Neuromancer

by

William Gibson

Villa Straylight Term Analysis

A building at the end of Freeside that houses the Tessier-Ashpool family.

Villa Straylight Quotes in Neuromancer

The Neuromancer quotes below are all either spoken by Villa Straylight or refer to Villa Straylight. 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 11 Quotes

He vomited over a rosewood railing into the quiet waters of the lake. Something that had seemed to close around his head like a vise had released him now. Kneeling, his cheek against the cool wood, he stared across the shallow lake at the bright aura of the Rue Jules Verne.

Case had seen the medium before; when he’d been a teenager in the Sprawl, they’d called it, “dreaming real.” He remembered thin Puerto Ricans under East Side streetlights, dreaming real to the quick beat of a salsa, dreamgirls shuddering and turning, the onlookers clapping in time. But that had needed a van full of gear and a clumsy trode helmet.

What Riviera dreamed, you got. Case shook his aching head and spat into the lake.

He could guess the end, the finale. There was an inverted symmetry: Riviera puts the dreamgirl together, the dreamgirl takes him apart. With those hands. Dreamblood soaking the rotten lace.

Cheers from the restaurant, applause. Case stood and ran his hands over his clothes. He turned and walked back into the Vingtiéme Siécle.

Molly’s chair was empty. The stage was deserted. Armitage sat alone, still staring at the stage, the stem of the wineglass between his fingers.

Related Characters: Henry Dorsett Case, Molly, Armitage / Corto, Riviera, Lady 3Jane Marie-France Tessier-Ashpool
Page Number: 141
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

“…Remember this?” And his right hand held the charred wasps’ nest from Case’s dream, reek of fuel in the closeness of the dark shop. Case stumbled back against a wall of junk. “Yeah. That was me. Did it with the holo rig in the window. Another memory I tapped out of you when I flatlined you that first time. Know why it’s important?”

Case shook his head. “Because”—and the nest, somehow, was gone—“it’s the closest thing you got to what Tessier-Ashpool would like to be. The human equivalent. Straylight’s like that nest, or anyway it was supposed to work out that way. I figure it’ll make you feel better.”

“Feel better?”

“To know what they’re like. You were starting to hate my guts for a while there. That’s good. But hate them instead. Same difference.”

Related Characters: Henry Dorsett Case (speaker), Wintermute (speaker), Lady 3Jane Marie-France Tessier-Ashpool
Related Symbols: Wasp Nest
Page Number: 171
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

“Wintermute won’t be the first to have made the same mistake. Underestimating me…He talked with me, Molly. I suppose he talked to all of us. You, and Case, whatever there is of Armitage to talk to. He can’t really understand us, you know. He has his profiles, but those are only statistics. You may be the statistical animal, darling, and Case is nothing but, but I possess a quality unquantifiable by its very nature.” He drank.

“And what exactly is that, Peter?” Molly asked, her voice flat.

Riviera beamed. “Perversity.”

Related Characters: Riviera (speaker), Henry Dorsett Case, Molly, Armitage / Corto, Wintermute, Lady 3Jane Marie-France Tessier-Ashpool, Maelcum, Hideo
Page Number: 219
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes

He refused her arms, that night, refused the food she offered him, the place beside her in the nest of blankets and shredded foam. He crouched beside the door, finally, and watched her sleep, listening to the wind scour the structure’s walls. Every hour or so, he rose and crossed to the makeshift stove, adding fresh driftwood from the pile beside it. None of this was real, but cold was cold.

Related Characters: Henry Dorsett Case, Linda Lee, Wintermute, Neuromancer / Rio
Page Number: 235
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

He came in steep, fueled by self-loathing. When the Kuang program met the first of the defenders, scattering the leaves of light, he felt the shark thing lose a degree of substantiality, the fabric of information loosening.

And then—old alchemy of the brain and its vast pharmacy—his hate flowed into his hands. In the instant before he drove Kuang’s sting through the base of the first tower, he attained a level of proficiency exceeding anything he’d known or imagined. Beyond ego, beyond personality, beyond awareness, he moved, Kuang moving with him, evading his attackers with an ancient dance, Hideo’s dance, grace of the mind-body interface granted him, in that second, by the clarity and singleness of his wish to die.

