| At the intersection of the call for an end to Nature and the dawning recognition of ecological entanglement, William Gibson's novel Neuromancer depicts its human characters as inextricably linked to their environment---one in which waste, pollution, and technology are inescapable. Through my object-oriented ontological (OOO) reading of the objects in Neuromancer, the representation of information technology is rendered comparable to a globalized ecology that appears preferable to current environmentalisms. Through the novel's portrayal of technoculture's boundless connectivity, its conflation of Artificial Intelligences and humans, and the characters' necessarily incomplete knowledge, Neuromancer explores the ramifications of the entanglement of human, technological, and environmental objects. Additionally, it challenges conventional ecocriticism, which tends to privilege an aestheticized redemptive Nature, through its radically inclusive understanding of ecology. Accordingly, Neuromancer divulges its critical potential to erase the boundaries around the concept of "environment," and in so doing, account for the coexistence of all things. |
