Neuromancer Terms and Definitions

[Mostly spoiler free, however some things are mentioned out of context.]

Neuromancer can be a bit of a shock to new readers, the amount of words it suddenly throws at you without any explanation whatsoever or enough context to work out what they mean. This is a little of William Gibson’s style, but this is also due to the fact that he wrote three short stories set earlier in the timeline that had already defined some of the terms (Johnny Mnemonic, Burning Chrome, and New Rose Hotel).

If you’d rather just get into Neuromancer or finished the short stories and still don’t understand some of the vocabulary, here’s a list of everything I can think of that’s relative to Neuromancer. There may be some terms from the later books in the Sprawl Trilogy as well, but it never hurts to know those too.

(Some of these terms may be inaccurate since we all picture something different in all of our heads, so let me know if you find anything.)

Arcology / Geodesic / Fuller Dome: HUMUNGOUS geodesic domes in the middle of cities that contain small societies and ecosystems that are entirely self-sufficient and can survive without any interaction with the outside world (they grow their own food, generate their own power, and produces their own water). Think of them like apartment buildings the size of a small city. They’re raised above the ground by short stalks, meaning that around their edges the streets travel beneath them and characters walk under them sometimes. Most are owned by companies, but some are implied to be government-supplied facilities. (Some arcologies aren’t in the shapes of domes or within cities, but they don’t appear in Neuromancer)

Cyberspace / The Matrix: 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.

“Jack in” / “Hit the deck”: Plugging yourself into the Matrix. Some do it through plugs installed in their heads, but others can do it with headsets.

Dermatrodes / Trodes: Cyberspace headsets that strap around the head and allow the user to connect their brain to cyberspace.

Derms: A futuristic pad that allows characters to inject themselves with medical drugs easily. They put them on like bandaids and the drugs will enter through their pores. Typically used for painkillers.

ICE: “Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics”, sometimes referred to simply as “ice” (lowercase), is the name for security systems and firewalls in cyberspace.

Black Ice: ICE that can kill or hurt someone who is jacked into the Matrix.

Icebreakers: Advanced programs that can be used to break through ICE security. (An example of one is the Kuang Grade Mark Eleven)

Console Cowboy / Cyberspace Jockey: A professional cyberspace hacker. They can navigate cyberspace like it’s second nature and are skilled at handling and/or writing “Icebreaker” programs.

Joeboy: Either a Console Cowboy assistant or simply “hired muscle”.

Flatline: To lose all brain activity. “Dying”, but some characters can come back by having their consciousness reinserted through dermatrodes. Usually used when referring to someone who is killed by Black Ice.

Coffin: A rented room that’s roughly three meters long and just over a meter tall. They usually include one bed, a refrigerator, and a phone.

Mycotoxin: A poison derived from mushrooms that’s used to damage nervous systems and cripple people from entering cyberspace.

Black Medicine / Black Clinics: Illegal body modifications and clinics that usually specialize in biotech and cybernetic implants and generally editing the human body.

Chiba City: A Japanese City outside Tokyo, known for its many clinics, biotech, and wetware. Also home to the world’s best black clinics.

Night City / Ninsei: A high-crime district of Chiba City where drugs, criminal activity, organ harvesting, and prostitution are the norm.

The Chat / The Chatsubo: A bar in Ninsei.

Cobra: A spring-loaded billy club designed to look like a cobra.

Fletcher: A futuristic gun that can shoot multiple types of ammo, lethal and non-lethal.

The Sprawl / BAMA: The “Boston Atlanta Metropolitan Axis” is a massive city that extends from Georgia all the way up to Massachusetts on the American East coast. The most populated area is Manhattan, ‘New York City’.

Octagon: A heavy drug, each pill in the shape of a pink octagon.

Dex: Stimulant drugs.

Construct: Digitized reading of someone’s personality.

RAM: Random Access Memory. Computer storage that can learn and change.

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)

Microsoft: A computer chip that plugs into the brain.

Deck / Computer: In Neuromancer, computers look like 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.

Hitachi: A computer brand.

Hosaka (computer): An expensive computer brand.

Ono-Sendai: A computer plugin that allows connection to cyberspace (usually for Hosaka computers, like the Hosaka Ono-Sendai 7)

Sensorium: Everything someone can see, feel, hear, taste, and smell.

SimStim: Simulation Stimulation. A pack that connects into the brain and allows other people to enter the user’s sensorium by logging into it through cyberspace. (Connecting to it is usually referred to as “flipping”)

Precís: A research summary that’s generated by a computer.

Zaibatsu: Humongous multinational corporations that have about as much, if not more, power than a nation.

Hosaka: The largest Zaibatsu.

MAAS: A rival Zaibatsu to Hosaka.

Sense/Net: A Zaibatsu that specializes in SimStim entertainment and construct archives.

Teshier-Ashpool S.A. / TA: An ultra wealthy family company that’s comparable to a Zaibatsu with their power.

Freeside: A massive space station the size of a city, constructed by the Tessier-Ashpool family. It looks like a large metal cigarette from the outside, and the inside looks like a city that’s been rolled up in a tube.

Villa Straylight: A massive building at the very end of Freeside, like a futuristic mansion that houses the Tessier-Ashpool family.

Razorgirl / Steppin’ Razor: What Molly is. A female cybernetic street samurai.

Turing Police: Specialized police that monitor AI and make sure they don’t go rogue. They usually go undercover through extensive body modification to look like other people.

Fence: The middle-man in illegal exchanges and trafficking.

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.

“Silicone”: Refers to computer stuff. When someone “has silicone”, they have cybernetic implants.

Betaphenethylamine: An extremely powerful stimulant drug.

Yeheyuan: A cigarette brand.

Braun: A German electronics company. Later in the story, characters simply use Braun to refer to a small drone made by the company that looks like a metal daddy-long-legs with a glowing red eye.

Zion: A bundled together group of small space stations created by a group of heavily religious Rastafarian construction workers who defected from their jobs. Inhabitants are called Zionites.

Dub: An electronic genre of music listened to by Zionites.

Jah: Zionite word for God.

“Babylon”: The Zionite word referring to “common-folk”. Every-day society.

EEG: Electroencephalogram. Measurement of brain activity.

Cut Out Chip: A brain implant that can turn off a person’s consciousness temporarily. They’ll still be awake and responsive, but all their personality will be deactivated and they won’t form any memories.

Doll: A prostitute with a Cut Out Chip. They rent their bodies out for a couple of hours, but don’t have any memories of participating in sex.

SAS: Space Adaptive Syndrome. A sickness someone feels when their body tries to adapt to space.

Blue Nine / Grievous Angel: An outlawed drug that induces paranoia and homicidal psychosis.

Mimetic Polycarbon Suits: Skin-tight suits that mimic their surroundings, rendering the wearer almost invisible. Can be configured to show custom patterns as well.

Panther Moderns: A punk group of professional hackers with unpredictable behavior. They all sport heavy body modifications, cybernetic and biotech, that leaves them looking barely human, and they wear Mimetic Polycarbon Suits.

Micropore: A tape substance that’s almost like synthetic skin. Like a futuristic band-aid.

Temperfoam: A cheap foam used for bedding.

Biochip: A computer chip that runs on biological processes that can be easily merged with and implemented inside the human brain. (Biochip technology can allow for humans to connect with other computers by only using their mind)

Slamhound: A dog-like assassin robot. It walks on four legs and sniffs out the pheromones of its programmed target to locate them. Once it has, it runs up to them and detonates, exploding the target along with itself.

(I’ll be editing every time I think of something or notice something is wrong)