF obsolete. Informed by the amoral urban rage of the punk subculture and depicting the developing human-machine interface created by the widespread use of computers and computer networks, set in the near future in decayed city landscapes like those portrayed in the film Blade Runner it claimed to be the voice of a new generation. (Interestingly, Gibson himself has said he had finished much of what was to be his body of early cyberpunk fiction before ever seeing Blade Runner.

) Eventually it was seized on by hip "postmodern" academics looking to ride the wave of the latest trend. Dubbed "cyberpunk," the stuff was being talked about everywhere in SF. Of course by the time symposia were being held on the subject, writers declared cyberpunk dead, yet the stuff kept being published and it continues to be published today by writers like K. W. Jeter and Rudy Rucker Perhaps the best and most representative anthology of cyberpunk writers is Mirrorshades., edited by Sterling, the genre's most outspoken advocate. But cyberpunk's status as the revolutionary vanguard was almost immediately challenged. Its narrative techniques, many critics pointed out, were positively reactionary compared to the experimentalism of mid-60s "new wave" SF. One of the main sources of its vision was William S. Burroughs' quasi-SF novels like Nova Express, (1964), and the voice of Gibson's narrator sounded oddly like a slightly updated version of old Raymond Chandler novels like The Big Sleep, (1939). Others pointed out that almost all of cyberpunk's characteristics could be found in the works of older writers such as J. G. Ballard, Philip K.

Dick, Harlan Ellison, or Samuel R. Delany. Most damning of all, it didn't seem to have been claimed by the generation it claimed to represent. Real punks did little reading, and the vast majority of young SF readers preferred to stick with traditional storytellers such as Larry Niven, Anne McCaffrey and even Robert Heinlein. Gibson's prose was too dense and tangled for casual readers, so it is not surprising that he gained more of a following among academics than among the sort of people it depicted. Heavy Metal brought more of the cyberpunk vision to a young audience than did the fiction. (Art by Heavy Metal artist Moebius.) Yet Neuromancer is historically significant. Most critics agree that it was not only the first cyberpunk novel, it was and remains the best. Gibson's rich stew of allusion to contemporary technology set a new standard for SF prose. If his plots and characters are shallow and trite, that mattered little, for it is not the tale but the manner of its telling that stands out. His terminology continues to pop up here and there. Whereas an earlier generation borrowed names from its favorite author, J. R. R.

Tolkien, like "Shadowfax" (a new-age music group), "Gandalf" (a brand of computer data switch), and "Moria" (an early fantasy computer game), there has been a proliferation of references to Neuromancer: there was a computer virus called " Screaming Fist," the Internet is commonly referred to as "Cyberspace" or--occasionally--"the Matrix," and there are several World Wide Web sites are named "Wintermute." (The rock group named "The Meat Puppets" existed before Gibson borrowed the term.) Gibson produced his vision in a time when many people were becoming haunted by the idea of urban decay, crime rampant, corruption everywhere. Just as readers of the 50s looked obsessively for signs that Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty-Four was coming true, some readers keep an eye out for the emergence of cyberpunk's nightmare world in contemporary reality. The fiction may not be widely read, but through movies and comics it has created one of the defining mythologies of our time.

The vision of was too confining for a writer of Gibson's originality, and after a couple of sequels--( Count Zero )--he turned to other experiments, such as his "steampunk" collaboration with Bruce Sterling: The Difference Engine, depicting an alternative Victorian Age in which huge, steam-driven computers were developed. In 1994 he returned to Cyberpunk with Virtual Light and in 1995 published another novel set in Japan, Idoru. Note that Gibson's related story Johnny Mnemonic Official site of the forthcoming Neuromancer film. In classic SF, a strongly independent individual often overcomes huge obstacles to solve problems affecting vast masses of people. In what ways does Neuromancer depart from this pattern? Part One: Chiba City Blues Chapter 1 In the eighties, the American image of Japan underwent a profound transformation. For generations it had been on the margins of our imagination: as the exotic land of cherry blossoms and geishas, later as the war machine sending out kamikaze bomber pilots in World War II, and later still as the source of every sort of cheap, shoddy, imitative gadget. All of these were shallow images, of course.

Japan industrialized not long after northern Europe, and Western influences had been strong for centuries. But the success of brands like Sony and Toyota changed everything. Japan suddenly became perceived as the cutting edge of modernity. Whereas the rest of the world had looked toward the U.S. for innovation in the past, young Americans began to think of Japan as the future, and it became a frequent setting for science fiction. Not that the new image was any more profound or less stereotyped, but it was certainly different. Chiba City in this novel has developed into a small section of the megapolis. "The Zone" is the decayed inner core of Chiba City. Today Japan has half the population of the U.S. crowded in the area of California. Urban sprawl is a reality. The opening image of the book, comparing nature to technology, sets the tone of the narrative. "Case," the name of the protagonist, could suggest detective fiction, or it could suggest technology. His body--which he treats as almost an alien entity with which he is not friendly terms--is a kind of case for his mind and for the cyberspace with which it fuses, no more significant in itself than the case of a computer CPU.

The persistent cyberpunk obsession with the mixture of flesh (called "meat" in the novel) and machinery is introduced through Ratz's stainless steel teeth--unnatural looking but commonplace in Communist Eastern Europe. Why is it significant that Ratz is ugly? Ratz' reaction to the unexpected moment of silence is an old cliché, but startlingly incongruous in this setting. Case's addiction to cyberspace is certainly prophetic; someone half-jokingly set up a Usenet support group for victims of cyberspace addiction: (alt.usenet.recovery). A "coffin hotel" is a building which rents out cheap sleeping space not much larger than a coffin. How is a cyberspace cowboy similar to a traditional cowboy? Different? Case is a classic illegal hacker; but his present dilemma is caused by a classic crime-novel situation, a crook attempting to skim the proceeds from organized crime. Presumably the Russians developed the mycotoxin (fungal poison) as a chemical warfare weapon. It has blocked his ability to experience cyberspace. Why has he come to Japan? What evidence of pollution is contained in the paragraph beginning "Now he slept"?

"Arcologies" are huge, self-contained cities enclosed in a single building, imagined by Paolo Soleri. "Dex" is dexedrine, a popular form of amphetimine. What characteristics make Case an anti-hero? What does he do for a living? The possibility of an underground market for body parts has been around since organ transplants became commonplace and has often been treated in SF. "Miss Linda Lee" may be an allusion to the Velvet Underground song "Cool It Down," which contains the lines "But now me l"m out on the corner/ You know I'm lookin' for Miss Linda Lee/Because she's got the power to love me by the hour." Where had Case first met Linda Lee? Repeated references to war in Europe suggest it has been devastated in the recent past, probably by nuclear weapons. "Pachinko" is a very popular kind of Japanese gambling machine vaguely like vertically-oriented pinball. "French orbital fatigues" would be the uniform worn by French astronauts in orbit." "Yakitori" is Japanese barbecued chicken, a common street snack always cooked on skewers.