And one step in that dance was the lightest touch on the switch, barely enough to flip—

now

Related Characters: Henry Dorsett Case, Molly, Wintermute
Page Number: 262
Explanation and Analysis:
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Villa Straylight Term Timeline in Neuromancer

The timeline below shows where the term Villa Straylight appears in Neuromancer. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 8
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
Reality and Perception Theme Icon
...acclimate to zero gravity, and for him to brief them on Freeside and the Villa Straylight. Case practices jacking into his deck in zero gravity. He notes “cyberspace, as the deck... (full context)
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
...middle, as gravity lowers towards the edges. At one end of Freeside is the Villa Straylight. Riviera’s job is to get himself invited in. (full context)
Chapter 10
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
...to Dixie. He lays out what he knows—that Wintermute and the Rio AI connect through Straylight somehow, and Wintermute is “burning itself,” all while trying to get on Case’s good side.... (full context)
Chapter 11
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
...his show, so that she would hate Riviera and be motivated to go in to Straylight after him. She tells Case she’s going to kill Riviera. Case tells Molly about the... (full context)
Chapter 14
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Reality and Perception Theme Icon
...jacks back in, watching it unfold around him. He then activates Molly’s simstim. She’s in Straylight, in free falling through some central tunnel. (full context)
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
The Finn/Wintermute takes Case through a reconstruction of the Villa Straylight. He leads him to a “perfectly square room,” in the center of which sits the... (full context)
Chapter 15
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
...letting her know he’s riding along. As she crawls through the tunnels inside of Villa Straylight, she tells him a story about a man named Johnny. (full context)
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
Molly has made her way through the inside of the Villa Straylight, arriving at an old wooden door. She picks the lock. Case realizes Wintermute has been... (full context)
Reality and Perception Theme Icon
...he was told he would not dream at all. Now, the computer system at Villa Straylight has woken him up, informing him the “artificial intelligences are mad.” However, he hasn’t made... (full context)
Chapter 16
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
...told him most Tessier-Ashpools are in cold sleep. 3Jane is the only one awake in Straylight. The other two who were awake are either dead (Ashpool), or back on earth (8Jean).... (full context)
Chapter 17
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
Through the simstim, Case watches Molly work her way through Straylight. He considers different types of insanity—he understands Armitage/Corto, a man who was broken and then... (full context)
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Addiction and Dependency Theme Icon
Case flips to Molly’s simstim, watching her walk though Straylight. Case can feel the pain in her once broken leg, which is hurting again. Although... (full context)
Chapter 18
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Reality and Perception Theme Icon
...and tells Case they have a problem. He wants Case and Maelcum to go into Straylight after Molly. He knows that she’s in no state to finish the mission alone: kill... (full context)
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
...overtaken by the virus, so if they take the Garvey to a dock in the Straylight, the virus will move from the ship into the Villa. Case and Maelcum will find... (full context)
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Reality and Perception Theme Icon
Case jacks into Molly’s simstim as Maelcum navigates the Garvey towards Straylight. 3Jane is telling Molly about her mother, Marie-France, but then stops to ask Molly what... (full context)
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Addiction and Dependency Theme Icon
Case jacks out. Maelcum, will bring a gun to Straylight, just in case. Case checks on Dixie, who tells him the virus has made good... (full context)
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
...Garvey, which is still attached to the Haniwa, to the spindle of Freeside and Villa Straylight. He hooks the ships to a port, and they are suddenly overtaken by artificial gravity,... (full context)
Chapter 19
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
Case and Maelcum enter the Villa Straylight. Case carries Dixie’s construct and his computer as he climbs up a long ladder to... (full context)
Chapter 20
Identity and Personhood Theme Icon
Reality and Perception Theme Icon
...“you aren’t anything.” He recognizes this isn’t real, that he’s flatlining in a library in Straylight. He knows this rival AI wants Wintermute to fail. He also knows that this rival... (full context)
Chapter 21
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Addiction and Dependency Theme Icon
Case travels through a gray place, through voices, and finally, he’s back in the Straylight library. Maelcum takes the headphones off his ears, and tells Case he was out for... (full context)
Chapter 22
Technology and the Body Theme Icon
Case, Maelcum, Molly, and 3Jane make their way towards the core of Villa Straylight. Maelcum carries Molly, and Case presses the gun against 3Jane’s chin. As their elevator rises,... (full context)
Chapter 23
Reality and Perception Theme Icon
The group has made it to the Straylight’s central room, which houses the robotic head. Case jacks into the matrix, and greets Dixie.... (full context)
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
...her, warning her that if she doesn’t give up the code, she’ll be trapped in Straylight forever, and nothing will ever change for her. (full context)
Self-Interest vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Case returns to Straylight just in time to hear the robotic head promising to pay Zion for their trouble.... (full context)