Burning Chrome

“The mall runs forty kilometers from end to end, a ragged overlap of Fuller domes roofing what was once a suburban artery. If they turn off the arcs on a clear day, a gray approximation of sunlight filters through layers of acrylic, a view like the prison sketches of Giovanni Piranesi. The three southernmost kilometers roof Nighttown.”

“Johnny Mnemonic” gives readers a vivid sense of the landscape of the Sprawl, which is the story’s backdrop (as well as other stories, like “Burning Chrome”). The mention that a shopping area alone extends 40 kilometers provides a sense of the enormous scale of the Sprawl without directly stating how large it is. Likewise, details like the mention of the “approximation of sunlight” filtering through domes that cover the city suggest that the urban setting of “Johnny Mnemonic” is dark, dirty, and artificial. 

“Molly seemed to let something go, something inside, and that was the real start of her mad-dog dance. She jumped, twisting, lunging sideways, landing with both feet on an alloy engine block wired directly to one of the coil springs.” 

The passage describing the fight between Molly and the Yakuza assassin in the Lo Tek’s arena defines the fringe group’s setting among old machinery, garbage, and other cast-offs of culture. The heavy, metallic setting contrasts sharply with Molly’s swift and even elegant moves. While they are fittingly called “mad-dog,” given that she is in a fight for her life, they are also characterized as a “dance”—as something artistic. This contrasting word choice parallels the contradiction inherent in the cyborg razor-girl Molly, who is part human and part machine. 

“‘Think of it,’ Dialta Downes had said, ‘as a kind of alternate America: a 1980 that never happened. An architecture of broken dreams.’”

Dialta’s definition of Streamlined Moderne positions it as an imaginative parallel to the reality of the 1980s. The design style, with its close ties to science fiction, is characterized as “broken” because the sleek, efficient, optimistic world it imagined would be in place by the 1980s never came to fruition, at least at that point. From the vantage point of the lived rather than the imagined 1980s, Streamlined Moderne appears like a failed consideration of what might have been, not what will be. Science fiction is often used to imagine the future, but Gibson’s story is thus both a narrative and a critical reflection on the way earlier authors and designers imagined the future.

“All these contactee stories, for instance, are framed in a kind of sci-fi imagery that permeates our culture. I could buy aliens, but not aliens that look like Fifties’ comic art. They’re semiotic phantoms, bits of deep cultural imagery that have split off and taken on a life of their own.” 

Kihn notes the deep, almost subliminal impact that cultural iconography, particularly visions of the future, can have on culture. Kihn speaks from the vantage point of the 1980s, when the imagery of things like aliens, flying saucers, and death rays from the 1950s and other earlier decades already seemed hokey. At the same time, he acknowledges that they have a powerful symbolic meaning, or semiotic function, within culture: An image of a stereotypical rocket ship, for instance, draws up broad ideas of the future, progress, adventure, and related concepts. 

“The flashlight’s beam probes the bare shelves for evidence of love, finding a broken leather sandal strap, and ASP cassette, and a postcard. The postcard is a white light reflection hologram of a rose.” 

With a brief mention of three items, the story suggests the two forces that tug at Parker’s life. The broken strap and postcard are both tangible reminders of his love, Angela. The cassette represents his only way to connect with her, albeit virtually. The brokenness of the strap echoes the relationship’s end, while Parker himself will soon destroy the postcard, which depicts a common symbol for love, the rose.

“The first three quarters of the cassette have been erased; you punch yourself fast-forward through a static haze of wiped tape, where taste and scent blur into a single channel.” 

Parker is addicted to his ASP machine, compelled to replay hazy memories of Angela over and over. The cassette of his memories of her is almost destroyed, much like his machine itself. However, the power that nevertheless compels him to revisit the memories is suggested by the intoxicating way that vivid senses (taste and scent) meld with his memories through the use of the machine.

“‘Do you enjoy country-and-western music?’ Do you enjoy…? He groaned secretly at his phrasing, and tried to smile.” 

With just a few spare details, Gibson implies how socially awkward Corretti is. He struggles to strike up a conversation in a bar, even with a woman who shows interest in him. As a professional linguist, Corretti might be expected to be a master at turning a phrase, but he self-consciously realizes how stilted he sounds talking to Antoinette when he could have simply asked her if she liked country music. 

“They were the kind you see in bars who seem to have grown there, who seem genuinely at home there. Not drunks, but human fixtures. Functions of the bar. The belonging kind.”

