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William Gibson in The News
Anonymous Coward writes that William Gibson was interviewed in the SF Chronicle. He talks about getting into writing, visionary status, and, of course, his new book, All Tomorrow's Parties. Anyone read that yet? I'd be interesting to hear about it.
ah.... Gibson... one of my favorite authors. I really like his character development, twisty plots, scene painting, pacing, darkness, implants, lots of stuff, too much to mention. There's just one big thing that always bothered me about his stories and that's the 3D metaphor for cyberspace. I mean, get real, you just don't ride a big black rocketship through system security. Firewalls are not walls. In general, cyberspace isn't 3 dimensional - it's either infinitely dimensioned, or zero dimensioned, take your pick.
On the other hand, the concepts behind his 3D cyberspace metaphors are usually valid... more than valid, they're pretty stimulating a lot of the time. His ideas of what AI's might be like, licensed and all, are really interesting. Just... could we have a little less of the Buck Rogers space ship thing?
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
If it's a good read, I'm a little saddened when the story ends. Even if the author puts forth effort and makes it a clean break, I still don't want to leave the little world he/she created in the text...another reason why I shy away from short stories :)
Blar.
This is kinda off topic, but close enough to topic that I wanted to mention it...
I finished a copy of Marge Piercy's "He, She, and It" a few weeks ago, and thought it was a really interesting take on the topic of artificial intelligence. It intertwines the in-the-future story of a human-like AI creation with the in-the-past story of a Golem, a creature from Jewish legends created from mud.
It drew a lot of parallels that hadn't ever occured to me, and was just altogether a different approach to sci-fi than I'm used to reading.
Anybody else have some favorite Gibson-esque books they'd like to recommend?
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Back in '90, I managed to meet Gibson when he and Sterling were in town on the Difference Engine book signing tour. A friend of mine knew Sterling through other means (having to do with being busted for hacking - this was before "The Hacker Crackdown" was published) so we met up with them down at the bookstore. They later headed off with the publishers rep for dinner, and we met up with them later at their hotel to hang out and yak.
...and what REALLY makes me come is that she's SO inCREDibly LUCID...!
Now, during the signing, Gibson had been pounding the wine... then more wine at dinner... so by the time they got back to the hotel, he was sloshed. The man then cracks open the little honor bar cabinet and tears in.
The funniest thing was when Gibson was sitting on the edge of a bed, with a Heineken in one hand and a little bottle of Jack in the other, watching the Weather Channel... and I forget what he said before this, but the next line is forever etched into my memory... discussing the weathergirl on TV...
Ah, the howls of derisive laughter...
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
Brunner usually gets credited by the literati as the first cyberpunk author (if a movement by that name can be said to have existed) with the book Shockwave Rider in, I think '76. He has a proto-hacker character who reprograms the global net from a minitel-like access device. He also writes a program reminiscent of the Internet worm.
William Gibson is a science fiction author, the first really successful cyberpunk author, but -hardly- the -first- cyberpunk author. The others, however - John Brunner, Walter Jon Williams, Bruce Sterling, etc, - might still be obscure if not for him, and I have little doubt that Pat Cadigan, Neal Stephenson and others were strongly influenced by his work.
... stuff he wrote before he was a 'mature' author. Virtual Light was a good read but nothing stunning, a bit too predictable. Idoru, however, was excellent, and I very much look forward to this new book. I read, enjoyed, and own copies of and will re-read all his books, btw, so when I say 'really good' I mean as opposed to 'good' not as opposed to 'bad' ;)
His previous books are:
Neuromancer, Count Zero, Burning Chrome, Virtual Light, Idoru.
He did -not- write The Sheep Look Up aka Blade Runner, that was John Brunner. Sheep is good, but not much related to the movie. Stand on Zanzibar is better, IMHO.
IMO, also, Gibson's only -really- good books - so far - are Neuromancer and Idoru. Those two are -well- worth reading. Count Zero revealed too much his lack of computer knowledge, Burning Chrome has some excellent stories in it, but much of it is what they call 'juvenalia'
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
I'd be interesting to hear about it.
:)
Don't worry Hemos, you're interesting enough as it is
"He did -not- write The Sheep Look Up aka Blade Runner, that was John Brunner. Sheep is good, but not much related to the movie. Stand on Zanzibar is better, IMHO. "
I think you've got things mixed up. Blade Runner was "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" by Philip K. Dick. It's another damn fine book by Philip K. Dick, much better than the movie. I highly recommend it.
