Human relationships to technology and machines

“His ugliness was the stuff of legend. In an age of affordable beauty, there was something heraldic about his lack of it” (pg 4). In the current world, looks are something to be bought, and there is technology to get just about anything on the black market.

“He’d operated at almost permanent adrenaline high…jacked into a custom cyberspace deck that projected his disembodied voice into the consensual hallucination that was the matrix” (pg 5). It is unusual that technology such as the matrix is a hallucination of the mind, yet it is described as consensual.

“Night City was like a deranged experiment in social Darwinism, designed by a bored researcher who kept one thumb permanently on the fast-forward button” (pg 7). This demonstrates the constant state of change which occurs in life within this city.

“Julie Deane was one hundred and thirty-five years old, his metabolism assiduously warped by a weekly fortune in serums and hormones” (pg 12). Technology is so advanced that people can stay alive for much longer through certain procedures.

“…it was possible to see Ninsei as a field of data, the way the matrix had once reminded him of proteins linking to distinguish cell specialties” (pg 16). This shows the interplay between biological systems and machines, with something technological reminding case of natural occurrences.

“Program a map to display frequency of data exchange, every thousand megabytes a single pixel on a very large screen. Manhattan and Atlanta burn solid white” (pg 43). Case is likening the activity and real life exchanges in these cities to a computer programmed map.

“The transition to cyberspace, when he hit the switch, was instantaneous” (pg 56). One can travel back and forth between the real and virtual worlds in the blink of an eye.

“A few letter-writers had taken refuge in doorways, their old voiceprinters wrapped in sheets of clear plastic, evidence that the written word still enjoyed a certain prestige here. It was a sluggish country” (pg 88). The written word, which is so common in our world, is thought to be more archaic here. Case looks down upon these things as old-fashioned.

“The weight of memory came down, an entire body of knowledge driven into his head like a microsoft into a socket” (pg 117). Case is likening the real memory he had of his girlfriend to the technological advancement that allows people to gain instant knowledge by plugging something into their sockets.

“He knew that sunlight was pumped in with a Lado-Acheson system…” (pg 123). Even the weather, something that should be natural, is programmed here.

Neuromancer settings

One of the key settings described within the first few pages of Neuromancer is that of Night City. From what I have gathered so far, Night City is a central area in which a lot of illegal activities occur, and is home to many seedy bars, including the Chat. Within the first line, Gibson describes the sky above the city as “the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” The image that immediately comes to mind is the fuzzy black and white pixels that resemble a blizzard on the television screen, creating static filled white noise. A few pages later he also refers to the “poisoned silver sky.” These are two intriguing descriptions that are initially given about the city, and while it caught my attention I am unsure as to why the author chose these specific word choices. Gibson goes on to state that Night City is like “a deranged experiment in social Darwinism, designed by a bored researcher who kept one thumb permanently on the fast forward button.” This is an effective way to describe the numerous unusual characters found around the city, and to imply that life is in a state of constant flux. Within this city, much experimentation occurs with technology and drugs, and there is a great deal of involvement within the black market.

At the beginning of Chapter 3, Case’s home of Sprawl is described. Once again Gibson effectively describes the hustle and bustle of the area by comparing it to the technology of a map displaying frequency of data exchange. “At a hundred-million megabytes per second, you begin to make out certain blocks in midtown Manhattan…” However, just a couple pages later, Case is eating in a rather deserted location, which seems rather the opposite of the description initially given. These conflicting descriptions are just one of the many things in this novel that have confused me.

So far I find myself a little bit disoriented as to the events that are actually occurring in the novel as well as the manner in which Gibson relays them to the reader. Usually when I read books it is almost as if I become a character within the story because I get so involved, but so far my confusion has prevented this from really being able to happen. So far, though, I am intrigued by the story, I’m just a little bit lost at the moment.