My goodness, what to say about Nueromancer? Okay—let’s get the obvious out of the way first, and
hopefully it’ll help us follow the white rabbit down a rabbit-hole into
wonderland.
So we’ve got some significant foundation material that has
been copied or stolen for films like, say, TheMatrix: being jacked in, built in computer jacks at the base of the skull,
ships flying around in various stages of advancement, hulkingly strong “Rastafarian”
pilots who live in Zion, sentient computer programs who can assume the identity
of anyone for their needs, and a flatlining Cowboy/Neo (end of Matrix Reloaded, beginning of Matrix Revolutions). The landscape
created by Neuromancer, with the endless beach and far-off city that doesn’t
make sense where time has no meaning? Seen that one recently in Inception. . . along with a city that
exists above and around itself. . . and a kind of jacking in with a handler as
well, btw. I gotta throw out the Tron
similarities too—but in this case, Tron
came out in ’82, where Neuromancer
wasn’t published until ’84: a human getting sucked into “The Grid”
(Grid/Matrix? Anyone? Beuller?), a over-powerful sentient Master Control
Program that runs the whole show, exceeding its original programming
(MCP/Winterfell, oops, I mean Wintermute (sorry, that’s a really lame reference
opportunity—it doesn’t fit in here at all, I just mistyped and figured I wouldn’t
fix it)), and the imagery described in Neuromancer’s
matrix sounds a lot like the boxy nature of the computer graphics in Tron’s grid. AND, of course, the Sprawl’s
similarities to Blade Runner, which
Gibson himself worried over, as the film came out right before the book’s
publication. (see Wikipedia on that one).
Let’s dive into some less obvious. I’ve done a lot with
technology, so I kind of want to steer away from that in this one—besides,
after we read and discussed Delaney, the whole “technology-saturated universe”
is somewhat played out, although in this case it’s a technology-saturated world. I’m going to ask a simple question: what sets
Neromancer apart from all of the
imitators that came after (or before, if we can fathom a time-twist like that).
Answer: It’s a good ole fashion bank heist. It’s Ocean’s Eleven in Cyberspace. Wintermute
has gathered its team together to pull off the ultimate job. The entire novel
we’re waiting to see if Case can keep it together long enough to see it
through, all the while wondering if the cops are going to catch on, or if the
heist itself can survive all of the problems it keeps encountering. Throw in the
cowboy references, and we’ve got elements of a western as well.
If I can keep it together long enough to have a serious,
scholarly thought, I’d like to consider Wintermute for a moment. Here’s part of
the novel that really can’t be seen anywhere else, nor exist outside a novel
like this. Wintermute is Artificial Intelligence that has seemingly grown
beyond its initial confines, but we find that that is not exactly the case. Wintermute
was programmed by the original Marie-France to desire to exceed itself and merge with Neuromancer. That was
Marie-France’s intention all along. It was everyone else who decided to keep
the A.I.s in check. But with this growth (or rather the fulfillment of its
original programming) comes a new type of being we haven’t encountered yet this
semester: a disembodied A.I. Robots, yes. Cyborgs? Most certainly. Computer
programs that exist on a different plane/sphere and hold almost no physical
presence in the “world of the real” but are almost infinitely
powerful/influential on this plane?! Nope, it’s a new one.
Here’s the Frankenstein moment, the thing that makes it all
worth considering: who are we to create such life, and do we even consider the
implications of such creation? The newly merged Wintermute/Neuromancer
consciousness touches a lifeform like itself from the Alpha Centauri system—essentially
making “first contact” with an extraterrestrial species. Considering the
extensive locks put in place to restrain A.I.s from merging, or growing beyond their programming, there was
human fear behind the creation, or evolution of A.I.s. Why did Marie-France
intend on creating new life, beyond the human? Did she not fear for the power
given to such an entity? I mean, didn’t she even READ Frankenstein?! C’mon!
I could probably go on all day—there are a lot of
implications here that could be followed, to see how far the rabbit-hole goes.
</rant>