Neuromancer(1984) by William Gibson
Settings
Japan
Chiba / Chiba City - On the eastern coast of Japan, a city known for its many clinics, surgery boutiques, biotech, and wetware; Home to the world’s best black clinics
Night City - Narrow borderland of older streets, dividing Chiba Port and city; not an official city; hotspot for crime and black market
Ninsei - Neighborhood at the heart of Night City; an outlaw playground for burgeoning biotechnology, hosts a gaijin crowd and sailors from the Port
The Port / The Docks - An extensive port for shipping watercraft, container ships, etc. Quartz-halogen floodlights illuminate the docks all night like vast stages.
The Chatsubo/The Chat - An expatriate bar in Ninsei; In Japanese, chatsubo (茶壺) means "tea bowl" or “tea jar”
Jarre de Thé - a teashop in Ninsei decorated in an uneasy blend of Japanese traditional and pale Milanese
The Namban - Wage’s headquarters; a Japanese word meaning southern barbarian; it is used to describe non-Japanese pottery, inferior ware from other parts of Asia, China, and the Philippines.
Sammi’s - A fighting arena within an inflated dome behind a portside warehouse; Its clientele are mostly Japanese techs from the corporate arcologies
Cheap Hotel - A capsule hotel in Chiba City on an alley off Baiitsu; Case rents coffin #92 on a weekly basis for storage, opting to sleep in cheaper places.
Julius Deane Import Export - Julius Deane’s warehouse behind Ninsei where he operates his smuggling business
Beautiful Girl - A franchised coffee shop with locations on Ninsei and on the Rue Jules Verne avenue on the space station Freeside.
Hilton - A luxurious hotel chain Armitage likes to stay in across the world; Armitage’s room in Hilton Chiba was on the 25th room.
Shiga - A prefecture of Japan which holds stalls with various goods; sushi, mantises beside tanks of blue mutant carp and crickets caged in bamboo; Case rents a gun from a stall
Shinjuku - One of 23 city wards in Tokyo, but commonly refers to just the large entertainment, business and shopping area around Shinjuku Station.
United States
BAMA (Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis) - An urban sprawl along the east coast of America; Also known as “the Sprawl”, Case’s home.
Metro Holografix - The Finn’s shop cluttered with waist-high scrap and nameless junk that rise along the walls; He is able to detect implants and augmentations for Molly
Memory Lane - a vendor street lined by dubious software rental complexes and frequented by Sprawl youth
Sense/Net Pyramid - A tall mirror-sheathed building in the Sprawl (perhaps New York), the nexus of the Sense/Net consortium.
Turkey
Beyoğlu - a municipality and district of Istanbul Province, Turkey.
Cumhuriyet Caddesi - a street that starts at Zafer Square in the city center of Bursa and ends at Gökdere Boulevard. It is located in the middle of Bursa's historical inns and bazaars.
Fener, Küchuk Gülhane Djaddesi 14 - Peter Riviera’s apartment
Yenisehir Palas Oteli - A modern hotel in Istanbul, with a touristic style where Peter Riviera performs
Kapli Carsi - The grand bazaar of Istanbul located in the Fatih district of Istanbul, south to the Spice Bazaar.
Spice Bazaar - Sometimes referred to as “Egyptian Bazaar,” an old bazaar in Istanbul, that was erected by Sultan Hatice in 1660 on the site of an ancient bazaar. It is the central market for spices, software, perfumes, drugs.
Topkapi - A palace complex in Istanbul, assembled of various baroque styles. Gardens surround the Seraglio. Molly described it as “a private whorehouse for the King" who kept a lot of women there, before it turned into a museum
High-orbit
Freeside - A spindle-shaped orbital station owned by the Tessier-Ashpool family. It has the shape of a blunt white cigar that narrows at the ends;
The Villa Straylight - The strictly private villa at the top of Freeside.
Zion cluster - 30-year-old orbital colony of Rastafarians who experienced accelerated aging after abandoning work on a “gravity well” connection Freeside to Earth
Rue Jules Verne - A major circumferential avenue on the inner surface of Freeside.