"Sarariman" is the Japanese word for a businessman employed by a large corporation, formed on the English words "salary" and "man." Compare with English slang: "suit." What does it tell us that the Japanese industrial giant Mitsubishi seems to have absorbed the U.S. genetic engineering firm Genentech? Although the computer images in the novel have had more impact, the biological ones are almost as important. Why is the "sarariman" in danger in Night City? "Gaijin" is a Japanese term for Westerners. The Yakuza is the biggest Japanese organized crime syndicate, their Mafia. A VTR is a "videotape recorder," a "simstim" deck is a kind of virtual reality machine to simulate stimuli, Manriki chains and shuriken (sharp-pointed steel stars) are both familiar weapons from ninja movies. Hong Kong is famous for its tailors who can cut and deliver a custom-made suit in hours. Can you guess why the wearing of glasses would be an affectation rather than something normal in this society? The pioneering Russian abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky specialized in shapeless blobs, lines, and smears in bright colors.

More Kandinsky.Salvador Dali frequently depicted "melted" watches and clocks (for example, "The Persistence of Memory, " 1931). Julius Deane uses expressions ("boyo," "old son") which indicate a British background. In the paragraph beginning"The cultivation of a certain tame paranoia" he sees in a display window an elaborate alternative to a pocket watch. What is it? A taser stuns its victims with an electrical shock, but is not meant to be lethal. In Japan gasps of pure oxygen could at one time be had from streetside vending machines. What is Case trying to sell now? Why can Ratz crush a shatterproof plastic ashtray to shards in his hand? "Wig"="crazy;" after old hipster jazz, "flipped his wig," "wigged out." Flechettes" are darts ( flèche is French for "arrow"). Molly is an extrapolation of the "tough dame" of Chandler-style mean-streets crime fiction. Such femme fatale assassins are a mainstay of modern futuristic fiction. Do they represent women's liberation? What is her characteristic implant?

Chapter 2 A "fletcher" shoots "flechettes" (see above). In the operation called "Screaming Fist" (a typical karate film title, though Gibson probably got it from the title of a 1977 song by the Vancouver punk band The Viletones) a team had been hired to destroy a Russian computer network ("nexus") in Kirensk with a virus, but Armitage failed and was caught. What does "ICE" stand for? What is an "icebreaker?" Note how computers have altered the economy. Molly tells Case that his surgery is being paid for in software. Samurai originated as the faithful defenders of feudal lords during the Kamakura period, but as Japan fell into disorder, many of them roamed the country as "hired swords" and as such are one of the most popular subjects for Japanese fiction, drama, and film. "Ninjas" are a related group who tend to have a worse reputation, though they could be just as honorable as samurai. "Working girl," is slang for prostitute, though when Molly uses the term it is at first ambiguous, suggesting that she may be willing to work as a street samurai for anyone.

Later we learn the horrifying truth. Note the mechanical crab in the courtyard. Endorphins are natural chemicals which provide pleasurable feelings and suppress pain. If Case has been injected with "endorphin inhibitors," clearly his tormentors have been trying to make him feel as much pain as possible. Note that his surgery was carried out mostly without incisions. To what is the sex Case experiences with Molly compared? Note how Molly is presented as dominant, highly competent, and--most important--better informed than Case. Such women are very common in contemporary action fiction. Why do you think they are so popular with male readers? What is her job? What is Case trying to find out from Deane? Note how "Watergated" has become a verb, evidently meaning that the "Screaming Fist" conspiracy proliferated in many directions. "Emp" stands for "EMP"="Electromagnetic Pulse" weapons. Nuclear bombs detonated at certain altitudes with certain characteristics can destroy electrical circuits, effectively destroying the enemy's defenses. Arpanet, the ancestor of the Internet was first constructed in an attempt to work around this problem.

Here "emps" would seem to be a lower-level weapon aimed at penetrations like "Screaming Fist." In a turkey shoot the birds are released to be shot at, therefore a turkey shoot is a very easy form of killing. Screaming Fist was a turkey shoot because the Soviet military had been informed in advance that it was coming. "Ivan" is the Russian government. Zaibatsus are the giant Japanese corporations which traditionally employ their male workers for life. What is the entertainment like at Sammi's arena? Why was killed? (Her name is probably derived from that of a woman mentioned in the lyrics of the Velvet Underground Song "Cool It Down.") Note the recurring question: "Who is behind all this?" This question characterizes this sort of paranoid conspiratorial fiction. Part Two: The Shopping Expedition Chapter 3 The New-York to Washington D. C. corridor is often discussed as an evolving megapolis. Here the process has gone much further, to develop into "the Sprawl." Note that the map described on the first page of this chapter depicts not population density, but the frequency of the exchange of data: the new definition of civilization. When a star "goes nova" it explodes.

Narita Tokyo airport, Schipol [or more correctly Schiphol ] is in Amsterdam, Orly is in Paris. The silent train they rode on is a maglev (magnetic levitation) vehicle of the kind which has been tested in various places. A powerful electrical charge turns the rails into electromagnets which actually lift the train above them a fraction of an inch, reducing friction essentially to zero and allowing for great speed at a low expenditure of energy. "The heat" is old gangster slang for "the cops:" here, any form of law enforcement officer. How has Armitage tried to guarantee that Case will not betray his employers? Krill is the tiny shrimp on which baleen whales live. The Japanese process it into various fish and meat imitations. It has been proposed as a source of protein for an over-populated world. New York is enclosed by a dome, but typically Gibson introduces this fact by observing its malfunctioning: a freak wind blowing a piece of newspaper along the street. The cerebral cortex is the most complex and vital part of the brain. A "cortex bomb" would obviously be very ominous. The team is being slowly assembled.

"Dixie Flatline's construct" is an electronic recording of the mind of a dead "cowboy" (free-lance hacker specializing in penetrating computer security systems) whose actual name was McCoy Pauley. His nickname suggests death (alluding to a flat line on an intensive-care room monitor) because he experienced brain death three times. We will learn more about the monstrous Peter Riviera later. One of SF's narrative difficulties is explaining future technology to the reader in a setting in which such explanations should not be necessary. How does Gibson justify providing his "info-dump" explaining the origin of the matrix? "Dermatrodes" would be electrodes which attach to the epidermis, or skin. A mandala is a complex Buddhist symbol, often in circular form. "Spiral arms" alludes the arms of distant galaxies, unreachable by any current technology. Here they are a metaphor for unreachable distant centers of power on Earth. The idea of a computer or network in which one can experience virtual reality has been around in fiction for a long time, but was first popularized in the movie Tron /CITE> (1982).

