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William Gibson Interview @ AICN 100

Posted by michael from the idoru dept.
Well, the slashdot crew is all out killing time and brain cells giving away the Beanie Awards at LinuxWorld (Best Real Propeller Beanie: Jay Sulzberger of the NYLUG). Look for the chock-full-of-fun wrap-up tomorrow, but in the meantime, forge5 writes "Ain't It Cool News has an excellent article on Alexandra DuPont interviewing William "FREAKING" Gibson. They talk about The Matrix, his books, and his X-Files episode. Check it out! "
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William Gibson Interview @ AICN More

William Gibson Interview @ AICN

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  • groovie... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    My buddy interviewed Gibson in SF a couple months ago. He was really cool and personable. Check it out: http://www.art-damage.com/gibson.html

  • The Critics React (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's an epic! The critics are raving about it!

    "Normally, I eschew sequels in favor of the (ordinarily) superior originals. Perhaps this is why I was surprised to find that I enjoyed OPEN SOURCE WILLIAM GIBSON even more than I enjoyed OPEN SOURCE AIBO! This is the year's first must-see sci-fi epic, and it eclipses even (dare I say it?) The Matrix!" --
    Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

    "A mindbender of a read." -- The Village Voice

    "Fuck me with a shovel! A zillion stars!" -- Jeff Craig, Sixty Second Preview

    "Kaleidoscopic, picaresque, flashy and decadent .. an amazing virtuouso performance, fully realized in its geopolitical, technological, and psychosexual dimensions." -- Leonard Maltin, At The Movies

    "Seventy percent of American children should read this." -- Kirkus Reviews

    "Slashdot's most revolutionary poster comes through with Slashdot's most revolutionary content to date. A wham-bam-thank-you-maam read from start to finish. If you're not naked and petrified by the time you're done with it, you'll at least wish you were!" -- Christian Coalition Newsletter

    "Fuck!" -- Joe Pesci

    "Science fiction of exceptional texture and vision .. Open Source Man opens up a new genre, with a finely crafted grittiness, and a number of literary and computer inventions. It made me want to live in its world." -- National Geographic

    "Freshly imagined, compellingly detailed, and chilling in its implications .. don't step in the rose garden, for God's sake!" -- Ladies Home Journal
  • Now Phillip K. Dick, there's the man. Through a looking glass darkly, invents the idea of the worm, is ~cyberpunk and has a kind of indepth character.

    Actually, the worm was invented by John Brunner in The Shockwave Rider.

    While I'm posting, I'll throw in with the love Stephenson, don't care for Gibson side. (Although I enjoyed Burning Chrome when I read it way back when, and his X-Files episode, as well.)

    So, is extrans formatting broken for everyone else?
  • After meeting Gibson about 12 years ago, I rather thought that first he thought most of his readers where idiots. One of the questions I had was "What other writers influenced you?"
    His comment was "Thomas Pynchon, but I am sure you have never heard of him."
    Um I thought... I had just read, V and had read Gravity's Rainbow years before, and I realized that:

    A He did not think much of his "fans".
    B He was truly an asshole.
    C He was not half as clever as he wants to be.

    I have read everything sense this through glasses tinted with A, B and C.

    Writers that are cool (And I have met) to there fans and very smart.
    Are
    Bruce Sterling
    Greg Bear
    Neal Stephenson

  • That isn't the attitude I like to hear from a "hard" science fiction author

    Which Gibson isn't. Gibson's books are about now, not the future, in the same way as Pynchon's historical novels are about now. The point of the tech aspects is to induce vertigo and to force the reader to re-view the world magnified and distorted but still recognisable. I'd argue that he isn't even Sci-Fi, or rather that if he is then we have to allow so many writers into the genre as to make it a pointless distinction.

    For example, the idoru was based on a real attempt to build a popular virtual singing star in Japan: the Sci-Fi theme of the book is there to make you question what celebrity is when the image is more simulacrum than real. If he just wrote a book called "neat things that have happened in Japan" his arguments would be less forceful.

  • Shit.

    That should be the *post* decrypto-automatic menace.

    That means after the not so secret menacing machines took over the world.

  • Wipes tears away...catches breath from laughing...