Intercontinental - A luxurious hotel on Freeside; sloping glass-fronted cliff face that slides down into cold mist and the sound of rapids
Desiderata Street - One of the avenues of Freeside, running its length, terminating at either end in the supports of the Lado-Acheson light pumps. At the middle it is intersected by Rue Jules Verne. It features expensive shops: Gucci, Tsuyako, Hermes, Liberty.
Vingtième Siècle - Translating to “Twentienth Century” in French, a 20th century inspired French luxury restaurant in Freeside; the smallest and most expensive of several floating restaurants on a small lake near the Intercontinental.
Emergency - A small and crowded bar for tourists in the conjuction of the Rue Jules Verne and Desiderata Street on Freeside. Other nearby bars include Hi-Lo, the Paradise, le Monde, Cricketeer and Shozoku Smith’s.
Other
Kirensk - A Russian town and the administrative center of Kirensky District in Irkutsk Oblast. Its computer nexus was the target of a U.S. Special Forces strike force, Screaming Fist. The Russians were building EMP instalations at Kirensk, but officers of the American intelligence suppressed the reports from the Screaming Fist strike force, perhaps in order to not annull the mission.
Copenhagen (Pirate’s Bay) - On the fringes of the university sector is a “pirate’s paradise” or low-security academic grid for easy hacking.
Bonn - The capital of West Germany before the fall of the Wall, brought to ruins in the War by a radioactive weapon. Peter Rivieria’s native city.
Beach - A constructed Morocco beach with gray sand and a concrete bunker from Marie-Francis’ memories built by Neuromancer in cyberspace. Case wanders there and finds Linda Lee’s construct after Neuromancer flatlines him.
Rio (de Janeiro) - The capital of the state of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil; The physical location of Neuromancer’s mainframe
Characters
Henry Dorsett Case - 24-year old cyberspace hacker from the Sprawl. At the beginning he is passively suicidal and a drug addict after being biologically maimed by his former employers for stealing from them.
Molly Millions - A biomodified razorgirl hired by Armitage to look over Case; Leather clad, Molly sports a short dark shag, inlaid lenses and retractable claws. To pay for her high-end modifications in Chiba, she worked as a “meat puppet” before killing a murderous customer and going into hiding.
Armitage - Formerly known as Colonel Willis Corto, he was Special Forces involved the disastrous Screaming Fist operation. Commandering a Russian helicopter, he was eventually shot down in Helsinki and suffered severe physical damage. Forced to falsely tesitfy in a congressional hearing in Washington, Armitage spiraled into a life of crime, murder and violence, eventually ending up in a mental hospital in France for schizophrenia. He was sent to a government institution near Toulon for an an experimental trial on cybernetically-assisted cures for schizophrenia and was provided with a microcomputer where Wintermute first got a hold of him.
Linda Lee - Case’s ex-girlfriend back in Chiba City; 20-year old Atlanta native with grey eyes and often wearing French fatigues; became drug-addicted after relationship with Case and steals from him for a ticket home
Julius “Julie” Deane - A 135-year-old fashionable importer based in Chiba. Described as child-like and sexless, Julius runs profiles for Case and is one of his connections; would kill anyone for a few New Yen (and does).
The Finn - A technical engineer and software fence in New York; He’s an old connection and friend of Molly’s who is then hired by Armitage. He runs a privacy side business. Old and agoraphobic, he has large yellow teeth and is antisocial.
Ratz - Bartender at The Chatsubo or The Chat; his ugliness in a world of affordable beauty is described as heraldic; has an outdated pinkish Russian military prosthesic arm; Likely German
Kurt - Another bartender at The Chatsubo; a young Brazilian boy who likely works under Ratz; protects Case with a Smith & Wesson riot gun during a confrontation with Wage and his joeboys.