The stolen module the Finn has brought will enable Case to experience the world from inside Molly's body without leaving cyberspace--telepathy made technological. Chapter 4 What distinguishes simstim addicts from cyberspace explorers like Case? Tally Isham is a simstim star. What does Case experience about Molly's effect on other people? Note the ironic use of the name "Memory Lane." The sockets implanted in people's heads were to become a standard feature of cyberpunk. "Softs"=software; the word is an abbreviation for "microsoft," an obvious allusion to the giant software corporation. The Hosaka computer can function somewhat like the computer on the Starship Enterprise: query it vocally and it will tell you what it knows. The answer is given in multimedia form. Many Japanese women undergo surgery to remove the epicanthic fold in the eyelid, giving them "Western" eyes. What does it mean that people are now having epicanthic folds surgically created? Dr. Rambali alludes to the fact that terrorists depend on the news media to publicize their causes, but the media concentrate so exclusively on their acts of terror that the message they are trying to convey is usually suppressed.

How have the Panther Moderns short-circuited this process? "Panther" is usually short for the Black Panther movement of the sixties and early seventies which advocated violent resistance to racism, but in this group is named after the San Francisco rock band "The Panther Moderns" led by Gibson's friend and fellow cyberpunk author John Shirley. "Big Science" is a term for large, expensive research projects such as the Human Genome Project or the recently-cancelled Superconducting Supercollider; but the name here probably alludes to the title of a Laurie Anderson CD. Anderson's fusion of live theater and technology is very suggestive of the kind of environment in which Neuromancer is set. Molly is trying to penetrate the Sense/Net headquarters in Atlanta to steal the Dixie Flatline construct, assisted remotely by Case interfering with Sense/Net's security software, the two of them linked by the broadcast network created and run by the Panther Moderns. Case's mind is using Molly's body. Why do you think Gibson chose Atlanta as media headquarters? A "blackbox" is any kind of illicit electronic device which can bypass normal circuits: the original permitted its users to make long-distance phone calls without paying for them.

Strobe lights are known to induce seizures in certain people when pulsed at precisely the right frequency. How do the Panther Moderns terrorize the people in the Sense/Net building? Computer viruses are written mostly to do simple kinds of mischief today; but in the novel viruses are tools which can penetrate secure computers, retrieve information, and cover their traces. Case's code name is "Cutter." Molly is "Cat Mother." "Brood" is the Panthers. How did Molly break her leg? How does Case fool the security system into letting Molly take the construct? "Lupus" means "wolf" in Latin, although it's also the name of a disfiguring skin disease. Describe Lupus Yonderboy's appearance. "Mr. Who" is an allusion to the long-running British SF TV series, Dr. Who, featuring an unnamed hero usually alluded to only as "The Doctor." Note that although this transaction is taking place in BAMA, the currency is new yen. The "Doppler" effect makes sounds seem to rise in pitch as the sound source approaches the hearer, fall as the recede. Note how Linda Lee continues to haunt him.

Here we are first given the name "Wintermute." Chapter 5 Why is Molly able to dissect her crab "with alarming ease?" What is "jive" and what is its function in this environment? Artificial Intelligence ("AI") is a much-discussed concept which would involve the creation of a complex computer system which would replicate the functions of a human brain. Debates rage about whether such a construct would possess consciousness, but research goes on toward developing AI. Molly and Case are both bent on learning who Armitage is working for. The tip that Wintermute is involved leads them to its parent corporation: Tessier-Ashpool S. A. "The gravity well" is a concept describing the difficulty of getting objects and people off the earth's surface into orbit, where space colonies have been built. Cyberpunk seldom depicts travel to other worlds, but takes high-orbit space colonies for granted. An archipelago is usually a group of islands. What is the meaning of the term here? "Spook" is slang for " spy." Freeside is an orbiting space colony shaped like a spindle (or cigar).

Explain why it is "hard to keep track of what generation, or combination of generations" is running Tesssier-Ashpool at any time? What does the slogan "Travel was a meat thing" mean? What does a "joeboy" seem to be? Chapter 6 In this chapter we learn that "Armitage" is really Willis Corto, one of the agents who tried to carry out "Screaming Fist." What does "Watergating" seem to mean in this context? How was he used by the military? How is Armitage another variation on the machine/human interface theme? How does the pattern of Armitage's record suggest that he, like Case, is just a hireling and not an integral part of whatever force is behind this mission? Chapter 7 Why does the Mercedes talk to its passengers as it takes them into Istanbul What is the significance of the existence of letter-writers? How many different kinds of mutual distrust can you find in this chapter among the various characters? Riviera has had an implant which allows him to project onto the retinas of his victims whatever he chooses--far-fetched, but not so unscientific as mental telepathy.

What is significant about the horse that they see? How does Riviera deceive Case while Terzibashjian captures him? A seraglio is a harem. According to Case and Molly, who is probably responsible for rebuilding "Armitage" and sending him on this mission? Alan Turing<, a pioneer theoretician of machine intelligence, suggested that a computer might be made indistinguishable from a human being. The "Turing heat" would therefore be police assigned the task of preventing computers from reaching improper levels of intelligence and power. "Shopping politicals"=betraying dissidents. How do we learn that Germany was hit with at least one nuclear weapon during the war? What does the last line of this chapter signify? Part Three: Midnight in the Rue Jules Verne Chapter 8 The scene now shifts from Istanbul to Paris. Freeside is called "an orbital Geneva" in relation to that city's emphasis on offering secret bank accounts which are very attractive to those involved in illegal transactions. What subliminal image does Riviera project to Case to symbolize his opinion of Molly?

Since they are taking a Japan Air Lines shuttle from Paris to the orbital station called "Freeside" it is natural that koto music is playing the background. Rastafarianism is a movement that originated in the 1930s in Jamaica, which involves the hairstyle called "dreadlocks," the hope for blacks to return to Ethiopia (identified with the Biblical Zion), reggae music, and the smoking of ganja (marijuana). It was inspired in part by the movement founded during the early 1920s by Marcus Garvey, who advocated a return of blacks to Africa. He created a fleet of ships called "The Black Star Line," though it was never used for emigration purposes. Rastas refer to White civilization, and the U. S. in particular as "Babylon," the demonic city of Christian apocalyptic writing. God is called "Jah," short for "Jahweh," which scholars think was the original pronunciation of the Hebrew name for God (though in the scholarship the "J" is pronounced as in German, as a "Y" sound). The rasta dialect is used by the characters in this chapter.