    Maybe it's because I've been coding for twelve hours streight, but damnit, that was too funny. Thanks for the good laugh.

  • You should give The Difference Engine a chance. I too hate Sterling's writing (I couldn't get past the first couple of pages in Islands in the Net) but Difference Engine was good.

    I really like Gibson's earlier stuff, but his last trilogy I found shallow and only somewhat interesting.

  • It's not for everyone.. Different people have different tastes. Personally, I prefer Gibson over Stephenson!
  • I used to be kind of down on Gibson, but I've learned to appreciate him, over the course of his last trilogy.

    If you like the way Gibson writes, I highly recommend Dashiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler, two other writers who wrote fiction about their here and now.

    The best thing about Gibson, of course, is that he lives in the best city in Northern America.

    Best,
    (jfb)
  • Don't know what a cluth is, but if the driver lets off the clutch, he's an incompetent, as the trucks fitted with the big barbed hooks are almost all double clutched.

    Right?

    (jfb)
  • I found the Virtual Light trilogy quite enjoyable; he's definitely matured as a writer (even if he'll never be a Phil Dick), and the ideas are interesting.

    Still, Gibson isn't much of a stylist, and I can certainly see why people aren't hot on him. I think that his vision of modern life is strong enough to carry the books past a certain (dreadfully?) predictability, but YMMV.

    Try "Virtual Light," "Idoru" and "All Tomorrow's Parties" as a more facile expression of Gibson's abilities. People whose judgement I trust recommend "The Difference Engine" to me, but I detest the writing of Sterling and haven't had much motivation to check it out.

    As far as SF goes, I'll take Vance or Silverberg over anyone writing today (or yesterday, or the day before ...) And that of course says nothing about other fictions --- Poe and Borges both wrote what could be considered SF. But I digress.

    Best,
    (jfb)
  • Yes, the artwork does (did) exist... the etchings in the cover of the book/box were of genetic code.

    It was on display (along with the only known copies of the book/box itself) at the first public unveiling in Manhattan... and that's where we got the original copy and posted it...

    Cheers.
  • Then try Kathleen Ann Goonan's work. I think she has a fine lyrical sense, powerful imagery, and her writing is much easier to read than Gibson. Her science is not much better (giant bees?). However, I have throroughly enjoyed her work, and thought her imagery added impact whereas I found Gibson needlessly obtuse.

    When I finished reading two of her books (Queen City Jazz and Mississipi Blues), I felt like I had just had a dream. Her writing has (on me at least) that kind of super-saturated impressionistic feel. One of these days, I need to find time to read The Bones of Time, and I am really looking forward to the release of her final book in the Verity trilogy
  • Something I thought was kinda of interesting was what Gibson wanted to do for his next book:
    he wants to write something where the reader says "Wait a minute! That WAS science fiction, but it was also completely contemporary reality with next to nothing made up"
    I couldn't help thinking that this is the response I had to a certain recent novel--Let me think...what was the name again.....oh yeah! The Cryptonomicon! :-}
    but maybe I am wrong...
  • I am not a LitCrit (no do I play one on TV), but let me try to explain.

    Calling something <em>crypto-fascist</em> implies that it advocates fascism without being overt about it. Fascism requires unswerving loyalty to a strong leader (or nation), exaults military virtues above all else and considers democracy and a diversity of opinion to be weaknesses.

    A <em>subtext</em> is a literary term for the hidden meaning of a work, which is often more important that the story. It is the "message" of the movie. if you will.

    So, consider a pair of examples:

    "The Matrix" has an "awakening "subtext; its message is "open your eyes and take control of your life". A "good-hearted" message, Gibson calls it.

    "T2" tells us that we can only be saved by super-robots from the future, and that by following its orders we will survive.

    Deciding which is crypto-fascist is left as an excersice for the reader.

    Kind Regards,

  • So he invented a couple of cool words: "Neuromacer" in particular. Apart from that... his writing is... average, I'd say. Neal Stephanson's stories are much easier to read, and make a lot more sense.

