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.