Without rotation, an orbiting space station is in free-fall, and this creates an apparently weightless environment familiar from televised orbital missions. However, if such a station is spun around a central axis, centrifugal force pushes everything toward the rim. The closer to the rim one is, the stronger the apparent gravity is; whereas at the center of rotation, freefall weightlessness prevails. Note the various visual games Riviera continues to play. What reveals that Dixie Flatline is in fact bothered by knowing that he is dead? "Rue [Street] Jules Verne " is of course a tribute to the French grandfather of science fiction. "Stepping Razor" is a 1977 song by Reggae great Peter Tosh (from his album Equal Rights).

The lyrics of the opening verse and refrain indicate why Molly's razor implants would remind the rastas of the song: If you wanna live If you wanna live, live I beg you treat me good I'm like a stepping razor Don't you watch my sides I'm dangerous, said I'm dangerous I'm like a stepping razor Don't you watch my sides I'm dangerous, dangerous Chapter 9 A "g-web" would be a retaining net able to absorb the impact of acceleration and deceleration as the tug maneuvers. Such impact is measured in "g's" or Earth gravity equivalents. To experience 2 gs, for instance, is to be feel a force equal to two times Earth's gravity. Rastas avoid saying "we," using "I and I" instead. A "frog" company would be French. Gibson has no hesitation about using rather dated slang in his narrative mixed with futuristic locutions. When Case's attempt to penetrate Wintermute is repelled, where and when does his mind seem to take him? Where is he really? What does Wintermute reveal to Case about its true nature?

Chapter 10 The description of the plants tumbling over the balconies of Freeside strongly suggests traditional images of the Hanging Garden of Babylon. The blue sky overhead is artificial, a recording made in the French sea resort of Cannes. Why does the pseudo-death of Deane haunt Case so much? How does Case react to trees and grass? What bizarre style does he encounter worn by three Japanese wives? Why is Case so puzzled about being sent the Kuang Grade Mark Eleven icebreaker virus? What is Dixie Flatline's theory? Chapter 11 "Vingtième Siècle" is French for "Twentieth Century," now a "period." Here we first encounter Lady 3Jane Marie-France Tessier-Ashpool. Why does Peter Riviera's show upset Case so much? Of the expensive shops, Gucci is Italian, Tsuyako is Japanese, Hermès is French, and Liberty is English. What does Case learn about Linda from Wintermute in this chapter? Wintermute seems to be behaving like an old-fashioned melodrama villain: manipulating the protagonist by endangering the woman he cares about.

The girl in Case's cubicle is a "meat puppet," a prostitute who has had her conscious mind artificially disconnected from her body by a "neural cutout" so that she can carry out her duties on "automatic pilot." Why was Molly so furious at Riviera's sadistic fantasy performance? "Snuff" refers to film or performances involving the killing of women for the sexual pleasure of sadists. Snuff films have a long-standing status as an urban legend--nobody has ever found an authentic commercial example--but they are commonly cited as the quintessence of pornography. So Molly's boss was planning to have her killed. Why did she kill the Senator? This story makes clear what Molly has to gain by remaining an outlaw. What is Molly's theory about how Wintermute is manipulating her? Chapter 12 Why has Gibson invented the term "nighted"? "Le Monde" is French for "The World." "Old money" means wealth combined with social status in old families such as the Rockefellers. "Old credit" would be mean the same in a culture where physical money no longer has a function. Remember that Case is using the name "Lupus" now.

Origami (traditional Japanese paper-folding) cranes have come to be symbols of peace because of their association with the anti-nuclear bomb campaigns in Japan. What do you think is the significance of Cathy's crane? Examine the metaphors in the paragraph describe the Case's sensations when the drug hits; can you see any pattern in them? What do they have in common? Why is the zodiac on Freeside referred to as a "loser's" zodiac? Cath had hoped to seduce Case with this drug. What goes wrong with her plan? What is Case's attitude toward his anger the next morning? "Turing"="Turing police," defined above. Part Four: The Straylight Run Chapter 13 Case learns for the first time what his real mission is, from the police. What is it? "Good cop/bad cop" is a familiar routine in which one interrogator is angry and threatening while the other feigns sympathy. The suspect is meant to shrink from the first into the "protective" arms of the other and reveal his or her guilt. The "Recording Angel" is a mythical being who records all deeds good and bad to decide who makes it into heaven.

Case's surgical implant procedure, evidently designed by Wintermute, was so innovative it enabled the illegal clinic in Chiba City to capitalize on the knowledge involved to get rich. How has this fact led to Case's arrest? Why does Michèle say that Case has no "care" for his species? Why will it be difficult for Sense/Net to protest the destruction of the Dixie Flatline construct? Since both the pilot of the biplane and the gardening robot have struck, to whom is Case speaking in the last lines of this chapter? Chapter 14 When Case loads the Chinese icebreaker software, Dixie Flatline observes from outside it that it appears invisible--reassuring for the team. Dixie's description of the way the virus works is a well-written example of SF pseudo-science talk: a set of metaphors that make a kind of sense without any real technical explanation. When Case finds himself facing what appears to be the Finn back in Metro Holografix, who is he really talking to? For the reference to the burning bush, see Exodus 3:2-6.

An old philosophical puzzle asks, "If a tree falls in the forest where there's no one to hear it, does it make a sound?" How is Wintermute able to recreate people and places Case knows? In what sense is the imaginary vacuum tube part of Wintermute's DNA? What threat does Wintermute claim to want to protect humanity from? A "folly" is the sort of fantastic architectural construction built in late 18th-century England to suggest medieval or classical ruins. The explanation given by the jeweled head of the Villa Starlight is another example of an "info-dump." What is the source of this one? "Semiotics" here refers to the meaning of the patterns of the Villa. Why does Wintermute need the team to penetrate past the head? Wintermute's last speech is highly ambiguous. Can you puzzle a meaning out of it? In Exodus Chapter 3, God speaks to Moses from within a burning bush. Chapter 15 The meeting with Wintermute this time "killed" Case temporarily. When he reestablishes simstim contact with Molly, Wintermute informs her of the connection on her implanted ocular display which normally acts as a digital clock.