    Sure, he was somewhat of a pioneer, but the more I read his books, the more I think that people shouldn't judge him as one of the "science fiction greats"

    For instance:

    Q. I thought your nanotechnology stuff in "All Tomorrow's Parties" was really interesting -- the idea of an old watch descending into a bed of nanobots and emerging brand-new. I was wondering: Are there "Neuromancer" fans who are working on nanotechnology and call you and say, "Check out what we're working on"? Do you get any "inside information"?

    A. [laughs] In a way, I'd like to pretend I'm sort of like the Tom Clancy of cyberspace, and I hang out with these guys. And sometimes I DO hang out with them, but I'm more inclined to take note of what they're wearing.

    That isn't the attitude I like to hear from a "hard" science fiction author - I might excuse it is his stories were better written, but they aren't. If I want to hear about clothes, I'll read Vouge or something.

  • I think an author who does the same sort
    of thing (I.e., weave people into a story
    around tech, rather than write stories about tech)
    is Iain M. Banks. His sci-fi is consistently
    excellent, which unfortunatly cannot be said
    about all of his main stream fiction.

  • Genius (Score:1)

    by smutt ( 35184 )
    The more I see of this guy, the more I am impressed by him. WG is definitely one of the literary geniuses of our day. He blows my mind.
    Get this guy on /.
  • >Sometimes Stephenson's stories have slightly weak endings

    Sometimes? I have yet to read a Stephenson's book that had a good ending. Don't get me wrong, I love Neal Stephenson's books, just the last 50-25 pages always suck.

    Vividan
  • It seems to me that the only a few creative types (in the 20th century) have been able to truely entertain both children and adults. (Jim Henson, Dr. Suess, George Lucas, Frank L. Baum, and maybe Disney).

    And the very best (IMHO) tried to entertain the child while teaching the adult something about their child's world. Examples would be "The Lorax" which tries to show what a child might think about industry or "The Labrynth" which is probably just about the best movie to show a preteen to prep them and you for their voyage into adult hood.

    Sorry, but I had to comment because I just found out I'm going to be a father (due 8/12) and I've been thinking about this alot!

  • well posted...you be right on the mark with that one. Gibson is like the guy in Idoru that can see patterns in data that other people can't... even he hints at this in the interview. He is clear that it is not a conscious ability that he employs as much as it is the ability to move his consciousness out of the way enough to let the writing out.

    Ok, all you left brain people repeat after me: "writing is a creative process not necessarily dominated by the left brain..." Just because he doesn't include any perl in his writing doesn't make him any less of an author.. just maybe not the right-brain-coder's fav.

    And before someone flames me saying that too you are a coder that uses the whole brain: Yes, I know you are. Good for you.
  • I dunno, but in Red Dwarf, Lister likes to use the term too.
  • Sorry, but it's basically almost ?unreadable? because of all the misplaced ???? characters where ?"? should be. Maybe this problem should be written up on the ?Frontpage?!!

    ?????!

    -M
  • Ah, screw that. If I had root, I'd rather:

    chown ucblockhead /usr/bin/Microsoft
    chown ucblockhead /usr/bin/RedHat
    chown ucblockhead /usr/bin/VALinux
    chown ucblockhead /usr/bin/USMilitary
    chown ucblockhead /usr/bin/Congress

    But then, I always was kind of selfish.
  • From what I've heard, Gibson's very approachable. I talked to both Gibson and Sterling at a book signing for "Difference Engine" and found this to be the case. He definitely wasn't playing the stuck up auther.

    (Neither was Sterling, for that matter.)

    Someone from Slashdot ought to contact his agent.

    My signed first edition of "Neuromancer" vanished about a year later. [Sniff.] I remember when it came out. It was the first of an early-eighties series spotlighting first novels by young rising stars (which unfortunately seems to have died with its editor, Terry Carr.) The second and third books were Lucious Shepard's "Green Eyes" and Kim Stanley Robinson's "The Wild Shore". Great stuff.

  • If we are all living in the Matrix then
    we need someone to get root (somehow)
    then
    kill -9 MPAA
    kill -9 DVD_CMA
    kill -9 USPTO

    # how do you cause Microsoft to fork into separate processes?
    # O Yeah now i remember...

    ./DOJ

  • I know that.
    Typing quickly after a few Guinesses has it's drawbacks

    ./asprin
  • Excellent work.. I laughed my ass off, but I'm three Heineken short of a twelve-pack.....
  • Anyone know what order the books are in? which ones should be read first, etc?