Wage - Black-market supplier in Chiba for the past nine years; Case’s connection and lender, dealing primarily in proscribed biologicals; one of the few gaijin dealers to connect with the stratified crime outside its borders
Lonny Zone - Drug-addicted pimp at The Chatsubo, cuts Ratz in on the profit; close friend of Case’s back in Ninsei
Mona - One of Linda Lee’s friends, alleged to be dating one of Wage’s joeboys
Matsuga - A Japanese associate of Case’s back in Chiba City
Shin - A young Japanese vendor in Shiga who rents weapons to Case
Snake Man - One of Case’s customers based in Shinjuku, Tokyo; Wasn’t able to pay Case for a job due to a “cash flow” problem
Tally Isham - A simstim star that records sensoriums; photographed by Cath a day after the Sense/Net attack
McCoy Pauley (Dixie Flatline) - A famous redneck hacker from Atlanta and one of Case’s mentors who taught him how to hack. He died from a heart attack. For most of the novel, his construct guides and leads Case through Cyberspace hurdles.
Bobby Quine - A software expert and another of Case’s mentor; Molly describes him as an asshole
Larry Moe / Modern Larry - A member of the Panther Moderns; works in a software store on Memory Lane; Bald young kid with a microsoft slot behind his ear
Angelo - A member of the Panther Moderns; his face is a simple graft grown on collagen and shark-cartilage polysaccharides; has razor-sharp canines from some large animal.
Brood - Codename for a member of the Panther Moderns; link man between Molly ("Cat Mother") who physically infiltrated the Sense/Net Pyramid, and Case (“Cutter”) who built the icebreaker
Tommy - A member of the Panther Moderns who filmed the terrorist attack at Sense/Net Pyramid
Lupus Yonderboy - Leader of the Panther Moderns: Pink-haired with a rainbow assortment of microsofts, a pointed ear and cat eyes
Dr. Virginia Rambali - NYU Sociology Professor who comments on the Panther Moderns’ distinctive form of chaos
Smith - A fence and art dealer the Finn knew; The first he knew that went “silicon” to learn more about the art trade
Jimmy - Smith’s supplier and a burglar back from a year in high orbit. Stole talking head; Killed off by Tessier-Ashpool S.A.’s hired ninja, likely a previous clone of the Hideo clone in the novel.
Dr. Gerald Chin - A discreet dentist who works on street samurai; fixed up Molly after the attack on Sense/Net
Terzibashijan - A young Armenian man who Armitage paid to spy on Peter Riviera; multilingual, speaks Greek, French, Turkish and English; torturer for secret police
Peter Riviera - A 30-year-old handsome blond sadist and drug-addict; no left lung and subliminal holographic implants from Chiba; Gets sexual pleasure from betrayal; Armitage’s profile on him details his rare personality type as a psychopath.
Ali - A drug dealer operating in the outskirts of the Spice Bazaar who provides drugs for Peter in Istanbul
Aerol - A skinny Zionite who helps the characters move into a temporary place on Zion and tells them drug-fueled tales; He rides the Babylon Rocker.
Elroy - One of Dixie’s buddies from a Russian POW camp in Siberia; They had to cut off his thumb because of frostbite
Maelcum - A muscular Zionite and the pilot of the tug Marcus Garvey. He assists Armitage’s crew while they are in Freeside.
Founders of Zion - Originally part of five workers, the two remaining survivors of the original founders of the Zion colony have grown old from accelerated aging effects. They await the Final Days and help Armitage’s crew after being spoken to by Wintermute via frequencies.
Marlene - Case’s ex-girlfriend when he was fifteen; She has bleached hair; They lived together on the fifth floor of a weekly-rates hotel and slept on a striped mattress.
Rollo - Marlene’s on-again off-again boyfriend; An enormous Frisco biker with a lightning bolt bleached into his dark crewcut
Cath - A young tan freckled woman in Freeside. Along with her partner, she frequents the party circuit and does many drugs. She believes Case to be a gangster and makes sexual advances that are rebuffed.
Bruce - A young tan freckled man in Freeside and Cath’s partner/roommate. He supplies Case with Betaphenethylamine and takes him to a puppet parlor on his Honda trike.
Hideo - A cloned ninja assassin / “family retainer” who works for the Tessier-Ashpool family. Hideo is incredibly deadly, incredibly efficient, and incredibly loyal. He gifted Cath an origami crane.
