TESSIER-ASHPOOL ELECTRONICS
Tessier-Ashpool Electronics
A representative of the company offers to sell you one of Tessier-Ashpool's latest artificial intelligence security devices.
Tessier-Ashpool are one of the companies in William Gibson's Neuromancer. The book has tremendous significance because it introduced the concept of cyberspace.
It tells the story of Case, a talented cyberspy for hire. When he double-crosses the wrong people, even cyberspace offers nowhere for him to hide. Banished from cyberspace and imprisoned in the physical world, Case is offered another chance - for a price.
Reading Neuromancer now, it's hard to remember how revolutionary the ideas in the book were at the time. It spawned numerous clones and now the language and concepts of the book are commonplace. But as well as reading the book to find out how it all started, it's a cracking good suspense story.
There are no sequels to Neuromancer although William Gibson has written many other cyberpunk novels depicting the same dark, techno future. I haven't read any of them so can't recommend them myself, but here's some, for those that are interested (the text is taken from Amazon.com's reviews:
Idoru
Gibson's latest book. When Rez, the lead singer for the rock band Lo/Rez is rumored to be engaged to an "idoru" or "idol singer"--an artificial celebrity creation of information software agents--14-year-old Chia Pet McKenzie is sent by the band's fan club to Tokyo to uncover the facts. At the same time, Colin Laney, a data specialist for Slitscan television, uncovers and publicizes a network scandal. He flees to Tokyo to escape the network's wrath. As Chia struggles to find the truth, Colin struggles to preserve it, in a futuristic society so media-saturated that only computers hold the hope for imagination, hope and spirituality.
Count Zero
Turner, corporate mercenary, wakes in a reconstructed body, a beautiful woman by his side. Then Hosaka Corporation reactivates him for a mission more dangerous than the one he's recovering from: Maas-Neotek's chief of R&D is defecting. Turner is the one assigned to get him out intact, along with the biochip he's perfected. But this proves to be of supreme interest to certain other parties--some of whom aren't remotely human.
Mona Lisa Overdrive
Mona is a young girl with a murky past and an uncertain future whose life is on a collision course with internationally famous Sense/Net star Angie Mitchell. Since childhood, Angie has been able to tap into cyberspace without a computer. Now, from inside cyberspace, a kidnapping plot is masterminded by a phantom entity who has plans for Mona, Angie, and all humanity, plans that cannot be controlled...or even known. And behind the intrigue lurks the shadowy Yakuza, the powerful Japanese underworld, whose leaders ruthlessly manipulate people and events to suit their own purposes.