    If I wanted to read something Gibson, what should I try?
  • I could go on for years, but I'll keep it short.

    Re: your list of pre-Gibsons

    I'd add Alfred Bester (esp. his short stories (collected in "Virtual Unrealities")), William Burroughs (esp. "The Wild Boys," though Gibson's not nearly as "literary"), and, maybe, Thomas Pynchon (though I'm not as comfortable making the comparison as Gibson himself is). But, one thing these guys all have that Gibson doesn't is a deep personal knowledge of paranoia, and of its usefulness as a literary worldview. Gibson's adoption of a paranoid viewpoint is boring and stereotypical in comparison. It reminds me of a WTO protest, or the Freepers. Not that I don't like his stuff. I just think it's less "deep" than his fans do.

    Re: Neal Stephenson

    He's not certifiably "cyberpunk," because his literary persona isn't cool and (anti-)corporate, it's geeky and (anti-)corporate. Instead of spouting about fashion and lit-crit amongst the fake-tech, Stephenson's all about algorhythms and cartography (and other "boring" stuff). Their "cultural insights" vary accordingly. But he is similar to Gibson/Sterling et al in many ways. I've said it on /. before, but I think of him as a lesser Thomas Pynchon or William Gass (esp. "The Tunnel," probably the best "big, thick book" since "Ulysses"), whereas Gibson is a lesser Burroughs or Bester. I think the "inventiveness" of both comes from their inability to emulate their heroes as well as they'd like to.

    All IMNSHO, of course.

  • I just finished re-reading Diamond Age and i agree the plot is intricate. But the characters are non-existent. They are 2-d cut outs, little puppets moved around to further the story. It's basically a coming of age story. I think this is a problem of both Stephenson and Gibson. The character development, as a real human being, someone who you can understand, isn't there. I enjoy reading both of them but I think that they do a great deal of appealing to the bad-ass black leather, super-tech, "I'm a genius and everyone else is stupid," set. Now Phillip K. Dick, there's the man. Through a looking glass darkly, invents the idea of the worm, is ~cyberpunk and has a kind of indepth character.
  • Oops my bad, memory corruption. You are correct, damn, The Sheep Look Up and Stand on Zanzibar are two of my favorite books. Have to go back and reread.
  • i think that's exactly it. i read (and love) Gibson for his use of language. i read other science fiction authors if i want the "science" part of it. some of his technical ideas are interesting, but they are really secondary to the rest of the plot. yes, the novels can be pretty hard to read. yes, they can be pretty hard to understand the first time through (especially Neuromancer). but i worship the man for his use of language. him, and Ray Bradbury.
  • XI. MR. GIBSON vs. THE ART-WORLD TRICKSTERS

    A. Well, I wrote a long, narrative free-verse poem to my father, which was going to be packaged in its initial form on a diskette that was encoded so it would erase itself.
    Interesting to read the story of this poem. I didn't know this, and just had to search my olde harddisk for it and read it again. Has anybody actually seen the etchings mentioned in the header of the poem?

    I hesitated
    before untying the bow
    that bound this book together.
  • This is great! Please, moderate the parent up - or start reading at -1. Believe me it's worth it!
  • William Gibson Interview @ AICN
    Posted by michael on Fri February 04, 04:09 AM
    from the idoru dept.

    Yay! I finally have my own department... so when am I moving in, fellows?
  • So he invented a couple of cool words: "Neuromacer" in particular.

    He's invented a lot of cool words, (for instance "jacking in") and concepts which have become the standard if not the basis for much of modern science fiction.

    Still, he's not the only author out there, and a lot of his books leave something to be desired. I'm seldom find myself satisfied with the way his stories end, personally, but the way things work along the way makes it worthwhile.

  • How the hell did this person get an interview with Gibson? I could maybe understand if this was for People magazine or something, but AICN?!

    Could the questions have been more superficial? I read the whole thing fully expecting the next question to be something along the lines of "blonde or brunette?"

