Considering Cayce’s welfare, it may be that Gibson did not want her to be hurt because of some odd personal attachment, diverting from his normal writing style-in neuromancer his maun character is not kept in well health at all.

I beleive that one of the main reasons it seems like sci fi is that so much emphasis is given to the internet. Cayce’s I-book is as much a character as some humans, with its speech being email and forums. Those forums add to the SF feeling because they give the indirect meeting of several important characters, such as parkaboy. Not many people have such in depth relationships as cayce has over the internet.

Besides the storyline Gibson makes some odd allusions to random unknown things for example, a curta calculator is mentioned. ( google it ) Some might consider this distracting, but Personally I find it interesting to look up these obscure references.

Someone else is probably going to have to re-create the sci fi genre as Gibson did to, update it for new generations of readers who become increasingly immersed in science.