# John M. Ford’s Web of Angels bears the same relationship to Neuromancer as
Cordwainer Smith’s…

Where the Instrumentality stories introduce Dune’s epic-scoped space-feudalism
political intrigue surrounding a backwater planet’s monopoly…

* * *

John M. Ford’s Web of Angels bears the same relationship to Neuromancer as
Cordwainer Smith’s Instrumentality of Mankind stories bears to Dune:
containing all the core elements of that genre-defining work, and coming
first, but containing too much extra strangeness to be easily categorized or
to become the template for later work.

Where the Instrumentality stories introduce Dune’s epic-scoped space-feudalism
political intrigue surrounding a backwater planet’s monopoly on the supply of
a naturally-occurring immortality drug (Spice, the effluvia of a sandworm, in
Dune and Stroon, the cancerous growths of mutant sheep, in the Instrumentality
stories), the Instrumentality also adds to the mix:

  * uplifted animals and their political struggles
  * space australians
  * a thief’s guild
  * a prison planet (Sheol) where people are cronenberged as punishment for war crimes
  * the use of algae and mussels to protect sub-light-speed ships from the psychological effects of cosmic rays
  * the use of cyborg cat-human-hive-mind gunners to fight hyperspace dragons

Likewise, where Web of Angels gives us Neuromancer’s loser protagonist,
corporation- and government-run automated deadly cyberspace attackers, dense
dive into the underworld, and cross-planetary chase corresponding to a
cyberspace heist, it also gives us:

  * immortal but incredibly fragile patriarchs, whose immortality comes from slowing cell metabolism by a factor of thousands
  * networked portable computing devices modeled on flutes and harps
  * tarot imagery
  * an eighteenth century style dandy subculture who fence with real swords in a complicated dance as an elaborate form of gambling/suicide

Web of Angels is a book I started in high school (literally fifteen years ago
now) and that fascinated me, and at the time, I never finished it (because I
excitedly lent it to someone who never gave it back). I recently bought a new
copy, and I look forward to seeing all the things I missed.

By [John Ohno](https://medium.com/@enkiv2) on [August 30,
2018](https://medium.com/p/376de0aa7422).

[Canonical link](https://medium.com/@enkiv2/john-m-fords-web-of-angels-bears-
the-same-relationship-to-neuromancer-as-cordwainer-smith-s-376de0aa7422)

Exported from [Medium](https://medium.com) on September 18, 2020.