William Gibson C/D

Gibson, I've only read Neuromancer, which I liked. Stephenson, only Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon; Snow Crash is fun, but the writing is rough. He hadn't figured out how to integrate his digressions and history lessons into the flow of his stories (he doesn't even try, he just keeps sending Hiro to the library for a lesson whenever there's some cool thing he wants to explain). The integration is a lot smoother in Cryptonomicon, and the characters are more well thought-out. I don't know how "accurate" his stuff is, but as a techno-idiot, I found a lot of Cryptonomicon fascinating -- it made me think about computers differently.

anybody else read the new one? was very similar to PR but with vancouver standing in for london.

I'm just starting it. The first few pages read like a Gibson piss-take. I read it under the light of a Philips quad 18-watt bayonet-fit bulb, while drinking a Kia-Ora orange drink. I'm just checking the time on my vintage japanese digital watch, which has been painstakingly restored by an Inuit-Filipino collective etc etc

i wish i'd known about this thread when i was writing an essay comparing gibson's short story 'the gernsback continuum' with pynchon's 'the crying of lot 49' :(

i have 'burning chrome' but i've only read a few of the stories. he definitely has a better writing style than stephenson, but i enjoyed 'snow crash'.

[for some reason, i kept reading the title 'neuromancer' as 'necromancer' for a really long tiime]

Gibson's technique is definitely above almost all the other sci-fi writers out there, but that's probably because Gibson was an English Lit major in college, and in the interviews I've read, he keeps up with theory, journals and all that shit (I still hold Lit gives you better background to write with than an MFA or workshop).

There's probably a whole other level to appreciate his writing on, but people don't often get into that kinda detail with sci-fi type things.

i enjoyed it, but it did feel, slightly, like a remix of PR.

terrible piece on the guardian web site (one of their jokey (?) 'digested read' things, which seem to exist just to drop spoilers and take the piss) and a better interview here: http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/sciencefiction/story/0,,2146989,00.html

although he must really be pissed off about being asked the same question for 20 years.

and he still, as i mentioned way above, drops in something every page or so that makes you stop and think 'did he just make that up? or does it really exist?'.

i loved his idea of 'semiotic ghosts' as being a representation of cultural artefacts - the results of the mass consciousness (from 'the gernsback continuum'). it was a really cool theory for explaining ufo sightings and the like.

great interview at slate

Listening to Idoru today.

> I think there's some passage in Virtual Light about Skinner being around
> for the first transistor radios or some such nonsense. What it boils
> down is basically either the characters being used for flashbacks to
> the past are incredibly old, or the near future being described by the
> writer is incredibly close to ours and completely improbable.

-- Slim Pickens (Slim Pickens), Tuesday, 24 August 2004 18:35 (2 years ago) Bookmark Link

salon interview:
"My fourth, fifth and sixth novels were written in the early '90s but take place around 2007."

This was posted on the BBC News website two days after the publication of 'Spook Country':

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6938244.stm

there are book signings in london next week, apparently.

http://www.uksfbooknews.net/2007/08/08/william-gibson-signing-london-august-28th/
and the day after at forbidden planet:
http://www.forbiddenplanet.com/Signings.html

i never got past chap 2 of idoru

the last two, Pattern Recognition and Spook Country, have been a lot friendlier for people without a technological bent. PR is especially good for people who live in london as it features quite a lot and he seems to know it quite well.

like the A-Z w.plug sockets in yr skull

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1075/1261169526_d61e8c9f06.jpg

Went to the William Gibson signing last night. Was
expecting there to be about 200 people there - was more like over
1,000. Gibson's an interesting guy, though the audience members who
were asking questions were idiots, as they always are at these things.
He was great when I got the book signed. I apologised because I was
the only person who I saw with a book that looked a bit dog-eared
because it had actually been read - everyone else had brand new copies
with the dust jackets on - and mine had coffee spilt on it. And when I
said that he replied "No, it's nice to see that it's been loved -
that's what it's there for."

I read it under the light of a Philips quad 18-watt bayonet-fit bulb, while drinking a Kia-Ora orange drink.

hahahaha

i love this guy's short stories but his novels just feel like old-fashioned thrillers with techno trappings. Spook Country feels particularly unfocused; how much freakin time was spent on "locative art" when it actually had nothing to do with the plot, etc?

