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William Gibson's Latest Novel 279

Posted by michael from the stuff-to-read dept.
crumbz writes "It looks like the grand master of cyberpunk has a new novel coming out entitled Pattern Recognition. Apparently, reviewer copies have been making the rounds on ebay and the word on the street is that it is his best work in years."
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William Gibson's Latest Novel More

William Gibson's Latest Novel

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  • well... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by acehole ( 174372 ) on Friday January 03, 2003 @10:58PM (#5012008) Homepage
    Personally, I'm waiting for a 'Neuromancer' movie to be made, but it would have very high expectations to live up to.

    But a new book is still pretty good ;)

    • Re:well... (Score:3, Funny)

      by Valar ( 167606 )
      Oh, goodness. Your sig filled me with the urge to listen to tenacious D.

    • Neuromancer, the movie. (Score:5, Informative)

      by I'm a racist. ( 631537 ) on Friday January 03, 2003 @11:31PM (#5012205) Homepage Journal
      The best info on the movie [corona.bc.ca], that I know of, comes from Coming Attractions [corona.bc.ca]. It appears that Chris Cunningham [director-file.com] is still involved with the project (as of May '02), which is a good sign.

      Cunningham is one of the best visual directors out there, and his style meshes really well with Gibson's prose. Cunningham worked with Kubrick while still in his teens. He did some of the initial design work for "A.I.", which is still visible even though Spielberg's usual crap surrounds it.

      Of course, film is a collective artform, and a good director + good source material != good movie, in many cases. I don't know much about Cunningham's writing abilities, or how involved he is with the adaptation. Gibson's work has not been successfully adapted, yet (that's debatable, but most will agree with me).

      It would be a real shame to see someone fuck up this project. I'm more forgiving of something like "Johnny Mnemonic" and "New Rose Hotel", because they were adapted from short stories, and therefore required a lot of reworking. I think "Neuromancer", with the right visual touch, could play really well without too much adaptation. One of the best things about Gibson's work, and "Neuromancer" in particular, is the viscerality of it all, the vividness... if they can capture that on film properly, there's a good chance it could be successful. The biggest danger in adapting this book is that there's great potential for the story to get really muddled.
      • It appears that Chris Cunningham [director-file.com] is still involved with the project (as of May '02), which is a good sign.

        The first time I saw the mention of a Neuromancer movie was as a sticker on the box for the videogame version when I bought it in fifth grade (~1988). I stopped holding my breath a long time ago.
    • Its release I believe is meant to occur about the time Duke Nukem Whenever appears...

      bbh

  • Slack bastard authors (Score:5, Funny)

    by geoffybiggins ( 160923 ) on Friday January 03, 2003 @10:59PM (#5012017)
    Hang on: "word on the street is that it is his best work in years." It's his only work in years, since '99 I believe. If people are going to write books, especially totally awesome rad books like Gibsons are, they could at least have the decency to write MORE, instead of making us wait so long, the bastards.

  • I've read it (Score:5, Informative)

    by SRMoore ( 87075 ) on Friday January 03, 2003 @11:00PM (#5012024)
    I've read it. I got it through a used book store on amazon. (I know your not supposed to do this because the write gets no money from it, but I'm going to buy a copy in hard cover when it gets out)

    I will say it is one of his best books. It takes place in modern day time. Which is unusual for him, but it talks about the usual information and the net. But this time there is a little spin in the motives driving the characters.

    I would say that anyone that likes Gibson's stuff, should get this book.

    • Re:I've read it (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The writer gets no money from it because he already got his money from the initial sell...there's nothing morally ethically or legally wrong with buying a used book, no one is getting cheated out of money...this is the same argument the riaa is trying to use to close down smaller used tape/cd stores and its sickening...please try to be educated about these things before making comments like that

      • Re:I've read it (Score:2, Informative)

        by SRMoore ( 87075 )
        I realize that, but most review/preview editions are not sold. They are given to people, so the writer doesn't get anything. So that is why I want to support him.

      • Re:I've read it (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Hast ( 24833 )
        True, but then what changes it from piracy, really?

        I just thought about that not too long ago when I was in a store and saw Arcanum for sale. I tried the game out for a little bit before, but I never got anywhere with it. But I really did like it. So I was considering to buy it to support the makers, and because it's nicer to actually own it. Now I could get it used for less then half the price new. (Since it's rather old it's in the bargin bin.) But then I knew that the producers wouldn't get anything from it.

        So really, if I had copied the game and sent money (say half of the buying price for the used copy) to the makers wouldn't that have been a better way to show my appriciation?

