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Structure
Interesting Questions, Facts and Information
- There are a total of 35 general entries. We are selecting 30 for display.
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 Interesting Questions, Facts, and Information
 Gibson, William SF author
| In William Gibson's classic cyberpunk novel "Neuromancer", what kind of cyberspace deck does Case use to jack into the matrix? | William Gibson Novels
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Ono-Sendai Cyberspace 7. Great name for a computer!
IntenSecure. Gunhead is the name of the car that Rydell drives.
Mona Lisa Overdrive. "The Weapon Makers" is a book by A.E. Van Vogt, a fantastic Sci-fi writer from the 40's and 50's.
Colin Laney. Colin Laney returns in "All Tomorrow's Parties". Sublett and Warbaby are both characters from "Virtual Light". Louis Wu is the main character from Larry Niven's "Ringworld".
Scooter. Skinner refers to Yamazaki as 'Scooter' a number of times, throughout the book.
Tokyo. Except for Chia pet McKenzie starting off in Seattle the whole book is set in Tokyo and cyberspace.
Bobby Newmark. Bobby Newmark is, along with Case and Maelcum, one of the coolest fictional characters ever invented. He makes a brief return in "Mona Lisa Overdrive".
| "Neuromancer" again. What is the name of the shuttle piloting Rasta, who helps Case infiltrate the Villa Straylight? | William Gibson Novels
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Maelcum. Yet another one of Gibson's brilliant characters.
| What is the name of the ship in which Case travels to the Villa Straylight, for the final confrontation with Lady 3Jane? | William Gibson Novels
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Marcus Garvey. Marcus Garvey is Maelcum's shuttle. Marcus Garvey was a real life influential black leader and poet.
Rei-Toei. Rei-Toei is the software agent that Rez wants to marry.
Smoke. A popular nickname for London is 'The big smoke'.
Bobby Newmark. Bobby Newmark Aka 'Count Zero' takes his name from a computer error called a 'count zero interrupt'
| At the start of "All Tomorrow's Parties", in what city is Yamazaki looking for Laney? | William Gibson Novels
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Tokyo. But Laney has taken a turn for the worse after suffering the side effects of drugs he was given when he was in an orphanage.
The Factory. The factory is located near the sprawl, in an area called the rustbelt. A wasteland full of broken machines and toxic waste.
Buell Creedmore. Creedmore is an alchoholic country singer, introduced to Rydell by Durius Walker. Chevette and Praisegod are also characters from this book.
McCoy Pauley and Bobby Quine. Case was trained by McCoy Pauley and Bobby Quine who were two of the best cowboys in the biz. All the others are also characters from "Neuromancer".
| To warm up, what is the name of the tragicomical 'country music' blonde in 'Idoru' and 'All Tomorrow’s Parties'? | William Gibson Books
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Maryalice. She seems to have gone down in the world further in 'All Tomorrow's Parties', from criminal to wrecked part-time PR girl for unknown country musician Buell Creedmore.
| What is the colour of the cough medicine Colin Laney develops an addiction to in 'All Tomorrow's Parties'? | William Gibson Books
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blue. This is a 'trivia' question indeed. :)
Legba. From 'Count Zero'. The loa are the gods of Vodou or Voodoo. Voodooists believe the loa can possess certain specially trained humans and act through them. (By the way, an houngan is not a loa, but a Voodoo priest.) In the latter two books of the Neuromancer trilogy, a split has occurred in the universal self-consciousness of Cyberspace (a conciousness that arose through the mingling of the AIs Wintermute and Neuromancer in the first novel), the scattered pieces of artificial conciousness desperately searching for suitable identities in the store of available archetypes and finding the Voodoo gods best suited to their needs and tastes. Which brings us to the next question:
| What caused the splitting of self-aware Cyberspace into multiple personae? (Tip: It’s mentioned at the end of 'Neuromancer' and again at the end of 'Mona Lisa Overdrive'.) | William Gibson Books
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contact with another huge self-concious AI from Alpha Centauri. The nature of this contact is not specified in the books, nor is there an explanation why such a contact should cause the Terran Cyberspace persona to split. We have to accept it at face value that such a split occurred and are left to ponder if in Gibson’s view aliens are generally male-volent, even the artificial ones.
| What is the name of the young boy that guards Chevette's and Tessa's van at the Bay Bridge for a little 'shit money'? | William Gibson Books
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Boomzilla. From 'All Tomorrow's Parties'.
