New Rose Hotel
|
|
New Rose Hotel is a short story by William Gibson, later collected in his book Burning Chrome. Set in the near future, the story provides the reader with a glimpse into the niche criminal market of corporate defections. Massive multi-national corporations control and dominate entire economies. Their wealth and competitive advantage reside in the human capital of their employees and the intellectual property they churn out. Corporations jealously guard their most valuable capital goods, going to great expense to keep them safe and happily productive.
There is little point in traditional corporate espionage as new products are developed at a lightning pace. There is no time to capitalize on the intelligence acquired from a rival firm. Here is where our protagonists come into play, setting themselves up as shady middle-men in the world of corporate defections. Key scientists are cajoled, lured, bribed, and blackmailed into leaving their firms. Those that cannot be acquired thusly are eliminated whenever possible.
New Rose Hotel presents a bleak future as extrapolated from current economic and social trends. Set in the same period and universe as Gibson's Neuromancer, it is solidly cyberpunk in its style and vision.
The short story was made into a movie by director Abel Ferrara. For the movie, see New Rose Hotel (1998 movie).