Neuromancer Setting

Reading Neuromancer I discover that I do not have very much experience with reading science fiction. I am having a hard time learning what rules apply, what we are expected to know and what we learn as we go along. I have been able to pick up some clues to the setting of the novel.

The first paragraph says things like the "sky was the color of a television" and references Japanese quickly tell us that we are on earth and in modern or futuristic Japan and in an urban area. We know that they still speak Japanese and are metroposistic and and big enough of a travel hub to have a bar regularly filled with immigrants. Using just this information we can judge that Case has already lived through some adventures and the story isn't going to be a of an innocent farm boy who goes on an epic adventure but of Case who has a past he must deal with and the events that unfold because of it.

When Gibson talks about video arcades and how commonplace they seem we get the sense that the world is more technologically orientated than todays world and that pop culture is represented largely by the video game culture.

With the speed usage, easy weapon acquisition, and prostitution we can assume that Case is in a slum or bad area of Chiba. This helps us believe that he is on the run and lives the kinda of life where a random person he knows would want him dead. This would be much more unusual and unbelievable he he was living the high life of this huge metropolis and still having people wanting him dead and having to watch his back at all times.