Case was once a top console cowboy, a hacker who jacked his nervous system into the global computer matrix. After he stole from his employers, they damaged his nerves so he could never connect again, and he now drifts through the neon underworld of Chiba City in Japan. A mysterious man named Armitage offers to repair him in exchange for his skills on a high-stakes job.
Case teams up with Molly, a street samurai with surgically implanted mirrored lenses and retractable blades, and a cast of criminals including the illusionist Riviera and the digital ghost of Case's old mentor. The trail leads from the sprawling cities of the American East Coast to Istanbul and Freeside, a luxury orbital resort, and toward a powerful artificial intelligence with its own agenda.
Gibson's dense, slangy prose and vision of corporate power, body modification and virtual reality shaped decades of science fiction, films and video games. The novel swept the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick awards. Many of its ideas about networked life, hacking and AI read as remarkably prescient, though it was written on a typewriter.
Book details
| Author | William Gibson |
|---|---|
| First published | 1984 |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Type | Fiction |
| Pages (approx.) | 271 |
| Setting | Chiba City, the Sprawl, Istanbul and the orbital colony Freeside, near future |
| Awards | Nebula Award for Best Novel 1984, Hugo Award for Best Novel 1985, Philip K. Dick Award 1985 |
Themes
- Artificial intelligence
- Corporate power
- Virtual reality
- Identity
- Body modification
Who should read it
Readers curious about the roots of cyberpunk and the cultural imagination of the internet.