At first, I was really excited to read Neuromancer. It's won all kinds of awards, everyone in the class seemed pretty excited about it, and I had even heard of it! Unfortunately, I think I missed something. But, more importantly to the themes of the class, I did think that its views on race were interesting. One of the things that I found most unusual was the fact that Neuromancer didn't seem to fall into either of the two race categories that we talked about in class (ideal UN world or displacement onto species). In fact, the racial tensions in the book seemed similar to those of our world. I did find it interesting that Gibson constantly describes things in terms of race. For only a few examples: it's not just a virus, but a "Chinese virus" (168), and "The Finn" is only referred to by his nationality. I'm not sure if this reveals any sort of obsession with race, but it kept catching my attention throughout the novel.
Obviously, if we're talking about race, the Zionists are a pretty blatant stereotype--I mean, come on, stoner rastas? Other than that, though, I found it interesting that Gibson chose to make Asia so advanced (Japan has the best surgeons, while China has the best programming skills). Did anyone else notice this? (or anything else in this long, rambling post)? :)