Michéle - Initially thought to be a harmless French teenager in Freeside, she’s one of three Turing police undercover; uneven tan, muscular, dark cropped hair, surgically made to look young. She plays “the Recording Angel,” making occasional adjustments in interrogation; she is armed with a smooth black Walther with an integral silencer;
Roland - Initially thought to be a harmless French teenager in Freeside, he’s one of three Turing police undercover; uneven tan, muscular, surgically made to look young. He plays the “Good Cop” by lighting Case’ cigarettes during interrogation;
Pierre - Initially thought to be a harmless French teenager in Freeside, he’s one of three Turing police undercover; uneven tan, muscular, surgically made to look young. He plays the “Bad Cop” by belittling Case during interrogation;
Ashpool - The 200-year-old patriarch of Tessier-Ashpool family and husband to Marie-France; cryogenically frozen for most of his life. Prior to Molly reaching Straylight, he had been frozen 30 years before and asked to sleep with a clone of his daughter upon wake, who he then kills.
Marie-France - The ambitious Matriarch of the Tessier-Ashpool family and wife to Ashpool. She imagined a symbiotic relationship with AI and was strangled by Ashpool in her bed as a result.
Lady 3Jane Marie-France - The cloned daughter of Marie-France and Ashpool, sister to 8Jean. She has a pointy face, nose like a bird, dark hair. She messed with Ashpool’s cryogenic sleep by giving him bad dreams.
8Jean - The cloned son of Ashpool and Marie-France, brother to 3Jane. He was stationed at Melbourne before hearing of Ashpool’s death.
Johnny (of Johnny Mnemonic) - Molly’s ex-boyfriend who worked as human stash. Lived happily and in abundance with Molly while in hiding from the Yakuza. Was murdered by vat-grown Yakuza assasin for stealing data from his time as a stash. For more of his story, see Gibson’s short story, Johnny Mnemonic (1981)
General Girling - Trained Colonel Corto for Screaming Fist and gave him up to the Pentagon for money. A construct of the general is how Wintermute communicates with Corto; The root for Corto’s obsession with betrayal.
Tony - A boyfriend of Linda’s who looked at the RAM she stole from Case
Micheal - Case’s new girlfriend at the end of the novel
Slang & Terminology Index
Some terms are inspired by 1969 Toronto dope dealer's slang, or biker talk.
Akai - An electronics company. Among others, it produces transdermal inducer units with fine red leads.
Arcology - A portmanteau of architecture and ecology
Babylon - A Zion/Rastafarian concept of corrupt society/evilness or the forces of oppression
Babylon Rocker - Aerol’s space scooter
Bahamian bank - The orbital arm of a bank situated in the Bahamas, through which Zion is paid for their help to Wintermute. In the early 80's the Bahamas were somewhat notorious for not caring about tax disclosure and money laundering.
Bell Europa - A large European phone company, named after Bell Telephone Company / AT&T. Young hackers often steal entry codes from Bell Europa and post them in low-security academic grids in the Matrix for other pirates.
betaphenethylamine - An extremely powerful central nervous system stimulant, so much so that Case can metabolize it even with his new pancreas
Big Scientists, the - A Sprawl subculture from Case’s youth, resembling the technofetishist Panther Moderns of modern times
biologicals - Biological modification; (E.g: Case’s new pancreas)
biz - Short for business, often referencing illicit dealings or black-market business
blackbox - An electronic lock-picking device that uses a cable to interface, with the lock on the door to bypass it; likely a reference to a a Phreaking Blue Box that uses tones in order to make free phone calls.
black ice - ICE capable of killing the intruder if deemed necessary or appropriate; some forms of black ICE may be artificially intelligent.
black clinics - Illegal body modification clinics that usually specialize in biotech and cybernetic implants and generally editing the human body; Contain tanks of black market organs/parts
Blue Nine - A psychoactive agent that produces acute "paranoia and homicidal psychosis"; Known in California as Grievous Angel
Bockris Systems GmbH - A company based in Frankfurt, Germany. They are owned by Reinhold Scientific, all subsidiaries of Tessier-Ashpool.
braindeath / flatlining - When console cowboys show no brain activity in cyberspace during particularly hard operations; Dixie got his name from flatlining more than once
Braun - A German electronics company. Manufacturer of coffee makers, audiovisual technology, hologram projectors, and microdrones.