        Now I don't try to claim that it's unetical to sell used games, or that it's the same to buy used games as to pirate games. I guess it's just dependent on what you want to do 1) own the product or 2) benefit the producers.

        • Re:I've read it (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Unordained ( 262962 )
          "first sale doctrine" says that once they've sold you a product, you can do whatever you like with it, including selling it off to others. exception: software is sold as a license that is non-transferable (a bit like a diploma can't be sold to another person.) this gets around the first-sale doctrine by forcing you to keep your copy once you've bought it -- you, and only you, have the right to use the product. the value of the license was immediately used up, and that's it (a bit like not being able to sell your experience on a roller coaster -- only your personal enjoyment is left, unless people just want to pay to listen to you talk about it.)

          in the case of physical items like books, cd's, etc. the first sale doctrine still applies, until the *aa changes the way we purchase media to always mean we purchase licenses to view the media (possibly for a period of time only.) it'll be a bit hard to expire paper-books, but ... they'll try somday.

          as to supporting the original authors, you might just send them a check. buy the used copy, and send the author money. original authors get very little through their distributors unless they're lucky, famous, etc. [see google] and this way they'd get a letter from you. make their day.

  • reading Gibson (Score:4, Interesting)

    by technoid_ ( 136914 ) on Friday January 03, 2003 @11:03PM (#5012046) Homepage Journal
    Reading Gibson is something that drew me into computers when I was younger. I find myself picking up Neuromancer or CZ (sometimes MLO) to just read a certain scene he has painted in my head. I once found myself reading Neuromancer page by page backwards just reading his descriptions of the scenery of our future.

    After the article about the FCC letting the telcos merge back, maybe Gibson predicted the future more accurately than most think.

    So will SBC be the next Tessier-Ashpool?

    • Tessier-Ashpool (Score:4, Interesting)

      by No Such Agency ( 136681 ) <abmackay AT gmail DOT com> on Friday January 03, 2003 @11:27PM (#5012184)
      I have to admit that while Gibson's vision of a bizarre corporate clan, so detached from normal morality and laws as to be rendered barely human, is certainly great writing, it seems less and less likely as time goes on. Corporations grow more and more transnational, less and less attached to physical reality, and in doing so they become ever more like acerebral beasts run by a hippocampal mass of shareholders with short-term profits as the overwhelming driving force. CEO's and VP's are disposable plug-in modules, and hereditary family ownership of significant blocks of shares grows rare.

      Hmm, I grow weary. Time to climb back in the cryo-pod and activate 2No Such Agency in my place...

      • Re:Tessier-Ashpool (Score:5, Informative)

        by st. augustine ( 14437 ) on Saturday January 04, 2003 @12:35AM (#5012487)

        CEO's and VP's are disposable plug-in modules, and hereditary family ownership of significant blocks of shares grows rare.
        Even in Neuromancer | Count Zero | Mona Lisa Overdrive they're rare. Tessier-Ashpool is presented as a bizarre aberration, held together only by their weird cryogenic setup and the family AIs. Traditional corporations like Hosaka, Maas, and Sense|Net are the norm.

        I don't think "transnational, less and less attached to physical reality, and... ever more like acerebral beasts" is anything but an accurate description of most of Gibson's corporations.

        • Good points. I must have been asleep at the button writing that... And I'd better re-read Neuromancer :-)

        • Re:Tessier-Ashpool (Score:3, Informative)

          by Yokaze ( 70883 )
          > Traditional corporations [...] are the norm.

          I thought that his description was, that there are essentially two kinds of companies left. Those transnational entities similar to T-A and little shark companies. Small, fast, flexible, biting. Traditional companies ceased to exist.

          Tessier-Ashpool was only an exception, because they were still ruled and owned by a family, but not in other aspects. Actually, in being family-run, it was a remnant of the last century.

  • Regular Expressions? (Score:5, Funny)

    by wideBlueSkies ( 618979 ) on Friday January 03, 2003 @11:06PM (#5012067) Journal
    We really don't need another regex book.

    This one [oreilly.com] does just fine.

  • Ask Slashdot? Other great sci-fi/cyberpunk author (Score:4, Interesting)

    by aSiTiC ( 519647 ) on Friday January 03, 2003 @11:17PM (#5012132) Homepage
    Has there been a discussion of recent good sci-fi/cyberpunk authors on Slashdot recently? I'm constantly on the search for good books but the genre of scifi is definitely cloudy as far as quality. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

    Already noted William Gibson, will check out.
    • A lot of sf fans are actively hostile to cyberpunk nowadays; all they want is multibook stories about the space navy (I swear, it seems that all they talk about on rec.arts.sf.written are Bujold and Weber). Bruce Sterling's still writing; I like his stuff, but tastes differ. Stephenson is the darling of Slashdot, so you'll probably get a half-dozen people recommending him. Gibson, Stephenson, and Sterling probably make up the Big Three of cyberpunk, with somewhat less famous authors like Pat Cadigan also contributing to the field.