Read Spook Country and then immediately re-read Pattern Recognition and I'm suspecting that the next book will somehow tie it and SC together into some sort of future history of recent past.

I didn't find Spook Country as unfocused as Tracer, but there's nothing really bringing it all together except for the triple entendre of the title. It would have been a terrific novella.

just started "pattern recognition". it gets better, i hope.

first three are the best, obvs

opening line of chapter 10 of pattern recognition must (unintentionally) be gibson's funniest line, ever

"She's down for a jack move."

reading this is reminding me that he's super good at dialogue, not as good at interior monologue.

how much freakin time was spent on "locative art" when it actually had nothing to do with the plot, etc?

very otm

also he repeats himself a lot lately. for example i just noticed that in "pattern recognition" he uses the phrase "semiotic neutrality" twice in 30 pages. when a dude writes this spare it sort of leaps out at you.

AINT NO TELLIN WHEN IM DOWN FOR A JACK MOVE

exactly

he has neat little moments of people interacting with an object (uh that sounds kind of lame). what stuck with me from PR is the bit where Cayse teaches the dutch weirdo how to put on a fedora

also the very next line after that "semiotic neutrality" bit.

"Her own place, in New York, is a whitewashed cave..."

which is how he described the mexican hotel at the beginning of "count zero". "The room was a tall cave. Bare white plaster reflected sound with too much clarity ..."

is this riffing on one's own themes or is he literally re-writing the matrix trilogy here?

yeah that was rather cool

maybe he's just not very good!

re: dutch weirdo. i have no idea what "tom cruise fed a diet of truffles and virgins blood" (or however he puts it) would look like, so i am imagining joseph beuys.

it would look just like tom cruise amirite

I just recently finished Pattern Recognition; I need to make sure I read every single fucking thing this man has written.

awesome awesome awesome book.

Is that one good? The last thing I read by him was Idoru and I swore that was the last time I got sucked into reading a Gibson book.

It was a very interesting take on Internet memes and marketing; the ideas flying around in it were really fascinating (suzy I'm not at all surprised you liked it; it seems like the stuff he was talking about would be right up your alley).

yup usually I find him really boysy so this was pretty good, ha ha girl allergic to branding!

I never finished Pattern Recognition! I couldn't get past the first 100 pages. I kinda feel obligated to try again though.

Pattern Recognition was one of my favorite Gibson novels, I really like his writing about the present. Idoru is one of my other favorites (along with Count Zero). I still haven't read the latest one. But Dan, yeah, you should probably read everything; the only ones that kind of dragged for me were Virtual Light and Mona Lisa Overdrive (which was probably better than I remembered).

oh and I think he very definitely references his own work as pointed out before, note that the character is named Casey and the main character of Neuromancer was Case. I dont' think it "means" anything, but it's done with purpose.

Pattern Recognition was awesome .... Spook Country (sort of a sequel?) I didn't like that much

have not read PR, just picked up Spook Country at a book exchange and am enjoying it, although it seems almost stereotypical for him as stet notes above.

HI DERE u should definitely read the first three as well. I didn't like Idoru much.

I found an audiobook of Gibson reading Neuromancer, and was addicted to it for the most part of last year. I couldn't stop listening to it. (His voice is so hypnotic!) But it made me realize that I probably wouldn't have made it through the book if I'd been left to my own devices. Now I want to gobble up everything he's written. Pattern Recognition is next on my list, I think. Neuromancer blew my mind though, I couldn't get over how...original...it was. I felt like I'd just discovered this 'new' thing, even though the story's, what, 24 years old? Crazy. What a guru..

Spook Country seems a little recycled after Pattern Recognition, but it still has its good points. I'd say PR is probably the stronger book. I'm looking forward to whatever comes next.

Did everyone catch the Chris Cunningham references in the director character in Pattern Recognition?

William Gibson-designed shoes
http://www.selfedge.com/shop/images/br_wg_low_cut/gibsonchucks1_main.jpg

I liked Pattern Recognition BUT the story just recycles the plot of his Count Zero, and then Spook Country recycles PR a bit.