Chiba City Blues

In this first part of his novel, William Gibson unveils a new reality to us. Society has now become just a mess of big urban cityscapes and underground software and genetics smuggling. This new type of city is very similar to the setting of "Blade Runner". This story is set in Japan so it is a foreign setting as it were, but this new implication of the technology makes it confusing.

Another very interesting part of this setting that is odd to the ordinary reader is the hotel. Case goes to a hotel and instead of renting a room, he rents a coffin. We do not usually think of coffins as acceptable places to sleep. Usually we associate coffins with death. This is fitting for this new age society because there seems to be a lack of morals and normality, with all of its prostitution and smuggling.

Then there are the bars and arcades which Case frequents. These remind me of the bars in the "Star Wars Episode 1". With all of their holograms and drugs. These bars symbolize how society has degenerated into this type of atmosphere with all the promiscuity and bad things happening. Gibson describes these places as dark and a little sketchy. It seems that Gibson himself does not approve of these places, but explains that society has degenerated into this type of surrounding.

Then there is cyberspace to deal with. To me, cyberspace is kind of like the "matrix", yet it is nearly the same as "real" society except that in the matrix, there are more technological advances.