      I think the short story market is MUCH friendlier to cyberpunk--any given issue of F&SF or Asimov's will likely have a cyberpunk or cyberpunkish story.

      I don't know what you mean by "recent"; last few years, or 1990 on, or what? If you haven't read C.S. Friedman's This Alien Shore, I highly recommend it. A cross between cyberpunk and space opera, and very, very good. But it's not from 1991, so not sure if you'd count it "recent".

      Finally there are the novelizations of games such as Shadowrun or Cyberpunk. Never read them myself, but if that's your thing, who am I to judge?
      • I also liked Rudy Rucker's Software and Wetware. It was a bit hard to get started reading Software, but once started I really enjoyed it.

        I see he has also written quite a bit more [sjsu.edu]


      • I recently finished reading reMix by Jon Courtenay Grimwood. Tagline: "William Gibson meets Quentin Tarantino". He's got a lot of books on the shelf at Borders right now, though this one a reprint of a book frim '97. I'll say that it seems like he took a lot of other ideas I've seen in other cyberpunk and "remixed" them, but maybe that's the point. It was definitely a fun ride, even though not particularly original in some dimensions.

        As for Cyberpunkish writing in F&SF, not sure what you mean. I'm about 18 months behind reading my subscription, but I haven't read many cyberpunkish stories in most of the two years prior to that.

      • After hearing about Bruce Sterling I found a copy of Islands in the Net in a used bookstore.

        From what I remember the novel was pretty good with a nice "flow" to it... you kept wanting to turn the page. Then about two chapters from the end he pulls the handbrake and makes the story painfull to finish.

        I've never been able to bring myself to read another one by him. Anyone with thoughts about his other books?

        • Re:Ask Slashdot? Other great sci-fi/cyberpunk auth (Score:5, Interesting)

          by st. augustine ( 14437 ) on Saturday January 04, 2003 @12:30AM (#5012462)

          After hearing about Bruce Sterling I found a copy of Islands in the Net in a used bookstore... I've never been able to bring myself to read another one by him. Anyone with thoughts about his other books?
          His short stories are excellent -- check out the collections Globalhead and A Good Old-Fashioned Future.

          As for the novels, personally I think Heavy Weather and Zeitgeist are brilliant, but I've had trouble convincing other people of this. Schismatrix, which is rather older, is also quite good -- something like what might have happened if Heinlein's juveniles had been written by William S. Burroughs.

          If your wondering whether you'd like Sterling, probably the easiest thing to do is check out some of his nonfiction online [chriswaltrip.com].

          (Oh, and if you like Sterling, or even Stephenson, you should also probably check out Charles Stross [asimovs.com]. You might call his stuff post-Slashdot cyberpunk.)

        • Strange. Myself, I found Islands of the Net extremely dull and slow; I really had to be diligant to keep reading. It got better towards the end but overall wasn't that great, in my opinion. Which surprised me alot, since I love Stephenson's works and Gibson is pretty good as well. Perhaps my expectations were too high, since I keep hearing how Sterling is the 'other' big name in cyberpunk.

      • Re:Ask Slashdot? Other great sci-fi/cyberpunk auth (Score:5, Informative)

        by Bicoid ( 631498 ) on Saturday January 04, 2003 @01:06AM (#5012628)
        Mmph....I think it really depends on taste. Stephenson is more technical than other cyberpunk authors. But frankly, I like Gibson a LOT more...I even like Rucker more than him. Also, thogh not many people have read his work, Tom Maddox's stuff is quite good. He's a LOT like Gibson, but his future is more constructive than Gibson's.

        Also, my favorite cyberpunk author besides Gibson is John Shirley. He has the same thick noir imagery which makes Gibson's work so beautiful. His more recent stuff has sort of slipped into horror (or what some pundits call splatterpunk, whatever that is).

        I also like Sterling a lot, and though his work tends not to be technical, he IS highly politically-conscious and has also done some journalism as well. His stuff tends to focus on politics surrounding technology rather than the tech itself (consider Schismatrix....it's ALL about technology politics). His short stories are, indeed, his forte and I got a real kick out of his recent Deep Eddy stories.