carbon socket - A port planted behind the left ear to insert microsoft
Carlsberg - A Danish multinational brewer and alcoholic drink. Founded in 1847 by J. C. Jacobsen
chip - Sometimes refers to neural software inserted into brain but often is a handheld technology for seamless actions (E.g: Case has a bank chip and a Freeside credit chip that allows him to purchase services and get into his room)
Chubb lock / key - A lever tumbler lock with an integral security feature, a re-locking device, which frustrates unauthorised access attempts and indicates to the lock's owner that it has been interfered with.
Cloud Dancers - A brand of hypnotic Lonny Zone is addicted to; likely Japanese
Cobra - A spring-loaded billy club with a bronze pyramidic tip designed to look like a cobra
coffin - A rented capsule room roughly three meters long and just over a meter tall; They usually include one bed, a refrigerator, and a phone
comsat - A communication satellite
construct - A hardwired ROM cassette replicating a person’s skills, obsessions, knee-jerk reactions, etc.
console / deck / computer - Blank boards of plugs, cables, buttons, switches, and a keyboard; They have tiny calculator-sized screens, but they’re mostly accessed with a dermatrode headset or a microsoft plug.
console cowboy / cyberspace jockey - A professional hacker or digital thief
Cray - A computer company; Armitage gives Case a Cray monitor
cut-out chip - A chip implanted in the brain that allows a person, or their employer, to selectively turn off their consciousness.
deathmask - The face made upon death
deb - Short for debutante, an upper-class young woman making her first appearance in fashionable society.
dermatrodes / trodes - Electrode pads that connect individuals to their decks so that they can jack in to cyberspace
derms/dermadisks - Adhesive patches that release drugs into the bloodstream
dex - Stimulant drugs but likely referencing dexedrine, a central nervous system stimulant
Dornier-Fujitsu - Likely the union of the German aircraft manufacturer, Dornier Flugzeugwerke, and Japanese multinational tech corporation, Fujitsu.
dreaming real - An artistic performance that involves illusory holography; (e.g: Peter Rivieria’s holographic cabaret, “The Doll”)
dreamgirls - Conjured-up female fantasy/holographic illusion in dreaming real; Similarly, adding “dream” prefix to any word means a holographic illusion of that word (e.g: “Dreamblood” referring to holographic blood)
dub - A type of music popular with Zionites; sensuous mosaic cooked from vast libraries of digitized Pop; also described as a form of worship and community.
Dunhill - A British luxury goods brand. In the context of the novel, Pierre owns a golden Dunhill, which refers to a lighter.
Eastern Seaboard Fission Authority - An electricity generating organization. In the Matrix it is represented with a burning stepped scarlet pyramid Aztec-style.
EEG - Stands for Electroencephalogram and is a measurement of brain activity.
EMPs (spelled emps) - Electromagnetic pulse, typically referring to the implement in electromagnetic pulse weapons
Event horizon - A boundary in cyberspace that references a real astrophysics term relating to black holes; the event horizon of a black hole is where time appears to stop, as light falls back into the hole.
Fan-Tan / fantan - Chinese gambling game based on chance
fence - The middle-man in illegal exchanges and trafficking.
flechette - A pointed, fin-stabilized steel projectile. The name comes from French fléchette, meaning "little arrow" or "dart"
Fletcher - Molly’s futuristic gun that can shoot multiple types of ammo, lethal and non-lethal.
flip-flop switch - A featureless black rectangle that connects a console user with a simstim deck, allowing them to experience cyberspace or simstim input alternatively but not at the same time; connects Case to Molly’s sensorium
flipping - The act of using the flip-flop switch to alternate from the Matrix to a sensorium and vice versa
Fuller dome - Large geodesic domes; arcologies
gaijin - A non-Japanese person or foreigner in Japan
Gitanes - A French brand of cigarettes, owned and manufactured by Imperial Tobacco
go-to - A a profile on someone, the modern equivalent being dox.
g-web - A retaining net able to absorb the impact of acceleration and deceleration as the tug maneuvers. Such impact is measured in “g’s” or Earth gravity equivalents.
