Thoroughfares are packed with crowds and loud bars and food joints. It is here that the vibe and style of this fast-moving, high-tech futureworld is established. The book opens with the central character, Case, (only his first name is used, coolly, until page 189, where the Turing Police inform us his full name is Henry Dorsett Case), aged 24, on the lam in Japan. In Tokyo, Chiba, Night City – to be precise, in the neighbourhood of Ninsei. More or less everyone takes them and many of the characters are addicts or dealers. Some people have slots behind their ears which they can stick microchips into (referred to as ‘microsofts’).Īnd drugs are ubiquitous, not only speed and cocaine, but new families of chemically engineered mind-altering substances. Would that be 2053? Most of the story is set in ‘The Sprawl’, the nickname for the vast urban conurbation which extends from Boston to Atlanta. A character refers to an ‘Act of ’53’ (p.92). It lasted three weeks, apparently, with no damage in the USA, and – unlike most future novels – doesn’t seem to impact the story very much.Ī pandemic has killed off all horses (p.112). It’s set in a high-tech future after there’s been a war in which the American government sent naive soldiers over to be masacred by advanced Russian weapons systems. Gibson hit the ground running with the turbo-charged, street cool of this, his debut novel, Neuromancer, in 1984. Raymond Chandler for the computer games generation. What got you, it’s called bad luck.’ (p.41) The lenses were empty quicksilver, regarding him with an insect calm. The narrow toes were sheathed in bright Mexican silver.

She hooked thumbs in the belthoops of her leather jeans and rocked backward on the lacquered heels of her cherry red cowboy boots.

Neuromancer by William Gibson