        There's also Rucker (whose cyberpunk is more transcendentalist than anything else). Software and Wetware are good, though the series sort of fizzles out. Cadigan is good, but I find her a little bland. Shiner is weird...really weird. And that's basically the movement right there.

        There's also other people who've written assorted cyberpunk novels, such as Greg Bear's Blood Music or Greg Egan's Permutation City. You could even *potentially* call some Phil K. Dick books cyberpunk....A Scanner Darkly, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Ubik, and Valis are all more or less cyberpunk.

        As for today, the only real "new" cyberpunk author is Charles Stross, who I personally find to be a fascinating author. Everyone else has been writing in the subgenre for 10-20 years.
      • A lot of sf fans are actively hostile to cyberpunk nowadays

        Yes, I have been staying inside the Fantasy genre myself.

        Reading Snowcrash, and Neuromancer during my college years while studying Computer Science was a real mind job. Especially during the dot-com years. I think a lot of us really thought the "Cyberpunk" phenomenon was happening before our eyes.

        In the wake of the last 2-3 years though many of those dreams of progress in a technocracy have been crushed. I can't even pick up a Sci-Fi novel anymore. I never realised how important my fantasies were in motivating me in real life. And I never realized how damaged I would be when reality decided to veto my fantasy.

        Ya I know. Grow up, get laid, etc. etc.
    • I haven't seen Walter Jon Williams mentioned. Two of his more cyberpunkish novels are Hardwired [amazon.com] and Voice of the Whirlwind [amazon.com]. Even better, I think, is Aristoi [amazon.com], a novel set in the far future. He has also written some pretty snappy short stories; you can find a collection of them in Facets [amazon.com]. (I particularly like "Dinosaurs".)
    • Vernor Vinge has done a couple very good novels lately. His stuff is space opera rather than cyberpunk.

      You need to go back a few years to find any cyberpunk. I'd suggest Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams, and When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger.

    • greg egan. every book of his i have read has made my brain hurt severely. which is a good thing ;-). he usually starts of with one mindblowing idea and just when you kinda get a grip on that, he smacks you upside the head with another. a couple of my favourites are "permutation city" and "diaspora". you can check out some of his short stories (and cool applets he has written to demonstrate the concepts from his books) here: greg egan [netspace.net.au]
      awesome writer

    • Try Peter F. Hamilton. A good writer who burst onto the scene in the middle of the nineties. His first novels are set in England after Global Warming, with a nice mix of cyberpunk, classic whodunit, and old-fashioned psi-talent scifi:

      • Mindstar Rising
      • A Quantum Murder
      • The Nano Flower

      All feature psi-enhanced private detective (and more, but I'm not telling) Greg Mandel. They're not part of a trilogy, but still best read in order.

      About the only weakness in the series is the plotting. While Hamilton tells a good story with engaging characters, a detailed setting and a fine command of the English language, especially the first two books suffer from having the ending being obvious at about three-quarters through. The other qualities of his writing more than compensate, but it is still obvious that these were his first full-length novels.

      His other work, especially the Night's Dawn trilogy, is classic space opera, although the noir and cyberpunk elements do persist in his short stories. A nice bundling of some of his stories is 'A Second Chance at Eden' which might serve as a nice introduction to his style.

      Mart

  • Best Work In Years (Score:2, Insightful)

    by rnb ( 471088 )
    I hope it is his best work in years.

    Don't get me wrong, I adore Gibson. I think the Sprawl Series was one of the best things ever put to paper. I've read Neuromancer at least ten times. I loved Burning Chrome. I love every article I've seen him write for Wired or whatever magazine he's travelling to Asia for this month. His interviews rock because the man is both highly intelligent and very interesting. I'm dying to see No Maps For These Territories.

    Having gushed, though, I just don't like any of his recent novels. I read Virtual Light and didn't think it was that great. I couldn't finish Idoru. I didn't even bother with All Tomorrow's Parties.

    I'm sure they're great books for those who like them, but for some reason, I just haven't been able to get into his more recent stuff.

    I'm dying in the hopes that this new one matches up with his earlier work. Maybe that's wrong. Maybe I'm just living in the past. But I can still go back to any of that stuff--I just bought my third copy of Burning Chrome a month ago--and I walk away from reading a page or two, just thinking: Jesus Christ, this man oozes talent. He's got enough for him and two more writers. And I just haven't felt that way about his work in a while.

    So, I really, really hope this is his best work in years.
    • I really enjoy Gibson's work and that includes more recent books like the aforementioned Virtual Light and Idoru. That said I think he has been rewriting the same book over and over again with different characters and details. I would like to see him write a book where the central theme is not Artificial Intelligence.
    • I didn't even bother with All Tomorrow's Parties.