By calling Antoinette and her male companion “fixtures” and “[f]unctions of the bar,” “The Belonging Kind” reduces them as characters. They seem somehow less than real people with fully formed lives, even if they are called “human” fixtures. Ironically, however, Corretti sees them as the ones who fit in, unlike himself, who struggles to belong anywhere. 

“He ached with jealousy: for the personification of conformity, this woman who was not a woman, this human wallpaper.”

When he singles out Antoinette as “human wallpaper,” the narrator intensifies the earlier comparison of her to a bar fixture. “The Belonging Kind” again uses the adjective “human” to describe Antoinette at the same time as it positions her as something other than human. Corretti may see her as the paradigm of belonging and conformity, but the shape-shifting, hypnotic Antoinette seems anything but natural and normal.

“Both sleeves were plastered from wrist to shoulder with embroidered patches, mostly corporate logos, subsidiary backers of an imaginary Highway expedition, with the main backer’s much larger trademark stitched across my shoulders.” 

The patches covering Halpert’s clothing are a glimpse into the economy and structure of society in the world of “Hinterlands.” Symbols of corporate control literally cover him, suggesting the power of megacorporations. The sheer number of patches indicates the complex economy, with many players involved in the space station network. While the expeditions are still nominally tied to nations, corporate powers are the real leaders. 

“We’re like intelligent houseflies wandering through an international airport; some of us actually manage to blunder onto flights to London or Rio, maybe even survive the trip and make it back. ‘Hey,’ say the other flies, ‘what’s happening on the other side of that door? What do they know that we don’t?’”

Halpert has not participated in the expeditions to explore the nature of the intelligence contacting humans. Nevertheless, he is skilled at observing what is happening as expedition after expedition is unsuccessful. Even if they were able to somehow make it, Halpert muses, they would be no closer to actually understanding what must be a vastly superior civilization. By comparing the expeditions to the undesired pests that are houseflies, Halpert emphasizes their insignificance. 

“Korolev started to tremble. He wiped his face and found it bathed in sweat. He took off the headphones. It had been fifty years, yet he was suddenly intensely afraid. He couldn’t remember ever having been this frightened.” 

As the first man to visit Mars, Korolev might have been a stereotypical space hero at some point. By the time of the present action of “Red Star, Winter Orbit,” however, he is an old man with no significant duties in the space station. When he is stricken by an attack of anxiety known as the Fear, it signifies his vulnerability—yet it also marks a moment of transformation, for soon afterward he finds a new opportunity for meaning by leading a rebellion. 

“In a split-second daguerreotype of raw sunlight, Korolev saw the gun room wrinkle and collapse like a beer can crushed under a boot; he saw the decapitated torso of a soldier spinning away from a console; he saw Yefremov try to speak, his hair streaming upright as vacuum tore the air in his suit out through his open helmet ring. Fine twin streams of blood arced from Korolev’s nostrils, the roar of escaping air replaced by a deeper roaring in his head.” 

In an intensely paced passage, Korolev sees the full violent potential inherent in the space station power struggles. The passage uses strong, detailed visual descriptions to express how time seems to stop in the horrifying moment. When the roaring moves from an external sound to one in his head, it signifies that he has returned to the present moment. As he loses the crew of both the space station and the rebellion, Korolev is left alone, and his life changes yet again.

“Fox was point man in the skull wars, a middleman for corporate crossovers. He was a soldier in the secret skirmishes of the zaibatsus, the multinational corporations that control entire economies.” 

Many of the stories in Burning Chrome utilize quick references to objects and concepts, often without defining them, to efficiently paint a vivid picture of future and alternate worlds. For example, the “skull wars” from “New Rose Hotel” are not defined, while the “zaibatsus” are. Taking these elements together, however, the passage is able to emphasize the power of megacorporations in the story’s world, and readers are able to grasp that the skull wars have something to do with the zaibatsus’ power struggles. 

“Imagine an alien, Fox once said, who’s come here to identify the planet’s dominant form of intelligence. The alien has a look, then chooses. What do you think he picks? […] The zaibatsus, Fox said, the multinationals. The blood of a zaibatsu is information, not people. The structure is independent of the individual lives that comprise it. Corporation as life form.” 

Fox’s thought experiment within Gibson’s science fiction ironically uses one of the genre’s stereotypical tropes, in which an alien civilization examines and/or contacts humanity. Fox imagines that the aliens would not ask to be taken to a leader in the form of a head of state. Instead, they would seek out megacorporations. Fox’s comment underscores the power of corporations in “New Rose Hotel,” which is so great that individuals themselves have become less important than the information they can supply. 