$5. In 'Virtual Light', Chevette buys three eggs from the 'egg lady', an old woman that sells them out of a basket. The dollar in the future of 'Virtual Light' seems to have been devaluated somewhat. :)
| In 'Count Zero', mercenary Turner has a brief affair with his brother's girlfriend. True or false? | William Gibson Books
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t. They spend the night together after an evening on the veranda while Turner's brother is elsewhere on the premises.
| In her flight from Swain's estate through winter London, Kumiko briefly warms up in a noodle seller's stall. The noodle seller is kind to her, and probably he is also an agent of her father's, placed there to protect her. What is his nationality? | William Gibson Books
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Korean. From 'Mona Lisa Overdrive' where almost all the characters that count are female – and very well outlined characters at that. Kumiko is a clever, courageous child and you cannot help but feel sympathy for her. Angie is a clever, courageous young woman. Her lookalike Mona is less clever and not especially courageous, but an equally well drawn character who inspires sympathy because she is so absolutely helpless and dumb in a harsh world. :) Even the mature Sally = Molly from 'Neuromancer', although an absolute bitch and a killer, shows some sympathetic traits in her mother-daughter-like relation with Kumiko; and of course, she is also clever and courageous. Even the major villain (and a convincingly evil one), the personality-construct of 3Jane Tessier-Ashpool, is female. Together with some strong minor male roles, 'Mona Lisa Overdrive' has an assortment of well laid-out characters that makes the book one of my favourites among Gibson's works.
| When recovering from the attack on his life in Delhi, Turner's mind lives in a 'simstim' simulation of a New England boyhood from the previous century for three months while his body heals. Which author does this 'boy simulation' like to read? | William Gibson Books
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Arthur Conan Doyle. From 'Count Zero'. 'Simstim' or 'stim' is the future's equivalent to TV and cinema: direct sensorial input, like in the movie 'The Matrix', albeit done less intrusively: you just have to wear a cap with wires on your head. Actually, if you made it this far, this is probably irrelevant information to you. :)
| In an article for the magazine 'Wired', Gibson describes a journey to Singapore. What does he find to be exceedingly rare there? | William Gibson Books
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dissidents. The article, called 'Disneyland with the Death Penalty', appeared 1993 in 'Wired' 1.04. It can be read here: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.04/gibson.html . Gibson seems little thrilled about Singapore. Actually, the only thing that met with his unlimited approval there was the food.
mechanical watches. He got bitten by the e-bay bug when he finally had internet access. An article of his about this appeared in 'Wired' 7.01: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.01/ebay.html . E-mail addresses is the last thing he would collect, I believe. Now he has a computer, he does have one, but it's top secret, of course.
extorting information and money from other criminals. From 'Idoru'. In Australian folklore, such a man is supposedly called a 'stand-over man' be-cause he 'stands over' his victims when torturing them, at least according to the explanation that one of the characters gives in the book. However, when I asked an Australian about it that I know from elsewhere in the net, this term was unfamiliar to him. Any Australians there to help me out on this?
| In which organisation/company did Colin Laney undergo testing of his phenomenal ability to search Cyberspace instinctively for complex information? | William Gibson Books
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DatAmerica. From 'Idoru'. His ability was a long-term effect of an experimental drug he took as a child during a medical experiment in the orphanage where he was living.
| Which future European country does Maria Paz, ex-girlfriend of notorious Public Relations specialist Cody Harwood of Harwood/Levine, come from? | William Gibson Books
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Padania. Mention of this can be found in 'Virtual Light' (where she still is his girlfriend, although fed up with and scared of him) and in 'All Tomorrow’s Parties'.
'Padania' means northern Italy, north of the river Po (Padus in Latin). It would include such famous cities as Milan, Venice, Torino and Genua. There actually is a right-wing movement, called the 'Lega Nord', that aims to separate the prosperous north of Italy from the less prosperous south and call the new country 'Padania', so in the future of 'Virtual Light' they must have succeeded.
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