This trick is what she reacts to when she says "Cute." The words in ALL CAPS in the rest of this chapter are similar displays. Molly uses her tongue to flip a control in her mouth that switches her vision from perceiving normal light to some kind of substitute which works in the dark. What is a "stash " as Molly defines it? Molly's story about Johnny reveals that she and Case have something important in common. What is it? Why do you think the ordinarily very private Molly is telling him this story? "Fancy dress" is British for costumes of the sort one would wear to a costume party. Note how compact discs, invented shortly before this novel was written, are treated here as antique technology. The combination of hypodermic and spoon indicates heroin use. The heroin is melted over heat in the spoon, then injected via the hypodermic needle. What is the symbolism involved in the rerouting of Molly's tearducts? The Egyptian Pharaohs had their servants killed and buried with them. Ashpool has been in a sort of suspended animation for the last thirty years, forever on the brink of death but never dying, an idea that was earlier explored in Philip K. Dick's brilliant novel Ubik.

What does Case see in the face of the dead 3Jane? (It turns out later that this is not the real 3Jane, by the way.) What is suggested by the fact that a fiberoptic cable is connected to her neck? The theme of a rich, self-indulgent family, fallen into decadent madness, is a cliché of popular fiction, and can be found in Gibson's model, Raymond Chandler. Chapter 16 What does Molly like about her relationship with Case? His computer completes the search Case had directed it to make for the name "General Girling" and the result is displayed by Dixie Flatline on Molly's optic implant since Case is jacked into her brain at present. Since the display is not very wide, only a few letters can be shown at a time. The crazed Armitage is trying to order the Rastas around, but they refuse because this is a "Babylon war"--a struggle involving outsiders, not really their concern. "Rude boy" is rasta slang for a tough gang member. Maelcom boasts that he is tough enough to defy the Zionite leaders and stay with Case.

"Rocksteady" is one variety of Jamaican pop music, a predecessor to reggae. We learn why Riviera was important, to seduce 3Jane into giving up some of the secrets of how to penetrate Straylight to Armitage/Corto. When the latter next shows up, he has flipped back into the past, into the ill-fated "Screaming Fist" run. Why is Case so upset about Armitage falling apart? The maddened Armitage/Corto has not only killed a man in order to destroy one of the computers being used on the run, but he has set the escape pod that he is in to separate from the ship without closing its seals; he imagines he is escaping Russia for Finland, but in fact he is hurled into the vacuum of space. What makes the Tessier-Ashpool corporation more vulnerable than the zaibatsus? Who is ultimately behind the deaths of Armitage and Ashpool? What motivates Dixie Flatline to work for Wintermute? The way the books in the Straylight library are described suggests that books are antique rarities.

The Dada artist Marcel Duchamp created a large sculpture out of glass and paint depicting some chocolate-grinding machinery and molds and gave it the characteristically surrealistic title "La mariée mis à nu par ses célibataires, même" -- The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even. The object was badly cracked when it was being moved early in its history, and the lines of the shards have become a familiar part of the work of art. Knowing how Molly hates Riviera, her message to him to be delivered by Case is ominous. Why would spacial disorientation hold a peculiar horror for cowboys? Chapter 18 Run Run Shaw owned one of the busiest film studios in the world in Hong Kong, churning out hundreds of martial arts films for distribution throughout Asia. Bruce Lee and Clint Eastwood are pioneering "bad-ass heroes" of action movies East and West, respectively. Riviera encases Molly's hands in a variation of old paper "Chinese handcuffs": the more you struggle, the tighter you're trapped. As in classic hardboiled detective fiction (like The Maltese Falcon) , the lines of alliance are constantly shifting, and you never know whom you can trust.

Cray manufactures the world's most popular supercomputers. Using their brand name for a little commonplace monitor raises the ante on the technology. Molly reveals that she had her own agenda when she killed Hideo and tried to kill Riviera. Why has Riviera decided to ally himself with 3Jane against the team? Chairman Mao Tse Tung's most famous saying was "Power comes out of the barrel of a gun." How did Riviera prevent Molly from really killing the two men at the pool? Chapter 19 With Molly crippled, Case and Maelcum have to penetrate Villa Straylight themselves to complete the mission, and to rescue her. How do the life-support systems of the Villa Straylight symbolize the role of the corporation itself? What does "decanted" usually mean? (Look it up.) What does it mean when 3Jane says "I was decanted?" Why does she use the present tense when she says "He strangles her in bed?" 3Jane's mother's idea of blending the family with artificial intelligences to achieve a sort of immortality is an old SF theme.

3Jane reveals an important fact about the AIs, which holds the key to the novel: Wintermute is only one of two AIs. When Molly abruptly sees her mutilated face, it is of course Peter taunting her again. Chapter 20 When Case next jacks in, he is sent by Neuromancer back to Lady Marie-France Tessier's recorded memory of a summer in Morocco, where she isolated herself in the bunker that Case moves into with the simulacrum of Linda Lee. Japanese Zen gardens consist of a few well-placed rocks and sand raked in elaborate patterns. Case discovers that the AI manipulating him at the moment is not Wintermute; it is the other one. What is the point of Case's complaint about the food? The tan Case has acquired on Freeside is an expensive luxury. What is Linda's reaction to it? When Case feels himself drawn down to the "meat" level by the projection of Linda Lee, he defines the latter in terms of information: spiral DNA molecules and pheromones, molecules which convey messages through smell. His seduction from the world of the Net down into the flesh is highly ironic, of course. Why?

Chapter 21 "Event horizon" refers to the border of a black hole and is used here to refer to the limit of the illusion the AI has constructed. It was widely believed in ancient times that you could only summon up and control a spirit whose secret name you had learned. There is a famous scene in Goethe's Faust in which the protagonist tries and fails to identify the demon Mephistopheles. The name "Neuromancer" is a variation on "necromancer," a magician dealing in evil spirits and death ("neuro"=nerves, artificial intelligence, "mancer"=magician). "Romancer" is yet another pun. Chapter 22 The Coriolis force, which causes movement to deviate slightly from a straight line on rotating bodies (like the Earth) is perhaps exaggerated in the rapidly spinning spindle; but in fact it would be very small. Case thinks 3Jane may spare Molly because he has experienced the latter's attraction to her through the simstim rig. A ROM construct would be fixed, whereas RAM is indefinitely expandable. Why does Riviera's blinding of Hideo fail to defeat him? How has Molly gotten her revenge on Riviera?

