Neuromancer Part 1: Chiba City Blues
George Mason University
Ch 1:
As in the film Blade Runner, modern Japanese (Asian) imagery prevails. Chiba, a suburb of Tokyo, is here a section of the Japanese version of the Sprawl
Sprawl=BAMA (Boston-Altanta Metro Axis)
Night City (main street: Ninsei) is the "dark side" of Chiba, the neighborhood of illegal, but apparently "permitted" activity
why permitted? Case suspects a "deliberately unsupervised playground for technology" (11)
The character of Case:
he is a classic anti-hero. Similar characters occur in 1940s detective fiction
(like Blade Runner, the novel uses the tropes of 1940's crime fiction
and noir films--the criminal underworld, with its slang, violence, and dark
romance, is here translated into 1980s "hacker" culture. Instead
of bootleg gin, its bootleg software and implants).
Chapter one sets the scenes for several plot developments--Linda Lee, Case's junkie girlfriend, the Chat bar with Ratz (another typical 1940s character, here transformed by steel teeth and a Russian military surplus arm, Julius Deane, the middleman (in movies like Casablanca, he'd be the Sidney Greenstreet character--never to be trusted, but he has connections one might need.)
At the end of chapter 1, Case has met Molly (1940's femme fatale) and her bio implants (carbon fiber eyes, retractable nails. Her fletchette gun shoots darts, some tipped with poison, others just flesh-ripping)
Ch 2
we meet Armitage, who is collecting people for a job (Case, Molly, the Finn, later Riviera).
ICE: Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics--electronic security
icecutters--hacking software
go-to: profile
Zaibatsus: Japanese corporation.
Often hire employees (sararimen=salarymen)
for life
Case's profile says he was trying to commit suicide by street
Screaming Fist: a military mission to destroy a Soviet computer nexus with a virus. The Soviets were apparently tipped off, and the existence of Soviet emps (electromag pulse weapons) had been covered up. The Screaming Fist members were picked off, all but a few who escaped to Finland in a stolen Soviet helicopter gunship.
Armitage fixes Case's biology: he had been poisoned with mycotoxins which made it impossible to connect to the matrix. They also give him a new pancreas and liver, to repair the damage he had done with drugs. Armitage pays for the black market surgery by giving the surgeons the method of repair itself. Where did Armitage get it?
Linda Lee is killed in a very confusing scene. Case's POV is unreliable.
She is killed, apparently by agents working for Julius Deane.
Background
Part 1: Chiba City Blues
Part 2: The Shopping Expedition
Part 3: Midnight in the Rue Jules Verne
Part 4: The Straylight Run & Coda
Closing and Discussion