Haniwa - A large sleek gray insectile Japanese space yacht five times larger than the Marcus Garvey. In Japanese, haniwa refers to large hollow baked clay sculptures placed on ancient Japanese burial mounds.
high-orbit - Objects or archipelago in geosynchronous orbit or higher
hi-pro - Short for “high protein”
Hitachi - Japanese technology company and computer brand
hologram - Three-dimensional images generated by interfering beams of light that reflect real, physical objects.
Hosaka - An expensive computer brand, it is the biggest of the zaibatsus. They specialize in genetic research and computer manufacturing.
ICE / ice (Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics) - Security systems and firewalls in cyberspace
Icebreakers - Advanced programs that can be used to break through ICE security. (E.g: the Kuang Grade Mark Eleven)
jack / jack in / hit the deck - Entering the Matrix, either through a dermatrode headset or microsoft plugins
Jah - Zionite word for God
JAL - Japan airlines
jive - A form of sign language used for discretion and illegal activity
joeboy - Hired muscle or security; worker for console cowboys as trainee cyberspace cowboys
Kadinsky - An early 20th century Russian painter and art theorist known for pure abstraction in modern painting.
Kuang Grade Mark Eleven - A powerful Chinese military computer virus capable of penetrating existing military systems and artificial intelligences; interface compatible with Ono-Sendai Cyberspace VII; slow-acting, taking six hours to crack a military target, but stealth and indetectable; gets up to the ICE and mutates to appear the same as the ICE’s fabric. Visually, in cyberspace, it takes the form of a small fighter jet plane–”a black chrome shark”
Kirin - A well-known Japanese beer brand. The Kirin Brewery Company, Limited, is one of Japan's major beer producers.
Lado-Acheson - A system that provides artificial sunlight in Freeside, whose two-millimeter armature ran the length of the spindle
Lion of Zion - Refers to the Lion of Judah which appeared on the old royal Ethiopian flag, and represents Haile Selassie - the former Ethiopian emperor, whom Rastafarians regard as their Messiah.
manriki chain - A stainless steel hand-held chain weapon used in feudal Japan, can be thrown by swinging overhead or popping like a whip; links with heavy, balanced weights on either end.
Marcus Garvey - An Afro-Jamaican political activist and the name of Maelcum’s tug. As the Zionites seem to be of African and African-American descent, it follows they would honor him with a ship. Garvey famously advocated for unity and collaboration between all people of the African diaspora.
Matrix, the / Cyberspace - A digital representation of all data in the world, visualized as a massive city of geometric shapes on an infinite grid. Pixels of data make up everything and are zooming everywhere and large businesses and servers appear as massive structures.
meat - derogatory term to characterize non-hackers, normal people or submissive crowdpeople; also a way to characterize the weakness of the flesh and Case’s bodily limitations (e.g: “the flesh the cowboys mocked.”)
meat puppet - Prostitutes chipped with a neuroelectric system (cut-out chip) that allows them to not retain consciousness while with customers. Although the puppets are able to maintain reactive reflexes from stimuli (e.g, orgasms), their personality is oftentimes a synthetic product of the software implemented by the employers who run the parlors.
megabyte - A data measurement unit applied to digital computer or media storage. One MB equals one million (106 or 1,000,000) bytes.
meperidine / Demerol - a fully synthetic opioid pain medication to treat severe pain
microdrone / the Braun - a small drone made by Braun that resembles a metal daddy-long-legs with a glowing red LED eye.
microlight - A small carbon fiber hang glider
micropore tape - A medical tape substance that's almost like synthetic skin used for wounds.
microsoft - A small piece of firmware inserted into the brain through carbon sockets; provides data on a particular subject, or special features for the user
mimetic polycarbon suit - Skin-tight suits that mimic their surroundings, rendering the wearer almost invisible. Can be configured to show custom patterns as well; used primarily by Panther Moderns
Mitsubishi - A group of autonomous Japanese multinational companies in a variety of industries; Case has Mitsubishi Bank account
Mitsubishi-Genentech - A megacorporation comprised of Mitsubishi and Genentech. Employees above a certain level were implanted with advanced microprocessors that monitored mutagen levels in the bloodstream. Some would also have a tattoo with its logo.
modem - Short for modulator-demodulator, a simple phone link that translates one device’s signals to signals that can be read by the receiver. In the novel, Case connects to his deck on Marcus Garvey from Freeside and is able to access the Matrix via phone.
