Places and Settings in Neuromancer by Shruti Bhave

The novel begins in the Chatsubo, a bar in The Sprawl in Japan. Ratz is the bartender who is described as having a prosthetic arm. This bar is a little sketchy as it has call girls at every corner. It is where Case tends to go almost everyday to get a drink. From here, Gibson goes on to tell us that Case (the main character) had once been a cyberspace cowboy (a hacker) until he cheated his employers who poisoned him with a toxin, leaving him unable to hack into cyberspace.

The setting shifts again, as Case tells us how he met his girlfriend Linda Lee at an arcade. This place is described as being any other typical arcade except that it has more of a futuristic feel. Gibson's description of the different games is almost kind of eerie. He describes the enviornment as a blue haze of cigarette smoke where the holograms of the different games shed laser light on the people playing them. The arcade is also the place that Case uses to get rid of his follower but in that scene, its described as having a row of identical doors leading to office cubicles. This is a very different description of the arcade from the first one and makes the reader picture what it might really look like.

After visiting Deane, Case goes to a cheap hotel to rent a coffin, or a very small room. This room is also very unusual because the way Gibson describes it makes it seem like its a cold enviornment that does not have much to offer except strange gadgets. The depiction of the room is very technical with the mechanical bolts, his pocket computer, the fluorescence and the cooler of dry ice. The use of the word coffin to mean room is in itself very strange.

The last place that stood out to me was Sammi's, an arena where the entertainment is a knife fight to death. This is depicted as a dark and daunting place where there is a lot of bloodshed. It is where Linda gets killed. Once again, it is described as being futuristic with the fluorescent rings and the holograms.

The constant shift of setting makes the reader think about what exactly is being described: the past, present or the future? Gibson's choice of words and the names he gives each character are out of the ordinary, just like everything else is in cyberspace. His choice of words for everyday objects (like the coffin means a room) are so different that it keeps on reminding us that the story takes place in a completely different environment where the people can be programmed.