    Slashdot could have done a better interview.
  • Personally, I'm still down on Gibson. I read some of his early stuff as it was first serialised in the pulps ("Count Zero," "Mona Lisa Overdrive") and found it ponderous and trite. Maybe he's gotten better with age, but there's enough stuff out there that I KNOW I'll like that I'm hesitant to bother finding out.

    Any recommendations for a Gibson dissenter?

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Agreeing with many of the comments posted -- Gibson is Literature with a Capital L. Some would say a visionary, a spotter of trends, and he himself describes his writing as that moment before the bug hits the windshield (windshield being reality, his writing is just a tad out in front of us, taking a peek right around the corner). Individual Opinions aside -- the SciFi community appluaded his entrance on the scene by giving him the TripleCrown for Neuromancer -- swept the 3 big sci fi awards in 84 I recall... Further, in the halls of academia THEY ARE STUDYING HIM. You can find a couple of essays and analysis of his writings -- they're breakin him down! Personally -- he's got a cool soul! I've got a drummer/programmer buddy, I play guitar, I strum a chord and just FEEL that Marshall stack holding the sustain of six strings in tune all vibrating and humming and SINGING. I say Oh Man, Listen to THat, FEEL THAT! And my drummer begins to explain why the frequencies of the individual notes mesh to create a larger sound, how harmonics work, yada yada yada... He doesn't FEEL it at all (same guy told me why my pulse was racing on a Roller Coaster...)... And that's what's up with Gibson -- he resonates! He hums and vibrates around in the brain of those that dig him. Those that want to analyse him may miss the point, miss the beauty, miss the forest for the trees... all that cliche stuff... And the trees themselves are so cool. His writing is pure poetry. Every sentance rolls past the eyes with rythmn. Every scene a slice of life... In a way, he's like that Steve Jobs ZONE OF ILLUSION trick -- when STeve talks about apple people forget reality! Same with Gibson -- in a purely sci-fi analysis -- He Suspends our Disbelief. We know he ain't writing about reality, but you don't figure that in while your reading him -- It's Real! And of course -- he's out in front! Stephenson and others are riding on his coat tails. He started it, he continues it, he's the capital A Artist that mere technicians come behind and mimic. I've tried reading Snowcrash 3 or 4 times and couldn't get past the first 10 pages. Just a matter of style. One of only five books I've stopped reading. So I can't bag on STephenson cause I haven't read him -- I just know he didn't sync with me. Baird was a tough one too (and Gibson digs her). And what the hecks up with CRYPTOMIUM (?) -- nobdoy I know has finished it... Yet it continues to be praised? Everybody says it has a Capital R Research undertone that's a real drag. A snobby kinda look how much I've studied my topic -type undercurrent... A good novel can be told in 180 pages -- everything else is fluff, especially when you get over about 300 pages. Right about there you need to think about splitting the book, making sequels or trilogies... (but yeah, I always look for big ol' books to get a good return on my $$$, but sometimes it's just a waste of time....) Well, I'll be back on this ... BTW -- ANYBODY been able to get to his Yardshow Website???? His official site? No luck here...

  • Perhaps she got an interview because she asked? As for a Slashdot interview, well guys? He may never have heard of Slashdot, but I'd bet he'd become a daily reader..

    I personally didn't think the questions were terribly superficial.. she asked several questions that anyone interviewing him probably would have asked. As for terribly 'deep' questions, well she really didn't have the background to ask the literary side of the house, and Mr. Gibson made it plain that, while he takes not of technology, he's not immersed in it like many of us..

  • Nah... I don't buy the Gibson-is-literature argument. He comes up with some neat writing here and there, but overall the draw is his future worlds and his cyberpunk styles.

    Of course, Gibson is great at this, and Neuromancer is surely a sci-fi classic on many merits. I just find that by the second or third book of his, I feel like I'm reading the same thing all over again.

    On the 'my author can beat up your author' subject, here are my authors:

    Neal Stephenson. If you haven't read The Diamond Age, go read it now. Stephenson's plots are intricate, entertaining, and vibrant.

    Jeff Noon. If you haven't read Vurt, go read it now. Noon's tripped out future world is imagination at its finest.