Mole - A computer virus used in Screaming Fist to infiltrate the Kirensk nexus. The Mole series was the first generation of real intrusion programs. Mole IX was the first true virus in the history of cybernetics.
mycotoxin - A poison derived from mushrooms, most frequently a nerve agent, used to destroy parts of a victim’s nervous system
Nambu - Semi-automatic pistol produced by the Japanese company Koishikawa Arsenal, later known as the Tokyo Artillery Arsenal.
Neuromancer - Neuro (nerves/silver path) + Romancer + Necromancer (call up the dead); Wintermute’s sibling AI located in Rio, personified in cyberspace as a young thin Brazilian boy. Describes himself as the lane to the land of the dead. Unlike Wintermute, he can create his own personality and is good at preserving the personalities of others, like Linda Lee.
New Yen (N¥) - Old paper currency of Japan now used for black market deals or illegal activity
nexus - A central hub or network of interconnected computer systems
Nightwing - Radar-transparent assault parafoils that contain some flight circuitry and weapon systems. They were used by the western forces during the War.
octagon - A flat pink octagonal-shaped amphetamine Case was addicted to prior to Armitage replacing his pancreas.
Omaha Thunder - Colonel Corto’s Nightwing plane in Screaming Fist
Ono-Sendai - A matrix simulator, or cyberspace deck; Case was given an Ono-Sendai Cyberspace VII
pachinko / pachinko parlor - A Japanese gambling device resembling a pinball machine but with automatic payoff as in a gambling slot machine.
Panther Moderns - A punk youth subculture of skilled hackers with unpredictable behavior; Chaotic mercenaries and pranksters; They sport heavy body modifications, cybernetic/biotech, and mimetic polycarbonate suits.
Partagas - A Cuban brand of cigars the Finn likes to smoke
pocket VTR (Video Tape Recorders) - Small, portable devices used to record and play back video footage
précis (spelled precis) - A computer-generated research summary
puppet parlor - A business or club that offers prostitutes known as meat puppets
RAM (Random Access Memory) - Computer storage that can learn and change; volatile memory
razorgirl - A hired contract killer, especially one with body modifications
Remington - An American manufacturer of firearms and ammunition.
RCA - A major American electronics company, which was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America.
rider - Someone tuning into another person’s sensorium.
Rollo’s Dragon - A Frisco flamethrower like a fat anglehead flashlight once belonging to Rollo, Marlene’s ex-boyfriend
ROM (Read Only Memory) - Computer storage that can’t be changed and is fixed data. (ROM Constructs can’t form new memories or change their personality); Non-volatile memory
sanpaku - Literally means “three” 三 “white” 白. It is used to describe eyes positioned in such a way that the iris does not touch the bottom eyelid, showing how the sclera is all connected.
Sanyo - A Japanese electronics manufacturer founded in 1947 by Toshio Iue
sarariman - A “salaryman,” a Japanese salaried white-collar worker
SAS - Space Adaptation Syndrome. A kind of motion sickness experienced by those traveling into zero gravity conditions.
Screaming Fist - A historical military operation from a war that happened years before Neuromancer. America sent troops into a Russian base, knowing full-well that they wouldn’t make it out, just to test the new ICE breaker technology. Only one unit made it out. This was the first official use of a Cyberspace Jockey and an Icebreaker in the Sprawl universe.
Sense/Net - A consortium that contains corporate data library which files constructs of all important personalities; specializes in SimStim entertainment
Sensorium - A person’s sensory experience (visual, tactile, olfactory, etc.) broadcast with a SimStim deck
silicon - Cybernetic implants. Going “silicon” refers to undergoing biomodification.
