Comment by pjc50

Comment by pjc50 a day ago

6 replies

Yes. Neuromancer is actually about drug addiction in the same way as PKD's work is, with the cyberspace being a psychedelic non physical drug. It is also about cybernetics as systems of control; you can trace the machinery of each character being driven by and struggling against external forces of control. Case, Molly, Armitage, and ultimately the AI.

leoc a day ago

Cyberspace in Neuromancer is certainly not not psychedelic, but it’s also clearly to a large extent based on Tron .

  • EdwardCoffin a day ago

    To the best of my knowledge Gibson has never talked about Tron being an influence. He'd already described cyberspace in his short story Burning Chrome before Tron came out.

    He has sometimes talked about Blade Runner and worrying when it came out that people would think his stuff was derivative of it (it wasn't), and then said he eventually got to talk with Ridley Scott about it, and it turns out both of them had similar inspirations, namely Metal Hurlant.

    • leoc 21 hours ago

      You're right; also, apparently, Gibson said he hadn't seen Tron as late as March 1983, and he finished a draft of Neuromancer before that August https://www.bookbrunch.co.uk/page/free-article/neuromancer-t... . (Though this also confirms that he had seen Tron stills in mid-1982, though that's still well after both "Burning Chrome" and the Jacked In outline (both 1981)). OTOH the similarities to Blade Runner have never really been hard to explain: if you cross film noir and hard-boiled with New Hollywood and '70s malaise fiction then it's natural to end up with something a bit like Blade Runner and so also Neuromancer, while on the other hand there are of course huge differences between the two as well.

    • staticman2 2 hours ago

      Gibson tweeted about Tron a while back and said this which I had interpreted as suggesting an infuuence:

      "Tron nostalgia: When I was writing Neuromancer, that was the bleeding-edge digital aesthetic. Those sparse green lines! Pong, meet Case."

anthk a day ago

>Cybernetics as systems of control;

Now you are being redundant :D