    --
    "All my life I wanted to be someone... guess I should have been more specific."

  • Hrm, I suppose that explains it, but as you said Terminator and T2 both used the same situation, so it wouldn't be without precedent.

    I think what you're describing is a 'theme' not a 'subtext'... It sounded like he was saying that movies with that cash value were crypto-fascist. I could just be on crack, though.

    Amber Yuan (--ell7)
  • Think it might be possible to do a slashdot interview with WG? Slashdot's getting pretty famous now, and I think all of us would love to see it.



    Amber Yuan (--ell7)
  • Ok, I might sound stupid here, but...
    "[the matrix] didn't have the kind of crypto-fascist subtext that one might expect with that kind of money. "

    Does anyone know what he means by that?

    Amber Yuan (--ell7)
  • Want to? Gibson seems to do a Katz - use lots of long, cool sounding words & phrase

    Why do you look at art? Because its cool looking. Gibson's words and phrases are cool sounding, and therefore enjoyable to read; provided you have a large enough vocabulary to understand it. It's also the story that flows through the books. The end of ATP was nothing short of beautiful.

    Katz on the other hand couldn't pull a cool word/phrase out of his ass if he tried. And he tries a lot

    Amber Yuan (--ell7)
  • I love the book, and I havn't heard from anyone who didn't (care to pipe up, I'd love to hear why you didn't :).

    You'll apreciate it more if you read Iduro and Virtual Light as well, but I've heard people complain about Iduro (i read it several years ago), and VL kind of bored me.

    Amber Yuan (--ell7)
  • I got modded down to negative 5 as well. I think it has something to do with all the image posting that was going on earlier today. The ops apparently decided that they should erase every trace of the bug's existence. Even to posts in TrollTalk.

    Amber Yuan (--ell7)

  • Why do we like Gibson?

    Perhaps because "The sky above the port was the color of television,
    tuned to a dead channel".

    The metaphors, language, and constructions are both fresh and elegant.

    All the characters seem somewhat unrelated until they all come together in
    one crystal-clear moment. And then you probably need to read the book
    again. :)

    The immersion in the virtual world is impressive, rich, and visceral--the
    difference between Literature and Gibson is like the difference between
    VRML and Quake 3.

    Actually, let me extend that analogy. VRML is precise, painstaking, slow
    and boring. Gibson is beautiful, realistic, fast-paced, and exciting
    while still being completely unbelievable.

    Maybe it was cooler in the 80's. Maybe it appeals to the little cyberpunk
    in me, chatting on the BBS, checking out PGP for DOS, watching ANSI
    movies, and wondering what the future would be like... But I think it's
    still awesome.

    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
  • Oh man. William "FREAKING" Gibson.

    I would *love* to see Molly in a movie. (for those who don't know... if Trinity were really a badass, she'd have permanent, Woverine-esque claws to go with the leather pants and bad attitude...)

    Heck, that was worth it, just to hear Gibson make fun of Johnny Mnemonic. Maybe 'The Matrix' was how Keanu chose to make up for his sins there.

    Or, even better, the gov't would never have funded The Internet as it is today... maybe. But it sure has helped the economy.

    Man, Gibson entertains me. You know, when he got his Apple ][, he expected some kind of pulsating crystal inside. Man, was he disappointed. He's a visionary alright. We even get to read Neuromancer for my Science Fiction class. Yes!

    Thank you slashdot, you've made my day.
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
  • I definitely agree with you on the point of Gibson's writing. I've read "Neuromancer" and wasn't all that impressed with his style either. He's certainly a visionary, but I like Stepenson's writing style much better. I'm reading "Snow Crash" right now and it is awesome! It just flows much better. Easier to understand. Gibson's style is choppier, if you will. Of course, I'm a simpleton :-)

    ----------------

    "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein
  • I beg to differ. Of his mainstream fiction I've read The Wasp Factory and Walking On Glass, both of which I have found excellent -- gripping, entertaining and impeccably crafted. I've read one of his scifi books, Consider Phlebas, and while the scenery and concepts were impressive (the megaships, for example), the story itself seemed too much the standard space opera to be very interesting.
  • Back in 1992, I did a philosophy subject (Metaphysics) at university. We were handed a booklet of photocopied essays and writings. One of these (which we covered in the "nature of identity" part of the course) was Gibson's The Winter Market.

