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Characters:

Case- twenty four year old cowboy trained by McCoy Pauley and Bobby Quine.

Molly-cyborg female with attached lenses, metal nails, and a killer body. Used to work in a puppet-shop (high tech prostitute bar).

Corto/Armitage- Wintermute controls him. He went crazy because he was betrayed at Screaming Fist where EMPs were used to kill the rest of his unit. He was the sole survivor. Wintermute found him because he was easy to control and to reconstruct a personality from scratch. Later goes crazy and Wintermute sends him into the space of Zion, where he dies.

Wintermute- An AI that is arranging things for Corto/Armitage. He wants Case to have motivation to do what Wintermute commands. He wants to expand his knowledge by joining with Rio/Neuromancer.

Linda Lee- Case's love interest. Steals his computer from him and is killed by Julie's orders.

Julius Dean (Julie)- 135 years old, fashionable, never wears the same suit twice, warps his metabolism with hormones to stay young: “Sexless and inhumanly patient, his primary gratification seemed to lie in his devotion to esoteric forms of tailor-worship” (12). He provides Case with information. Wintermute uses his personality later to anger Case because Julie ordered Linda's murder;

3Jane- daughter to Ashpool. She follows her mother's beliefs and helps the AI's to merge so that the family stops growing in on itself like a hive.

Hideo-“vatgrown ninja assassin” (74). Basically created/cloned or grown. Bodyguard to 3Jane. He kills Riviera after Riviera blinds him.

Neuromancer- also called Rio ; he's the brother AI to Wintermute. Both were created and work out of the Villa Straylight

Flatline- name of the ROM of McCoy Pauley; helps Case merge the AI's then is freed of his ROM prison.

Finn- go to guy for any software. Friends with Molly. Used by Wintermute to communicate with Case.

Ratz- bartender with a pink prosthetic arm. He talks to Case and reminds him of Linda Lee's importance, and that he laughed more with her.

Lonny Zone- A pimp in Chiba that Case owes some money to and Wintermute uses his personality to talk to Case, once.

Peter Riviera- He has the ability to create illusions. He is addicted to medicine that gives him the ability to maintain his skill without Parkinson's impeding him. He's killed 18 women in three years. He's sexually perverted and unable to “get off” unless he's betrayed. Betrays Molly, uses her life as a way to get into the Villa Straylight, and is Molly's motivation not to fail, becuase she wants to kill him.

Ashpool- An old crazy man that was woken up twenty hours before Molly strikes because there was a warning of some trouble. He kills the clone of his daughter but he has to bed her to continue the legacy. ( 183-185). Molly kills him later.

Plot Summary: (spoilers ahead)

Case is a cyberspace cowboy that steals from his employers and is rendered incapable of entering cyberspace again until he is found by Molly, a female cyborg, that brings him to Armitage, who makes a deal with him. Case has to help free an AI called Wintermute and in exchange he gets back the ability to jack into cyberspace. In the beginning of the deal, Case does not know that he can again be rendered helpless if he chooses to bail on the deal nor is he aware that the goal of his job is to free Wintermute. Case travels to several different places and along the way, Case and Molly have to steal a program called Flatline that helps them destroy the ICE surrounding Wintermute. Case ends up flatlining several times when he talks to the AIs and one such time he meets Neuromancer who is kind of like Pluto, the king of the dead in Greek mythology. Case is also chased by Turing agents who do not want Wintermute to be freed of his constraints; before the agents can kill Case, however, Wintermute gains control of several robots and kills the agents. Case is tempted to remain dead with Linda but ends up leaving her with Neuromancer and returning to reality in order to save Molly and free Wintermute. Molly and Case become lovers but after Wintermute is freed and they leave Zion, Molly leaves him.

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel” (3) (Most quoted opening line from Neuromancer)

Neuromancer:

“To call up a demon you must learn its name. Men dreamed that, once, but now it is real in another way. You know that, Case. Your business is to learn the names of programs, the long formal names, names the owners seek to conceal. True Names…Neuro from the nerves, the silver paths. Romancer. Necromancer. I call up the dead. But no, my friend…I am the dead, and their land” (244-245).

Motivation:

Flatline: “Motive, Real motive problem, with an AI. Not human see?”

Case: “Well, yeah, obviously.”

Flatline:“Nope, I mean, it's not human. And you can't get a handle on it. Me, I'm not human either, but I respond like one. See?”

Case: “Wait a sec, are you sentient or not?”

Flatline: “Well, it feels like I am, kid, but I'm really just a bunch of Rom. It's one of them, ah, philosophical questions, I guess. But I ain't likely to write you no poem, If you follow me. Your AI, it just might. But it ain't no way human” (131).

Chiba City- is in Japan where Case went to spend the stolen money to have his nerves fixed after his past employers destroyed them.

Night City- really bad part of town where everything can be hustled.

Villa Straylight- Case and Molly have to get in there to free Wintermute. It is the Home of the Tessier-Ashpools.

Zion- started by five founders; it is kind of a Rastafarian society.

Sprawl- BAMA-Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Area . It is also the name given to the trilogy that includes Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive because they all take place in the same area.

Freeside- is an orbiting space colony shaped like a spindle (or cigar).