Neuromancer

by

William Gibson

A Japanese city outside of Tokyo. Known for its many surgical clinics, both black market and legitimate.

Chiba Quotes in Neuromancer

The Neuromancer quotes below are all either spoken by Chiba or refer to Chiba. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

A year here and he still dreamed of cyberspace, hope fading nightly. All the speed he took, all the turns he’d taken and the corners he’d cut in Night City, and still he’d see the matrix in his sleep, bright lattices of logic unfolding across that colorless void….The Sprawl was a long strange way home over the Pacific now, and he was no console man, no cyberspace cowboy. Just another hustler, trying to make it through. But the dreams came on in the Japanese night like livewire voodoo, and he’d cry for it, cry in his sleep, and wake alone in the dark, curled in his capsule in some coffin hotel, his hands clawed into the bedslab, temperfoam bunched between his fingers, trying to reach the console that wasn’t there.

Related Characters: Henry Dorsett Case, Armitage / Corto
Page Number: 4-5
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

He bought a mug of Carlsberg and found a place against the wall. Closing his eyes, he felt for the knot of rage, the pure small coal of his anger. It was there still. Where had it come from? He remembered feeling only a kind of bafflement at his maiming in Memphis, nothing at all when he’d killed to defend his dealing interests in Night City, and a slack sickness and loathing after Linda’s death under the inflated dome. But no anger. Small and far away, on the mind’s screen, a semblance of Deane struck a semblance of an office wall in an explosion of brains and blood. He knew then: the rage had come in the arcade, when Wintermute rescinded the simstim ghost of Linda Lee, yanking away the simple animal promise of food, warmth, a place to sleep. But he hadn’t become aware of it until his exchange with the holo-construct of Lonny Zone.

It was a strange thing. He couldn’t take its measure.

“Numb,” he said. He’d been numb a long time, years. All his nights down Ninsei, his nights with Linda, numb in bed and numb at the cold sweating center of every drug deal. But now he’d found this warm thing, this chip of murder. Meat, some part of him said. It’s the meat talking, ignore it.

Related Characters: Henry Dorsett Case (speaker), Julius “Julie” Deane (speaker), Linda Lee, Molly, Lonny Zone
Page Number: 152
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Neuromancer LitChart as a printable PDF.
Neuromancer PDF

Chiba Term Timeline in Neuromancer

The timeline below shows where the term Chiba appears in Neuromancer. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
Case sits in the Chatsubo, a bar in Chiba, Japan, that primarily caters to expats. The bartender, Ratz, wonders if he has business with... (full context)
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
...claim that the “Chinese bloody invented nerve-splicing” and can easily fix anyone up. Japan, and Chiba specifically, have cutting edge black market clinics, but Case bitterly remarks that this claim is... (full context)
Addiction and Dependency Theme Icon
Reality and Perception Theme Icon
Case has been to every neurosurgery clinic in Chiba, and knows first-hand that they cannot repair his particular nerve damage. He used to be... (full context)
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Addiction and Dependency Theme Icon
After his firing and mutilation, Case moved to Japan, hoping to find a cure in Chiba, but his money ran out without finding a cure. Hopeless, he now works as a... (full context)
Chapter 2
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Addiction and Dependency Theme Icon
Molly has taken Case to a room in the Chiba Hilton Hotel. She suggests he drink a cup of coffee, and he obliges. When Armitage,... (full context)
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Addiction and Dependency Theme Icon
The next day, Sunday, Molly takes Case to a clinic in Chiba. He has decided to work with Armitage in exchange for reconstructive surgery. As they wait... (full context)
Chapter 3
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Addiction and Dependency Theme Icon
...Armitage explains that Case needs Armigatge now as much as when Armitage found Case in Chiba. (full context)
Addiction and Dependency Theme Icon
...the deck in his lap he sees the shuriken in the shop window back in Chiba, and looks up to see the gifted shuriken on the wall. He closes his eyes... (full context)
Chapter 7
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
Addiction and Dependency Theme Icon
...hotel lobby, waiting to leave, Case examines Riviera. His face is beautiful, and Case suspects Chiba surgeons sculpted it. He resentfully wonders if Riviera is high at this very moment. Case... (full context)
Chapter 11
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
Reality and Perception Theme Icon
...switched her to “specialty markets.” She only found out when, after an extensive surgery in Chiba, her surgeons knocked her cut-out chip loose and she woke up in the middle of... (full context)
Chapter 13
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
...they know the name Wintermute, and that the AI’s first mistake was repairing Case in Chiba, and exchanging technology for the surgery—the clinic applied for multiple patents, drawing attention. (full context)
Chapter 20
Reality and Perception Theme Icon
...conjures an image of Ratz in his mind, who speaks to him, joking that in Chiba, he had destruction in his grasp, but instead he’s traveled for thousands of miles just... (full context)
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
...meeting Molly. She apologizes for stealing his RAM. She explains her last memory was in Chiba, and then suddenly she was on this beach. (full context)
Chapter 23
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Reality and Perception Theme Icon
...code—three notes of song.” Back in the matrix, for a second, Case is back in Chiba, he feels Linda’s hand against his back, but it fades away. (full context)