    There were also two stories about time travel -- one by Bradbury and one by Heinlein -- showing the wrong and right way to cover such a concept.
  • I must agree with you here. Jeff Noon's writing has a lyrical quality reminiscent of Gibson at his finest, and manages to mix ultra-gritty realism with amazing flights of fancy, and make it all credible. (One particularly apt word I've seen used to describe Noon's writings is kaleidopunk.)

    In particular, Vurt and the Pixel Juice story compilation are essential reading.
    Though they're definitely not hard sci-fi.
  • I think he was in the right place, at the right time, with enough talent to pull it off.

    He's science fiction's Linus Torvalds (or Rob Malda).
  • crypto means hidden. crypto-fascist means hidden fascist.

    Standard plot device: a secret fascist conspiracy is gonna take over the world, call in FEMA, suspend the constitution, and Kris Kristoferson will star in the movie they make about it.

    Matrick plot device: a not so secret artificial intelligence already took over the world. I call this the decrypto-automatic menace, because I don't think anyone's named that one yet. For example, Terminator and T2 used the decripto-automatic menace as a plot device.

    22:59 and I'm still at work. Can you tell?
  • Well, maybe he meant that since the basic mesage of the movie is that knowledge is a double-edged sword and is not necessarily desirable, the moneyed creators of the movie might have been advocating crypto-fascism as a means of maintaining popular ignorance.

  • People can't get over Gibson for a number of reasons. First because he practically invented modern cyberpunk. I have not read Neal Stephenson, but from what I see in the comments, he writes cyberpunk novels. Well, cyberpunk basically didn't exist before Gibson, so Gibson is one of the giants whose shoulders Stephenson stands on. Gibson, in turn, is standing on the shoulders of Philip K Dick and John Brunner. Would anyone care to add to that list?

    But he didn't just invent it, he writes about it in a compelling and convincing manner, drawing out the social and psychological impact of the worlds he descibes. He explores the deeper issues, rather than just moving on the plot. And then he weaves the philosophical issues in to the plot. Gibson isn't just trying to write page-turning sci-fi, he's trying to write literature. And IMHO succeeding. Neuromancer, for example, isn't just held in high regard by the fans. It won the Hugo, the Nebula and the Philip K Dick Memorial, that's a lot of critical acclaim. That, I feel, makes it very hard to justify your claim that Gibson's stories are not well written.

    The question he was asked about the nanites which he answered by saying he might notice peoples' clothes illustrates a point you seem to have missed. Gibson is an artist, not a scientist. In fact he doesn't seem to be interested in science or technology, but the effects that they have upon people and the world. It seems that you dislike him because he isn't a geek. Why do you consider him to be "hard" science fiction? He doesn't really write about science or technology, just situations. In his recent appearance on BBC Radio's 'Desert Island Disks' he accepted the suggestion by the interviewer that he writes about "the cutting edge of the now". That really sums it up for me.

  • NPR featured an interview with William freaking Gibson on their Talk of the Nation program way back in November. There might not be enough Gibson in the interview to satisfy the die-hard GibsonPhile, as he shared airtime with David Brin, Anne Simon, and a whole lot of callers (it's a call-in talk show). But if you're still interested (and if these links work) you can go to their Talk of the Nation [npr.org] site, or listen to the RealAudio [npr.org] version.

  • Oh Shit. I've started a flamewar, haven't I?

    So WHY do you prefer Gibson? Sometimes Stephenson's stories have slightly weak endings - I'll give you that. Apart from that, I just don't see it.

    Gibson seems to do a Katz - use lots of long, cool sounding words & phrase - and the story seems to come a distant second. With Stephenson, at least you'll get a decent storyline.


  • Nice. Good for a few belly laughs. :-)

    However, I feel compelled to point out that sendmail was written by Eric Allman, not Eric Raymond.
  • <shameless plug&gt

    I did an interview with Gibson a couple months ago for The Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper. We talked about Japan-cool, popculture strip-mining, humanism in sf, and other nerdy subjects.