In an electronic world, old-fashioned mechanical locks are unexpected obstacles. Chapter 23 In what ways is Neuromancer different from Wintermute? How are the dwarfs' quarters in the palace of the Duke of Mantua like the Villa Straylight for the Tessier-Ashpools? Case needs to energize himself with hate to succeed in breaking through the final barriers. Whom does he hate? Again the Jamaican "dub" music welcomes him back to Freelight. William Gibson (Author of Neuromancer) edit data Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information. William Ford Gibson is an American-Canadian writer who has been called the father of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction, having coined the term cyberspace in 1982 and popularized it in his first novel, Neuromancer(1984), which has sold more than 6.5 million copies worldwide. While his early writing took the form of short stories, Gibson has since written nine critically acclaimed novels (one in collaboration), contributed articles to several major publications, and has collaborated extensively with performance artists, filmmakers and musicians.

His thought has been cited as an influence on science fiction author Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information. William Ford Gibson is an American-Canadian writer who has been called the father of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction, having coined the term cyberspace in 1982 and popularized it in his first novel, Neuromancer(1984), which has sold more than 6.5 million copies worldwide. While his early writing took the form of short stories, Gibson has since written nine critically acclaimed novels (one in collaboration), contributed articles to several major publications, and has collaborated extensively with performance artists, filmmakers and musicians. His thought has been cited as an influence on science fiction authors, academia, cyberculture, and technology. --------------------------------- William Gibson. (2007, October 17). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.

Retrieved 20:30, October 19, 2007, from ...more Neuromancer : William Gibson : 9781473217386 William Gibson Science Fiction About William Gibson William Gibson was born in South Carolina in 1948. Educated in the USA, he emigrated to Canada in 1968 and retains dual nationality. Gibson began writing in 1977 and burst upon the literary world with his acclaimed first novel, NEUROMANCER, the book that launched the cyberpunk generation, and the first novel to win the holy trinity of science fiction, the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick Awards. Although best known for his early cyberpunk novels, Gibson's work has continued to evolve over the ensuing years, always casting an astute critical eye on modern societal trends. In 1999 The Guardian praised him as 'probably the most important novelist of the past two decades'. His most recent books include ZERO HISTORY and THE PERIPHERAL.

William Gibson's website is and you can follow him on Twitter at @greatdismal show more Follow us Project MUSE - Conversations with William Gibson Conversations with William Gibson Patrick A. Smith Publication Year: 2014 "After reading Neuromancer for the first time," literary scholar Larry McCaffery wrote, "I knew I had seen the future of [science fiction] (and maybe of literature in general), and its name was William Gibson." McCaffery was right. Gibson's 1984 debut is one of the most celebrated SF novels of the last half century, and in a career spanning more than three decades, the American Canadian science fiction writer and reluctant futurist responsible for introducing "cyberspace" into the lexicon has published nine other novels. Editor Patrick A. Smith draws the twenty-three interviews in this collection from a variety of media and sources--print and online journals and fanzines, academic journals, newspapers, blogs, and podcasts.

Myriad topics include Gibson's childhood in the American South and his early adulthood in Canada, with travel in Europe; his chafing against the traditional SF mold, the origins of "cyberspace," and the unintended consequences (for both the author and society) of changing the way we think about technology; the writing process and the reader's role in a new kind of fiction. Gibson (b. 1948) takes on branding and fashion, celebrity culture, social networking, the post-9/11 world, future uses of technology, and the isolation and alienation engendered by new ways of solving old problems. The conversations also provide overviews of his novels, short fiction, and nonfiction. Download PDF pp. xi-xxiv “Cyberpunk is a sort of saprophyte that piggy-backs on the main stem of SF,” William Gibson tells Andy Diggle in a 1993 interview, nearly a decade after the stunning success of Gibson’s debut novel, Neuromancer (1984), transformed both the author and a lexical lightning strike—his notion of... Chronology Eye to Eye: An Interview with William Gibson Takayuki Tatsumi Download PDF pp.

3-23 Takayuki Tatsumi: I am impressed by seeing you here, in Washington, DC, even though you live in Vancouver. Partly because I have just finished reading your second novel, Count Zero, in Chapter 27 of which you describe Turner and Angela taking the subway from Washington to New York City. I... An Interview with William Gibson Larry McCaffery Download PDF pp. 24-46 In 1984 William Gibson’s first novel, Neuromancer, burst onto the sciencefiction scene like a supernova. The shock waves from that explosion had an immediate impact on the relatively insular SF field. Neuromancer became the first novel to win the triple crown—Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick... Conversation with William Gibson pp. 47-56 Timothy Leary: If you could put Neuromancer into one sentence, how would you describe it? William Gibson: What’s most important to me is that it’s about the present. It’s not really about an imagined future. It’s a way of trying to come to...

Queen Victoria's Personal Spook, Psychic Legbreakers, Snakes, and Catfood: An Interview with William Gibson and Tom Maddox Darren Wershler-Henry Download PDF pp. 57-71 A conversation with William Gibson is kind of like a full-immersion baptism in all of the weird and disturbing gomi1 that comprises late twentiethcentury culture (Arthur Kroker would call it “excremental” culture, but then again, he’s also capable of calling “the post-Einsteinian individual” a “hyper- Hobbesian... "The Charisma Leak": A Conversation with William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Daniel Fischlin, Veronica Hollinger, and Andrew Taylor Download PDF pp. 72-95 The following conversation took place on 5 April 1991, at the Sushi Bar Restaurant on Toronto’s Queen Street. William Gibson and Bruce Sterling were in town as part of the tour organized by Bantam to publicize the North American appearance of their new collaborative novel, The Difference Engine... An Interview with William Gibson: Virtual Light Tour Andy Diggle and Iain Ball pp. 96-107 Andy Diggle: What’s the one question you’re sick of being asked in every interview?

William Gibson: Something like, how is it that I know what’s going to happen in the future? That’s the one. Because I don’t. Science-fiction writers never do. If you go to science-fiction writers for your hot ticket to the future... William Gibson Interview Download PDF pp. 108-113 CANNES. William Gibson was in Cannes in May 1994 to promote the filming of Johnny Mnemonic, a $26-million science-fiction movie based on his short story, and starring megastar Keanu Reeves as the main character. Directed by the concept artist (and Gibson’s pal) Robert Longo (with a few... The Man Who Named Cyberspace: An Interview with William Gibson Scott Rosenberg Download PDF pp. 114-116 A decade ago—long before people began talking about infobahns and information superhighways—science-fiction writer William Gibson dreamed of cyberspace. He coined the word in his 1984 novel Neuromancer, the prototypical cyberpunk text. In that disorienting fever-dream of a twenty-first-century... William Gibson, Webmaster Download PDF pp.

