47 pages • 1 hour read
William GibsonBurning Chrome
Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 1982A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Story 8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Story 8 Summary: “The Winter Market”
Casey is an editor in the business of making virtual reality film work. Studios like the one Casey works for, the Autonomic Pilot, create works with material sourced from people’s subconscious and dreams. Some individuals have a talent for generating especially vivid or notable material. Directly tapping into a person’s subconscious (“jacking” straight across) to engage with “[d]ry dreams” is far too intense for most people, even though the technology is available. The job of editors like Casey is to take the raw material and filter it so that it can be consumed.
Casey describes his mentor, Rubin, as “Gomo no sensei. Master of junk” because he collects an ever-expanding array of cultural detritus (126). Rubin is also known for throwing fabulous parties. At one of these, he meets a woman named Lise who wears a cybernetic “exoskeleton” that damages her body even as it is meant to correct some “congenital” problem.
Casey is introduced to Lise, and she orders him to take her home. She has knowledge of the technological equipment that Casey uses for his job and laughs at his “fast-wipe module” for being inferior (129). Nevertheless, Lise and Casey form a connection, prompted by the powerful allure she has over him. Casey reports to Rubin that they “jacked straight across. That first night” (130). Given how potent, even dangerous, direct access to another person’s consciousness can be, Rubin is astounded.
Based out of Vancouver and away from the center of the industry, Hollywood, the Autonomic Pilot is looking for a breakthrough to raise its profile. Casey declares that what he saw when jacking straight across “was Lise’s ambition, that rush, seen from the inside” (132), an extraordinarily powerful experience that he imagines will make exceedingly good material for his company’s productions. He arranges to jack into Lise’s consciousness again, but this time professionally, utilizing “baffles and brain maps” to filter and edit the experience down to something more palatable (133). Casey’s boss, Max Bell, is speechless at the results and gets Lise an agent to prepare her to be a star. The studio begins a work featuring Lise called Kings of Sleep. Max wants Casey to be editor; Casey agrees reluctantly because he fears Lise’s power over him.
In the process of working with him, Lise opens up to Casey, including about her past and vulnerabilities, like the “congenital” problem that led her to wear the exoskeleton and the fact that “she was addicted to wizz” (139), a street drug. As they wrap up, however, Casey sees Lise partying with a drunken kid, seemingly lost in her “corrosive, crazy drive to stardom and cybernetic immortality” (148). Rubin and Casey never see Lise again, and they are devastated because both had grown to love her. Casey is haunted by the virtual reality image of Lise that his company has developed, and he feels she is trying to contact him but is unsure if what he senses is real or a simulation.
Story 8 Analysis
“The Winter Market” echoes the previous story in Burning Chrome, “New Rose Hotel,” by exploring the commodification of the individual in a near-future, technology-driven society. The kidnapping headhunters in “New Rose Hotel” pursue intellectual talent, while the editors and producers in the world of “The Winter Market” are interested in star potential and talent for entertainment. Thus, “The Winter Market” extends Burning Chrome’s explorations to the world of consumerist media, in which talent is for sale on the market alluded to in the story’s title.
The story declares that Lise “was a pro” (136), positioning her in a role much like that of an actress in the Hollywood movie industry. At the same time, the nature of technology in “The Winter Market” changes notions of individual talent. The content utilized in the Autonomic Pilot’s productions is Lise’s subconscious and dreams, rather than a performance she is in control of. Moreover, the end product received by consumers depends on the technological manipulation of editors like the narrator, who package the content jacked from the subconscious into palatable forms. Lise seems aware of the layers of deception and of the removal from reality. For instance, the narrator catches her “smiling, or anyway doing a thing she must have thought was like a smile, the expression she knew was appropriate to the situation” (148). In any case, Lise exudes power and is aware that even if she is not performing in a strict sense, she is still connected to the illusionary images of the virtual reality productions that the Autonomic Pilot creates.
At the same time, “The Winter Market” positions Lise as the next in Burning Chrome’s line of flawed characters. Near the end of the story, she shows her vulnerability to Casey, apologizing to him, “sorry I hit on you so hard” (140). Even before that, her flaws are implied in the way she hides her physical figure, which is racked by drug abuse and disease. The exoskeleton she wears literally conceals parts of her body, but metaphorically it signals her emotional and psychological distance from the world around her. The suit is a reminder that the ideas others have about her—whether an infatuation with her beauty or an obsession with her dream imagery—are separate from her real self.
“The Winter Market” participates in classic science-fiction themes by exploring the separation between reality and perception, as well as the separation of consciousness from the body. When Casey is unable to distinguish if Lise is trying to contact him or if he is just imagining it all, he points to questions inherent in the idea of taking someone’s consciousness and implanting it in another situation, precisely what happens when Lise’s mind is jacked into and revamped as virtual reality. Casey expects that Lise is “dead,” wracked by “the wizz or her disease or the combination of the two” (147), yet he nevertheless expects her to call him. Thus, the lines between the virtual Lise and the real Lise are blurred. “The Winter Market” avoids direct answers to these questions by leaving Casey and Rubin wondering where and what Lise is by the end of the story. Nevertheless, the story exemplifies how Gibson’s fiction examines themes at the intersection of science fiction, the philosophy of artificial intelligence, and culture.
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By William Gibson