    You can read the interview (and download a Palm doc of it) here [craphound.com]. The raw transcript is here [craphound.com].

    </shameless plug&gt

  • Wow, I decide to read at -1 for once and I'm rewarded with this. That was great. You should post it to Segfault where it has a higher probability of being seen, though.
    --
  • So he invented a couple of cool words: "Neuromacer" in particular. Apart from that... his writing is... average, I'd say. Neal Stephanson's stories are much easier to read, and make a lot more sense.

    I'd like to say the same thing about Gibson AND Stephenson. I just picked up Stephenson's "Snow Crash", and after the the intriguing first chapter or so, it degenerates into all the standard cyberpunk cliches, with the standard monotonous plot and cardboard characters.

  • Re:crypto-fascist subtext (Score:3)

    by Dilbert_ ( 17488 ) on Thursday February 03, 2000 @11:48PM (#1307155) Homepage
    Ok, I might sound stupid here, but...
    "[the matrix] didn't have the kind of crypto-fascist subtext that one might expect with that kind of money. "

    Does anyone know what he means by that?

    Since the movie was produced by Warner Brothers, and they are part of MegaTimeAOLWarnerBigEvilCompany(tm), he would have expected it to look a lot more negative at 'evil hackers'. But contrary to what Gibson expected from such a big corporation, they actually produced a movie in which 'hackers' who fight the existing order are portrayed as positive, even as heroes.

    Of course, that's my interpretation, Gibson might have meant something completely different.

  • Re:Why can't people get over Gibson? (Score:3)

    by susano_otter ( 123650 ) on Thursday February 03, 2000 @09:58PM (#1307156) Homepage

    I think Gibson's strength is his ability to portray the interactions between society and technology--both on the macro level and also on the individual level.

    His stories aren't about tech so much as they are about people interacting with, and reacting to, tech. This is something that's easy for techs to overlook--this fact that the end-user experience is so much different from the specialist's or the designer's experience. Not to mention the experience of the culture as a whole--an experience that occurs simultaneously with the tech's changing of that culture, and the culture's changing of the tech.

    Gibson comes closer to telling us what tech means, really, to all of us as a group and to each of us as individuals. He sees a world we all live in but can't really visualise.

  • Best out-of-context quote: (Score:4)

    by KodaK ( 5477 ) <sakodak&gmail,com> on Thursday February 03, 2000 @07:20PM (#1307157) Homepage
    This is the best out-of-context quote I think I've ever seen:

    "Well, I'm playing with it, but it hasn't yet completely entangled me. If I play with it sufficiently, it probably will."
    -- William Gibson

  • Re:my author can beat up your author (Score:4)

    by Kaa ( 21510 ) on Thursday February 03, 2000 @07:13PM (#1307158) Homepage
    So WHY do you prefer Gibson?

    I am not the poster you are answering, but I'll give it a try. Stephenson writes very cool, highly entertaining plot-and-software/technical-gadgets-driven fiction. I like Stephenson very much. Gibson, however, writes high literature as opposed to just fiction. He writes imagery, mood, concepts and feelings that are not expressable in three-word sentences. The genres are different -- you can like both (I do), but Gibson is much more classy.

    Gibson seems to do a Katz

    Oh-oh. If you don't understand the difference between Gibson and Katz, it's going to be hard to have a meaningful conversation with you. Read both. Think. Reread. Repeat as necessary.

    Kaa

  • Offtopic: I have an addiction here. (Score:5)

    by Shoeboy ( 16224 ) on Thursday February 03, 2000 @06:52PM (#1307159) Homepage
    8 hours before story posts? I can't deal with that. I know the /. crew is busy at linuxworld and all - but for those of us who work for a certain company in redmond, that's not considered a good excuse.
    It's been awful. Around 7:00 PST one of my developers started twitching and muttering 'need slashdot, need slashdot.' By 8:00 he was screaming about being attacked by snakes. Then he went nuts and started attacking us. By this time the rest of us were shaking so badly we couldn't fight him off. We would have been in trouble if my non-techie boss hadn't arrived and beat him senseless with an unsold copy of MS Bob. (see, it is good for something.)
    Please don't do this again.
    I need my fix.
    --Shoeboy

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