117-126 Reality has been catching up with William Gibson’s science fiction for a long time now—as “cyberspace,” the term he invented in his 1984 novel Neuromancer, entered everyday parlance, and cyberpunk passed with alarming speed from literary movement to buzzword to fleeting Hollywood fashion... William Gibson Interview Download PDF pp. 127-133 William Gibson’s first novel Neuromancer, a dense fusion of hard-boiled thriller and data-overload prose, hit the science-fiction scene in 1984 about as unobtrusively as a major star system going supernova. With the exponential growth of the Internet in the decade since Gibson’s coinage of the term... William Gibson Interview Download PDF pp. 134-143 Although it might be difficult to prove, a strong case could be made positing that the bestselling Canadian novel of all-time is not a work of CanLit, but a work of science fiction. The novel, Neuromancer, was written by American expatriate William Gibson and first published in 1984, winning the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip... An Interview with William Gibson Jon Courtenay Grimwood Download PDF pp.

144-146 The way William Gibson tells it, journalists’ original expectation when he turned up for an interview was that he’d be this mohawked, leather-clad guy with pins through his cheeks. You know, the kind of punk hacker . . . “Who used some sort of computer that looked like a stealth bomber with the serial... William Gibson: Waiting for the Man Antony Johnston pp. 147-15 William Gibson needs no introduction. But he’s going to get one anyway. Gibson coined the term “cyberspace,” visualizing a worldwide communications net eleven years before the World Wide Web was born. His debut novel, Neuromancer, won all three major science-fiction awards—the... William Gibson Interview Transcript Download PDF pp. 152-161 This is the raw transcript of the interview for the William Gibson story I did for the Globe and Mail. I wish I’d had more room to insert Gibson’s quips in the story, but they limited me to 1,600 words. Gibson never meets your eye when he talks to you. I’d been warned about this going in, but otherwise, it might’ve inspired quite a fit of self-doubt...

Redefining William Gibson Download PDF pp. 162-168 To an international audience of literary critics, philosophers and geeks who read Wired magazine, William Gibson is the revered pundit of post-industrialism. To his Kitsilano neighbors, he’s a really nice family guy (they tell you this anxiously, to reassure you he’s not some kind of crazed cyberpunk weirdo)... William Gibson: The Father of Cyberpunk Alex Dueben Download PDF pp. 169-177 William Gibson took the science-fiction world by storm in 1984 with the publication of his first novel, Neuromancer. The novel is one of the most significant books in what is now called cyberpunk. In 2003 with Pattern Recognition, Gibson shifted gears, writing a novel... Futuristic Fantasy Lives Now for Author William Gibson Mary Ann Gwinn Download PDF pp. 178-182 William Gibson dazzled readers in the 1980s by envisioning worlds few could have imagined then; cyberspace, the Internet, virtual reality.

Now the pace of change has become so mindboggling, the Vancouver, B.C.–based author has decided to dwell in the ephemeral present—“We can’t spin futures... Space to Think Download PDF pp. 183-188 The fantasy worlds of his bestselling eighties novels were uncannily prophetic, but where does the sci-fi writer go for inspiration when the future catches up on us? More than twenty years after he coined the term “cyberspace,” he talks to Tim Adams about the shape of things that came to pass... Interview: William Gibson Download PDF pp. 189-193 From the moment in 1984 when William Gibson’s first novel, Neuromancer, was published, the soft-spoken Southerner—who relocated to Canada in the late sixties to avoid Vietnam—has been a hero to the kinds of sciencefiction readers who favor mind-expanding ideas over two-fisted action. His... William Gibson Talks to io9 about Canada, Draft Dodging, and Godzilla Annalee Newitz Download PDF pp.

194-197 Yesterday William Gibson rolled into San Francisco to do a book signing for the paperback release of Spook Country, his recent novel about surveillance, augmented reality, dream politics, and advertising. The novel is also, incidentally, a fairly overt critique of the idea of “cyberspace,” a term Gibson... William Gibson: The Art of Fiction No. 211 David Wallace-Wells Download PDF pp. 198-228 Vancouver, British Columbia, sits just on the far side of the American border, a green-glass model city set in the dish of the North Shore Mountains, which enclose the city and support, most days, a thick canopy of fog. There are periods in the year when it’ll rain for forty days, William Gibson tells me... Why William Gibson Distrusts Aging Futurists' Nostalgia John Joseph Adams and David Barr Kirtley Download PDF pp.

229-234 Few things seem more pathetic than a science-fiction writer who pines for the “good old days.” Just a whiff of that sort of crippling nostalgia sets off a red alert in the crackling mind of William Gibson, the novelist who coined the term “cyberspace” and is known for his piercing insights into what the... William Gibson: The Complete io9 Interview Charlie Jane Anders Download PDF pp. 235-242 What is the novel for? How do we deal with living in such a futuristic time, without getting future shock? Do novelists have a duty to provide optimism about science and the future? We sat down with William Gibson for a half-hour discussion about writing and the role of science fiction in society. And... Key Resources William Gibson William Gibson PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF SCIENCE FICTION, FATHER OF “CYBERPUNK,” TO READ FROM HIS NEW NOVEL NYS Writers Institute, November 9, 2014 7:00 p.m.

Reading | EMPAC Concert Hall, Renesslaer (RPI), Troy CALENDAR LISTING: William Gibson, science fiction writer, father of the “Cyberpunk” genre, and author of Neuromancer (1984), which helped to define the popular culture of the Computer Age, will read from his new sci-fi novel, The Peripheral (2014), at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, November 9, 2014 in the EMPAC Concert Hall, on the Rensselaer (RPI) campus, 8th and Congress Steet, Troy, NY. ‎Free and open to the public, the event is sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute and Rensselaer’s School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Union Speakers Forum, and Department of Communications and Media. PROFILE William Gibson is a visionary author of speculative fiction whose work explores the future implications of contemporary human technologies. His revolutionary 1984 novel, Neuromancer, helped to define the nature of “cyberspace” and computer-generated realities in the popular imagination. The first novel to win all three major awards in science fiction (the Nebula, Hugo, and Philip K.

Dick awards), it exerted a tremendous impact on the zeitgeist of the Computer Age. At the time of its publication, the Washington Post called it, “kaleidoscopic, picaresque, flashy and decadent…. an amazing virtuoso performance,” and the New York Times called it, “freshly imagined, compellingly detailed, and chilling in its implications.” In a 30th anniversary review of Neuromancer that appearedin The Guardian (UK) in July 2014, critic Ed Cumming dubbed Gibson, “The Man Who Saw Tomorrow,” and said of Neuromancer, “The book is more than a decade old but, re-read today, it feels more astute than 99% of the novels written since.” Gibson’s newest novel, The Peripheral (October 28, 2014), is set in two futures— an impoverished near-future of high-tech trailer parks, and a “post-human” future of pleasure-seeking glitterati and material super-abundance. Characters who exist in the earlier future have been recruited to work as mercenaries in the later future.

