I remember when PR first came out, some reviewers commented on how Cayce's name seemed a lot like Neuromancer's protagonist's name, Case. Some sort of vaguely wondered how these two books were related, but didn't really say anything important (iirc).

I just re-read both books back-to-back, and I was struck by some similarities and parallels between them, most notably the fact that both the Finn and Hobbs Baranov tell Case/Cayce to "Observe the protocol."

I was wondering if anyone else noticed any similarities/parallels between the two, and, if so, how that affected their reading of the books?

It's been mentioned elsewhere that there are parallels between Cayce and Marly (Count Zero). PR is pretty explicit in that Cayce pronounces her name "Case" though it was supposed to be pronounced "Casey" (like Voytek pronounces it).

I wonder though. I don't really see the similarities on a plot level (PR is a "search" novel rather than a "heist" novel, as Neuromancer is), but lots of the common problematics are there: making sense of information, the relationship between mind and body, how do we keep ourselves from being complicit in the capitalist economy of commodification and co-optation, and so on and on.

Welcome to the board!

Just finished the book, and have been chewing over the parallels for a couple days now. This is a quick list; it's late but i'm still jazzed from the book.

1)Cayce/William Gibson
Cayce is, i think, WG in drag. I don't mean that in a bad way, i mean, look at how they both consume culture, technology and fashion. I'd never heard of a Curta calculator before three days ago, now i've seen pictures. Ditto Jaeger LeCoultre wristwatches. WG is writing about his own "allergy" to product branding, amping it up for dramatic effect. OK, this is really a comment about WG, rather than a comparison of PR and N, but i'm tired, cut me some slack. But think about it, Neuromancer is shot through with that logo awareness as well. On the one hand, it makes the scenes more "real". On the other, hand, WG is revealing his own fascination for product logos. In Cayce, he may be writing about himself more blatantly than ever before.
2) Obviously, the bit at the end where it becomes apparent that Cayce has lost her allergy as a result of being drugged, this is a mirror to Case being chemically maimed in Neuromancer.
3)strong female character. OK, a boring point, but true nevertheless.
4) Case and Cayce are highly specialized creatures, able to process information in unique ways.
5)boring point #2: a fascination for things Japanese
6)Case/Cayce are both victims of tragic loss. While their tragedies are somewhat different, there is a dullness about them, a lifelessness resulting from their sufferings.
7) The Finn/Hobbs His fascination for this character type interests me.

Eh, that's all i have right now. Basically, i agree, the two books share many similarities. As i was reading, i was contemplating the notion that PR is almost a mainstream re-write of Neuromancer, they share so many little details.

later,
kx

I think it is more a matter of small details that are similar between the books, rather than the books as a whole being similar. I think you might find similar links between any two books WG has written. Cayce has bits of Marley from Count Zero, and bits of Case, maybe, and certainly bits of the author. Other characters have similarities (Hobbs and the Finn, as you say). One could even link the damaged artistic/autistic minds of the AI in Count Zero vs. that guy who built the robots in the same book, Silencio (and Laney!) in ATP, or Nora in PR (or even Case himself in Neuromancer, at some level). I'm not sure if there's anything deeper going on here than the author writing about themes and characters he finds interesting, but maybe that's enough anyway.

OK, sure, i get that. The similarities are kind of like brush strokes, techniques and ideas that he is drawn to. He wouldn't be the first author to go back to the same well in order to find new depths. Terry Pratchett is forever writing about power, it's uses and mis-uses, it's lure and dangers.

kx

hello again, thanks for the points and counterpoints (and for welcoming me to the board, Justy -- it's good to be here). now it's been a few weeks since I read the books, and I can't quite remember what I meant the parallelism to do to our reading of the books.

prolific hack colin makes a good point: we might not want to make any grand statements about connections since certain patterns crop up in an author's work. in other words, we should be careful of apophenia when we recognize patterns that may be there, but may not mean much.

in some ways, I think keithxian is right about PR being a rewrite of Neuromancer; as Justy pointed out, many of the problematics are the same. I don't mean that everything is the same -- in some ways, I'm more interested in things being recognizable and different at the same time.

so, for instance, the interest in Japanese brand names for Case is for a science-fictional company called Ono-Sendai that makes an item that doesn't exist yet in our world; but for Cayce, the item of obsession is a Japanese copy of historical item that no longer exists. that is, broadly speaking, whereas Case is generally ignorant about the past (as when he asks if a saint's hand is in a support vat), Cayce is surrounded by it (both the historical past in the Russian Dig, and the personal past in Damien's ex-girlfriend's body-mold robots, and in the intersection, as in losing her father in a nationally historic moment).

we could probably say a lot about the same/different things between Case/Cayce, but what I'm curious about right now is how does knowing the first book challenge us in reading the second. I mean, the first is aggressively pointed towards the future, but the second takes a lot of the future tropes and recasts them in our present (our recent past, rather, but told in the present tense -- to emphasize its presentness?).

I don't know... to me these two books felt... well, different.

Yes, some of the same issues, some of the stylistic details, and the name seem related... but I think it stretches it slightly to say that PR follows Neuromancer very closely at all.

PR was actually the first Gibson book I read followed by Neuromancer and then, in rapid fire succession, the rest of his books.... but going from PR to Neuromancer they seem very separate to me...

In all honesty I think there are far more parallels between Cayce and Laney than between Cayce and Case (apart from name, that is).

Both books do have that distinctive William Gibson feel and style... but I think the names probably aren't an indication of a really strong connection.

But then again, that's just how I read them. And every reader brings a lot to the books themselves so.... *shrugs*

Most of WG's books have the same plot from 1000 yards. A disaffected gunslinger is enlisted by a giant power to do something that requires smaller hands, and it turns out that the hero is thwarted by that same giant power.

Many of the details work out similarly also. When he said that he didn't need to go into the future to tell his story anymore, I think he really means that it's the same story.