“I caught the cheekbones and the determined set of that mouth, but I also caught the black glint of polycarbon at her wrist, and the bright slick sore the exoskeleton had rubbed there.” 

Casey studies Lise the first time he sees her. He notes the human features of her face on one hand but also the features that characterize her as a cyborg. By focusing on the sore that Lise’s exoskeleton has caused her, he makes clear that the body modification is not simple or painless. Thus, the passage suggests that the exoskeleton is critically important to her identity. 

“There are still people naïve enough to assume that they’ll actually enjoy jacking straight across with someone they love.” 

Gibson uses terminology reminiscent of electronics, like jacking, to describe the interface between humans and technology, emphasizing how it changes them. In “The Winter Market,” as elsewhere in Burning Chrome, these changes come with inherent risks. Misusing technology, the story warns, can be dangerous, even in a future world inundated with it. 

“I knew, once and for all, that no human motive is ever entirely pure. Even Lise, with that corrosive, crazy drive to stardom and cybernetic immortality, had weaknesses. Was human in a way I hated myself for admitting.” 

Lise’s example, at least as filtered through Casey’s eyes, provides a cautionary tale about the intersection of humans and technology. She is magnetically powerful in a way that seems human yet is facilitated by her exoskeleton and the success she has in the virtual reality productions of Casey’s studio. Reflecting on her character, Casey realizes she is also flawed by injuries, drug use, and a desire for celebrity. Technology might seem to enable superhuman capabilities, but this is illusory, for Casey.

“He dreamed of flying, in a universe that consisted entirely of white clouds and blue sky, with no up and down, and never a green field to crash into.” 

This bright and highly visual passage encapsulates Deke’s desire for escape and freedom from the brainlock that holds him down to a meager existence. The passage characterizes him as dreaming, thus emphasizing the fact that he can only escape the reality of his conditions through imagination. When he encounters the virtual reality game Fokkers and Spads, the outlet it offers him powerfully captivates his desires. 

“But he had a creepy feeling…already knew. The way she clutched her head. The weakly spasmodic way her hands opened and closed. ‘You got a brainlock, too.’” 

“Dogfight” depicts the brainlocks that control both Deke and Nance as physically painful. When Deke sees the effects of Nance’s chastity brainlock after he touches her, he immediately knows what is going on, just as Nance recognized his. The shared experience of dealing with brainlocks helps forge the bond between Nance and Deke, one that is broken by the end of the story. 

“Tiny, he’s just naturally better’n you, and that’s all she wrote, boy. He lives for that goddamned game, ain’t got nothing else. Can’t get out of that goddamned chair. You think you can best a man who’s fighting for his life, you are just lying to yourself.” 

One of the observers of the Fokkers and Spads competitions expresses Tiny’s obsession with the game, one that mirrors Deke’s own. Yet the observer asserts that Tiny is inherently more invested in the game than Deke. As a disabled veteran, Tiny is physically unable to do much more than play the game from his chair. This puts Deke’s woes in perspective: While his life is far from perfect, he is able-bodied and capable, making his choice to take the hype drug and defeat Tiny seem deplorable. 

“Chrome: her pretty childface smooth as steel, with eyes that would have been at home on the bottom of some deep Atlantic trench, cold grey eyes that lived under terrible pressure. They said she cooked her own cancers for people who crossed her, rococo custom variations that took years to kill you. They said a lot of things about Chrome, none of them at all reassuring.” 

Jack describes Chrome using terms that emphasize her strange and inhuman character. While her face is pretty and childlike, it is also cold and metallic. The passage also makes clear that Chrome is a dangerous force, with extraordinary powers, including creating designer diseases. It subtly casts her as an almost mythical being, shrouded in mystery. 

“The juice makes you maudlin and the Vasopressin makes you remember, I mean really remember. Clinically they use the stuff to counter senile amnesia, but the street finds its own uses for things.” 

Drug use in various forms is depicted throughout Burning Chrome, from the heroin-addicted cyborg dolphin in “Johnny Mnemonic” to Deke’s and Nance’s use of hype in “Dogfight.” Jack from “Burning Chrome” casually comments on the rampant drug abuse in the Sprawl. At the same time, the passage is notable for noting that “the street finds its own use for things.” This phrase signifies the cyberpunks’ ability to find creative, albeit sometimes illegal, ways of navigating a harsh and controlling world.