I read some Wm. Gibson and felt it was interesting stuff, but I stumbled across a book while looking amongst the genre 'cyberpunk' that I feel is really the most definitive batch of stories of an era (and that era may be dead, neal has helped us trancend it thankfully). This book, and its set of stories represent the real 'underground' of sci-fi and is tons of fun....
The book is called: semiotext(E) and available here
enjoy...
There were a few Semiotext(e) books, i believe. The one that stands out in my mind is Semiotext(e) SF (dunno if it's still in print), with contributions by such luminaries as Gibson, Ballard, Burroughs, R.A.W., Sterling, et al, as well as a smorgasboard of works by lesser-known, more avant-garde writers (Gibson fans... buy it for the other works. His own contribution, "Hippie Hat Brain Parasite", was rather dull). It's hard to pick a favorite from this collection... perhaps Rucker's "Rapture in Space" (about the first zero-G porno), or Ballard's "Jane Fonda's Augmentation Mammoplasty" (which amounted to a dare to sue the publishers for libel... Jane Fonda has always denied having her breasts done, but to sue for libel she would have to deny it under oath!). Heh.
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Maybe that's just the price you pay for the chains that you refuse.
Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
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just published acts of the apostles and its prety damn cool and they got the first third of the book up. Anyone into techno cyber conspiracy thriller stuff should take a gander.
I've emailed the author (he also owns the publishing company, which from the looks of things was made just for this one book)and he used to work at SUN and knows stuff about linux. hehe small world?
when Push Comes to Shove
Not to give too many spoilers away, but it is a continuation of Virtual Light and Idoru. Comparable, I think, to his first Trilogy. Lots of Berry Rydel and Chevette Washington. Not to mention the Golden Gate bridge and nanotechnology.
An important part of the book deals with online watch trading, and I was remined of piece that gibson did for Wired a while back, about his obsesion with trading watches on eBay. Anywho, this book was really enjoyable and hard to put down. But what whould you expect from the sage/poet/bard/high priest of cyberspace?
Back in July Slashdot had a story about a movie version of Nueromancer complete with a link to a movie web site. Now the site is gone and there is only a brief referance to it in the article.
Banfield
Pavlov's Dog vs. Schrodinger's Cat
Banfield
A difficult read? Neuromancer? Are you sure we're talking about the same book?
Is it just me, or does anyone else think Gibson is overrated?
He deserves credit for Neuromancer simply for being the first cyberpunk author, but there are plenty who do it better than him now. (Neal Stephenson & Bruce(?) Sterling for two)
His collabaration with Sterling on "The Difference Engine" (I think that was what it was called) was okay.
Perhaps he is one of those authors (ala Larry Niven & Jerry Pournell (sp?)) who produces better work in colabaration.
Talking of Larry Niven, how come we never see any reviews of his books on here? Even if Kim Stanely-Robinson is now the king of future histories, Niven is still the best hard SF author ever.
``I'm stricken if I buy a new computer. I suffer terrible consumer remorse. I can hear it obsolescing in the trunk of the car.''
My new Xeon obsolesced to an abacus in the drive home. ;)
The article was over-written, pompous and missed the mark altogether. (Other than the physical description of Bill Gibson -- which I can testify is accurate.) I imagine Gibson cringes when he reads it. Hell, it didn't even talk about his new book outside of a couple of off-hand references in a single paragraph!
I have had a copy of 'All Tomorrow's Parties' on order for over a month now. It is vastly irritating that the publisher promised it for the beginning of October and not even Barnes and Nobles can get a copy. (I ordered from a local bookstore, gotta support 'em.) I guess I am gonna have to talk to some of my Seattle SF contacts and see if any of them have a galley copy they will loan me.
Oh well. Bad article. Book not yet available. Half the posts here dissing Gibson or asking who he is...
I need a vacation...
Jack
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
He's also a cool guy to have at parties.
And underappreciated in his home town of Vancouver BC. I remember how much work it was getting the rest of the Westercon committee to agree to have him as our Guest of Honor.
Will in Seattle
That is your problem then. Gibson uses a very modern technique in his writing style, of not telling you all the details you need to know. One must read the entire story, parse it carefully, and understand later. It requires a lot of thought and analysis.
I personally believe one needs to read Neuromancer three times:
Anyway, even if one never reads any of his other works, Neuromancer is worth it...
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I'll volunteer that I certainly found it to be a fairly difficult read. And I read a lot.
Mostly, what made it difficult for me is that I read very quickly (though I don't "speed read"), and Gibson has a rather interesting habit of having massive action happen in one line, sandwiched without fanfare between description that is relatively unimportant to the story.
This isn't a bad thing, but it *does* make it more difficult to read.