Title: Neuromancer

Author: William Gibson

Date of Publication: 1984

Place of Publication: Ace

Type Novel

Characters: No Character

Themes: BYRONIC HERO; POSTHUMAN; MAD SCIENTIST/MONSTER; SYMPATHETIC MONSTER; RACE/POLITICS

Critical Summary: Neuromancer follows a cowboy-hacker named Case, who begins the novel drug-addicted and depressed as a low-level hacker in Chiba City, Japan. When Armitage, a mysterious ex-military officer, hires Case to hack an artificial intelligence, run by the powerful Tessier-Ashpool clan who live in Villa Straylight, a labyrinthine Gothic residence in Freeside, a cylindrical resort orbiting at the Lagrange Point. Case learns that his real employer is an AI called Wintermute who seeks to merge with its other half, Neuromancer, to create a full, self-determining consciousness. Case and his team succeed and a new, awakened AI emerges.

Gibson’s novel updates the Frankenstein dynamic for the digital age. Here, the mad scientists are the geniuses of the Gothic Tessier-Ashpool family; instead of bringing to life a body assembled from dead parts, their creation comes from the merging of artificial intelligences. When Wintermute and Neuromancer combine, a posthuman intelligence emerges (which hints, at the very end, at its contacting of other superintelligences across the galaxy). The class issues of Case and the lowlife world he inhabits and its relation to the rich world of Freeside, as well as the presence of the space Rastafarians, bring in the theme of Race/Politics.

Administrative Notes: Tierney Diaz, CSUF; Alex Goodman (editing)