SimStim deck - Stands for Simulation Stimulation; portable audio players that broadcast or record someone's sensoriums through a broadcast rig. The user is then able to access the sensorium from anywhere.
shockstave - Electric melee staff and weapon
shuriken - Japanese steel stars with knife-sharp points
Sons of Christ the King - An obscure sub sect of militant Christian fundamentalists that maintains a satellite in geosynchronous orbit above Manhattan. The scapegoat for the attack on Sense/Net.
Sprawl - Another name for BAMA, the word connotes more of the rapid techno-urban landscape which characterizes the book. Used a descriptor for a certain lifestyle/subculture within BAMA that centers on techno-drifts/hustling.
squid - Stands for Superconducting Quantum Inference Detectors, they are supersensitive detectors of magnetic fields
stash - A person storing sensitive data inside of his brain for high-powered, often criminal employers
Steppin’ Razor - A different (more empathetic) expression of the derogatory term, razorgirl. From Zionite mythology about a woman who brings “a scourge on Babylon […] on its darkest heart.”
street samurai - Classic sci-fi archetype of cool techno-anti-authoritarian fighters in dystopian landscapes
subliminals - Powerful holographic illusions conjured up by imagination through the use of implants; primarily employed by Peter Riviera in novel.
talking head - A computer terminal designed like an antique-looking bust, cloisonne over platinum, studded with seedpearls and lapis. An arrangement of gears and miniature organ pipe allows it to have a melodic human tone. It’s located in the silicon core of Villa Straylight and was once stolen by Jimmy.
Tank War Europa - An action arcade game based on the War
Telefunken - A German radio and television producer, founded in Berlin in 1903 as a joint venture between Siemens & Halske and the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft.
temperfoam - Mattress foam similar to memory foam that molds to the bodies of the user
tensor - Small high-voltage lamp
terr - Short for “terrorist”
Tessiar-Ashpool S.A. - A wealthy industrial clan family organization that has a corporate structure; An eccentric first-generation high orbit family that owns Freeside; A sort of incestual organism that had attained a kind of immortality in its corporation of power.
Texas catheter - A three piece catheter with a flexible sheath, typically made of latex, for extended hacking sessions (sighs)
Ting Ting Jahe (spelled Ting Ting Djahe) - A chewy ginger candy made in Indonesia; Julius Deane’s sweet of choice
triff - Short for “terrific”
tug - A type of spacecraft used to transfer spaceborne cargo from one orbit to another orbit with different energy characteristics
tunel - Provides public transportation in Istanbul. Terminals are suggested to be in Beyoglu, Fener and somewhere near the Spice Bazaar.
Türk Tuborg - A Turkey-based company engaged in the manufacture of beer, malt liquor and energy drinks.
Turing Registry / Turing Police - A force that regulates the augmentation of Artificial Intelligence and prevents their evolution and independence
Turing recognition code - The common names for A.I. (e.g: Neuromancer, Wintermute)
vac suit - A vacuum-sealed space suit
vat stuff / vat-grown - Refers to artificial vat-grown meat; pseudoflesh; Animals are scarce in Neuromancer’s world so food is often vat-grown. Beauty parlors also grow vat flesh for cosmetic purposes
velodrome - Arena for racing low-gravity bicycles with high-traction tires, get up over a hundred kilos an hour
War, the - A major war between the United States and Russia around twenty years before novel takes place. Lasted three weeks
Wintermute / Winter Mute - The recognition code for a Tessier-Ashpool Artificial Intelligence. Limited Swiss citizenship with its physical mainframe in Berne, Switzerland. Wintermute, however, is a seemingly separate entity than the physical AI in Berne. Lady 3Jane describes this as a “subprogram” of the Berne AI. He desires to merge with his sibling AI in Brazil and become a new, more powerful entity. He is good at profiling people’s personalities, improvisation, long-term strategy and working within algorithms and patterns
Wizard’s Castle - An arcade game in the Ninsei Arcade, played by Linda Lee when Case met her.
yakitori - A Japanese type of skewered chicken
Yakuza - Transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan
Yeheyuan - A cigarette brand Case smokes
zaibatsu - A large Japanese business conglomerate
zero-g - Short for zero gravity