Featuring Gibson’s trademark combination of thrilling action, prescient speculation, and poetic language, The Peripheral explores a variety of familiar and unfamiliar technologies— from drones, 3-D printers and virtual reality games, on the one hand, to time travel and mutant life forms, on the other. Writing in advance praise, science fiction author Cory Doctorow called it, “Spectacular, a piece of trenchant, far-future speculation….” Other works by Gibson, nearly all of them New York Times bestsellers, include Zero History (2010), Spook Country (2007), Pattern Recognition (2003), All Tomorrow's Parties (1999), Idoru (1996), Virtual Light (1993), The Difference Engine (1990, with Bruce Sterling), Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988), and Count Zero (1986). In the 30 years since the publication of Neuromancer, Gibson’s reputation as a novelist has continued to grow.

In a 1999 overview of Gibson’s work, Steven Poole of The Guardian (UK) said, “In terms of concrete influence, William Gibson is probably the most important novelist of the past two decades.” In 2003, Jane Vendenburgh of the Boston Globe called him, “One of the most visionary, original, and quietly influential writers currently working.” Of his 2010 novel Zero History, which explores the implications of present day consumer-tracking technologies,the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reviewer said, “Gibson’s ability to hit the sweet spot of cutting-edge culture is uncanny,” and the reviewer for the San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle said, “Gibson can craft sentences of uncanny beauty, and is our great poet of crowds.” For additional information, contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at . William Gibson and Neuromancer: the man who saw tomorrow | Books | The Guardian Share on Messenger Close Prescience can be tedious for science-fiction writers. Being proven right about a piece of technology or a trend distracts from the main aim of the work: to show us how we live now. William Gibson knows this as well as anyone.

Since the late 70s, the American-born novelist has been pulling at the loose threads of our culture to imagine what will come out. He has been right about a great deal, but mainly about the shape of the internet and how it filters down to the lowest strata of society. In Neuromancer, published 30 years ago this month, Gibson popularised the idea of cyberspace: a "consensual hallucination" created by millions of connected computers. This network can be "jacked" into, while in the real world characters flit from Tokyo to the Sprawl , an urban agglomeration running down the east coast of the US. Gritty urban clinics carry out horrendous sounding plastic surgery. A junkie-hacker, Case, is coaxed into hacking the system of a major corporation. What once seemed impossibly futuristic is now eerily familiar. "Neuromancer," says novelist and blogger Cory Doctorow , "remains a vividly imagined allegory for the world of the 1980s, when the first seeds of massive, globalised wealth-disparity were planted, and when the inchoate rumblings of technological rebellion were first felt.

A generation later, we're living in a future that is both nothing like the Gibson future and instantly recognisable as its less stylish, less romantic cousin. Instead of zaibatsus [large conglomerates] run by faceless salarymen, we have doctrinaire thrusting young neocons and neoliberals who want to treat everything from schools to hospitals as businesses." Neuromancer, winner of the 'big three' for science fiction: the Nebula, Philip K Dick and Hugo awards On its release, Neuromancer won the "big three" for science fiction: the Nebula, Philip K Dick and Hugo awards. It sold more than 6m copies and launched an entire aesthetic: cyberpunk. In predicting this future, Gibson can be said to have helped shape our conception of the internet. Other novelists are held in higher esteem by literary critics, but few can claim to have had such a wide-ranging influence. The Wachowskis made The Matrix by mashing Gibson's vision together with that of French philosopher Jean Baudrillard . Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander is a facsimile of Molly Millions, the femme fatale in Neuromancer.

Every social network, online game or hacking scandal takes us a step closer to the universe Gibson imagined in 1984. The vision was not perfect, though. As Gibson himself has joked, Neuromancer has a "complete absence of cellphones, which I'm sure young readers must assume is a key plot point". Other features of the novel are still lumbering towards us from the horizon. Despite Facebook's $2.3bn purchase of the Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset system, we remain some way from Neuromancer's favourite entertainment: "simstim", where users share a star's whole sensory experience. Yet our world has enough of a Gibsonian hue for the writer to have acquired the mantle of a prophet. "The Ed Snowden moment is very Gibsonian," adds Doctorow. "Snowden could be Case's back-office support, an ex-spook trapped behind Putin's iron curtain, offering intermittent but vital support to people trapped in the system's relentless gear grinding." As the world has caught up with Gibson's vision, the author, now 66, has turned his gaze closer to the present.

(His next novel, The Peripheral, will be the first he has set in the far future.) Neuromancer is Gibson's most famous novel but not his most accomplished. Pattern Recognition was written in the wake of 9/11 and published in 2003. If Neuromancer looks at the future through a high-powered telescope, Pattern Recognition has its face pressed right up to the glass. Set partly in Camden Town, London, the book has as its protagonist Cayce Pollard, a marketing consultant who has a literal allergy to brands and logos. This makes her valuable to companies keen to seem cooler and less corporate. The book is more than a decade old but, re-read today, it feels more astute than 99% of the novels written since. Gibson has written many times of his belief that all cultural change is essentially technologically driven. As the progress of technology speeds up, it becomes more incumbent on authors to examine its effects. It is unthinkable that you could write a novel set in the UK today that did not in some address way the spread of computers into every crevice of the world.

"We have plenty of Booker-type authors who are lauded for their exquisite lyrical realism," says Ned Beauman , himself a Booker-nominated author. "But, for me, Gibson is better than almost anybody at noticing what's genuinely interesting about the world. He's the only living writer who was one of my favourites when I was 13 and is still one of my favourites. In that respect, he's been deeply influential on me." Beauman's latest novel, Glow, is unmistakably shaped by Pattern Recognition and its two sequels, Spook Country and Zero History . Tech-savvy Londoners try strange new drugs while vast corporations employ strange new marketing techniques. Like Gibson's work, it shows us the present by imagining a hyper-real near future. "Gibson does texture and function in a way that I'm constantly trying to imitate," he says. "Like many great writers, he has a specific imaginative territory that he keeps going back to, but that territory happens to be where a lot of us now find ourselves living. Not only in terms of Google Glass and Uber, which are comparatively trivial, but in terms of the gap between rich and poor, the impunity of globalised commerce, the declining relevance of the west.

It's a crime that he's not regarded as one of our most important novelists."

Question: Whose 1984 novel "Neuromancer", was one of the first cyberpunk novels?
Answer: William Gibson