Help me ID a science fiction book

Weiser_Cain

It's about a hacker that come out of retirement for some reason or another(this involved getting a brain box installed). The only other details I can remember are that cyberspace was a bit like the matrix, ice had something to do with security, there is a subplot that features a fat retired sociopath hacker named pacman(i think).Cover of the book may have been brownish. Protaganist is a dame as well...

MPBirdman

It sounds like Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash maybe?

The main guy in that is named Hiro Protagonist, computer software is referred to as ice, and there is a VR world that he can visit where he can do things like have sword fights.

Steve

Sounds a bit like William Gibsons "Neuromancer" or one of the sequels, ICE is the security system on computers in those. Not read them for years though, could be wrong.

MPBirdman

Ah yeah.. I might be mixing parts together from the two books. I've got both at home, and I can't check which has which. Neuromancer is a good bet, agreed.

TomDunne

Case and Hiro are both male, so that rules out Neuromancer and Snow Crash, right?

MPBirdman

Wasn't one of the characters in Neuromancer a woman with knives and things surgically implanted, and the main character surgically cleaned up to get him able to work for the employer? I think Neuromancer is the better bet of the two.

TomDunne

Yeah, that's Molly, and she has the bionic fingernail blades and such. She's sort of a secondary character, though. I don't remember anyone with a name like Pac-Man, either, but it's been a long time sicne I've read it.

gauss

Molly Millions, aka Sally Shears! i dont think the book you're describing is actually Stephenson or Gibson, but rather a close contemporary with similar hallmarks.

jzero

'Neuromancer' doesn't have the Pac-Man guy, but it does sound like you've read it and 'Snow Crash' and a couple of cheaper rip-offs, and they're all mixed up in your head.

'Neuromancer' has the Finn, the nastiest, greasiest techno-fence in creation, whose home defenses seem to include an X-Ray laser; and a ROM construct of a dead hacker, McCoy Pauley, the 'Dixie Flatline', which works and acts like the real thing.

Oh, and the Space Rastas. That's one detail that still hasn't been worked over by Hollywood, thank you.

/jzero

Weiser_Cain

It's been a long time since I read the book but I'll look into your suggestions. Thanks.

JKMakowka

Hmmm, I am really unsure, but wasn't there some book by asimov that also had ice/coldice or something as a security against virus/hackers... But I bet I am mixing that up with other books.