Literature Review, William Gibson – Neuromancer

Establishing the Cyberpunk Genre, Dark Noir Science Fiction

Oct 15, 2009 Nicholas Morine

Treading a very thin line between compelling action-adventure and deeply philosophical study of life, the question of physical existence and personality.

William Gibson's Neuromancer, originally published in 1984, is a dystopic fiction set in a high-tech future replete with drugs, violence, sex, and questions of morality and existence. Strongly reminiscent of Blade Runner with a focus on the ubiquitous nature of advertising and corporatist governance outlined in sharp neon edges, the scenery cast forth in Neuromancer could be credited with establishing the cyberpunk canon.

Neuromancer could further be credited for conceptualizing “cyberspace” – the very term itself being coined by Gibson in this novel, as well as several other technologically based slang words that have found common usage in the age of the internet.

Street Samurai, The Matrix, Designer Drugs, and Violence

The protagonist of the novel, a man simply known as Case, is introduced to the reader as a burned out ex- “cowboy” - cowboys being street slang for skilled adrenaline junkies and information thieves who are hackers of the Matrix, a digital world that exists beyond the confines of the physical realm.

After an ill-considered attempt to skim some profit from the top of a high-profile job, Case is injected with a specifically designed serum that renders him unable to jack in to the Matrix, unable to fulfill that which was his “real” life.

However, his innate skills are the subject of much scrutiny amongst powers much larger in scope, and soon Case finds himself interacting with Molly (a mirror-eyed street samurai), Dixie (a long dead mentor and hacker who is immortalized as a computerized schema, a program, a ROM set), and Maelcum (a rastafarian warrior and space pilot).

This diverse cast of characters is typical throughout Neuromancer and is extremely intriguing, breaking the tired tropes common to the science fiction genre by the time of publication and influencing many works following – the Wachowski brothers film The Matrix being the most obvious homage, closely followed by earlier anime film Ghost in the Shell and the Shadowrun intellectual property.

Themes of Personality, Existence, Pain and Pleasure

Neuromancer is a darkly realistic portrait of a potential future. Characters are maimed, tortured, and murdered casually within the narrative, sometimes with psychosexual intent – there is no appeal to decorum or sensitive readership made within the text. Sexual explorations are provided and contrasted with pragmatic outcomes – not all endings are necessarily happy.

The artificial intelligences in the novel, Wintermute (rationality, quantitative analysis) and Neuromancer (personality, qualitative analysis) are central to the plot; essentially a power struggle between two competing portions of their human creator vying for something akin to supremacy – although supremacy may perhaps be the wrong word to describe the final outcome of this fatal mission.

The problem described to Case by Wintermute is a disconnect between the two A.I creations, metaphorically presented as two lobes of a man's brain that are self-aware and yet at continual odds rather than continual synergy.

By severing the human imposed safeguards and breaking down the digital barriers halving the two artificial sentients – Case and his unlikely entourage are forced to engage in a deal with their demons if they hope to live another day.

Of Motives and Motivation

Motives and the question of motivation is also a central theme in William Gibson's Neuromancer. Some actors, such as Case, are helpless to resist the actions moving about them – Case, for example, is blackmailed into compliance via a slowly dissolving chemical poison in his bloodstream that can only be mitigated by a counter-serum. Molly, conversely, is initially a simple hired street samurai – although her interest is explored in much deeper complexity by the touching denouement.

Neuromancer is a classic work of dark science fiction that is compelling and rich with detail and variety for complusive re-readers. Multiple readings of the text will emerge with multiple interpretations, a multi-faceted outcome that is not surprising given the existential and metaphysical questions raised by such an approachable and timeless novel.