      That's a pity, because ATP far surpasses VL and Idoru.

      I've loved everything I've read of Gibson's, but those two seemed to be the most conventional in terms of style. All Tomorrow's Parties is like some kind of hybrid of a science fiction novel and a poem. I was very pleased.
    • see subject, All Tomorrow's Parties is better then Neromancer, hands down.

  • i have to say... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by stonebeat.org ( 562495 )
    the excerpt from the book, didn't give me enuff motivation to actually go and buy the book.

    maybe one day it will be on gutenberg, and i will read it ;)

    But don't take my word for it, cause i am no expert in litrature. Maybe you will love the book.....

  • Is He Even Relevant? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tremblay99 ( 534187 ) on Friday January 03, 2003 @11:36PM (#5012232)
    Neuromancer blew me away -- it was awesome. And clacked out on a manual typewriter. Count Zero was a little less so. Mona Lisa Overdrive was a decent read (awesome, awesome cover on the original hardcover, mind you). The Difference Engine was a slog. Idoru and Virtual Light blur together.

    In lit-crit circles, it is often said that a poet's best work is his earliest (think Coleridge or Bob Dylan) ... while novelists take time to mature (Dickens, P.K. Dick, or Kim Stanley Robinson). I think Gibson's a poet -- people read him (at least I do) for the descriptions, the images, the language, not the story.

    Of course, if he's become a novelist and has learned how to tell a story ... with fleshed-out characters, with substance over flash and some hook in the story to hold on to, he might yet become a worthwhile read again.

    • I don't know that the lit-crit circles have any application to reality. Tim Powers, for example wrote several bad novels (at least so I presume, they haven't been reprinted in ages), then several magnificent ones (The Drawing of the Dark through Last Call) and then a handful of bad ones (attempts to do "sequels" if you will to Last Call that in my opinion just didn't work). I think it's simply that everyone has a peak and valleys on either side. Some writers peak early, some don't.
      • [Tim Powers wrote] several magnificent [novels] (The Drawing of the Dark through Last Call) and then a handful of bad ones (attempts to do "sequels" if you will to Last Call that in my opinion just didn't work).

        I basically agree, except that with his latest novel, Declare, he seems to have finally escaped his rut, and turned out a truly fine novel, IMO, for the first time in several years. It won the 2001 World Fantasy Award, which suggests I'm not the only one who thinks so. :)

        Of course, this just re-emphasises your "peaks and valleys" argument. Except that it means that writers may have multiple peaks and/or multiple valleys. Which only makes sense -- people are complex beasts. Anyway, to bring this back around to topic, all theories aside, there is no reason whatsoever that this new work shouldn't be Gibson's best-to-date. It might be, it might not be, I'll judge it when I read it.
    • All Tommorrow's Parties was recent and pretty cool, it had organic buildings and the Golden Gate bridge was a big ramshackle city unto itself. It's been awhile since i read it, but every one of his books has good (technological) ideas in it (many of which have now become rather prophetic) I think that's plenty good enough to make him relevant. Plus, his descriptions of food are original and always make me really hungry, heh.

      I agree his prose is poetic; it is also complicated, terse, and often infuriatingly ambiguous. This is why these AC's are trashing Gibson: they aren't advanced enough to read him.

    • So basically what you are saying is some authors are good from the get go, some grow into it later and some are initally good and then burn out? Well that basically covers the entire spectrum when talking about anything.
    • In lit-crit circles, it is often said that a poet's best work is his earliest (think Coleridge or Bob Dylan) ... while novelists take time to mature (Dickens, P.K. Dick, or Kim Stanley Robinson). I think Gibson's a poet -- people read him (at least I do) for the descriptions, the images, the language, not the story.


      I'd dispute lumping Dickens in with the rest. In fact, his novels were tremendously popular, to the point of being serialized as he finished the chapters. Although we regard his work as classic nowadays, he was the 19th century equivalent of one of today's blockbuster authors.


      I suspect that 100 years from now Tom Clancy, et al, will not be held in quite the high esteem.


      -h-

    • Off topic, but wassn't PKD tactic to write a whole bunch of short stories, then when he got older convert them into novels? Still love him tho. Not that excited about Gibbo.

  • cool. (Score:3, Funny)

    by sstory ( 538486 ) on Friday January 03, 2003 @11:39PM (#5012250) Homepage
    Something to read while awaiting the next Neal Stephenson book. Except that the next Neal book is going to be about some crappy period hundreds of years ago when everything sucked.

  • John Varley: Cyberpunk Emeritus (Score:5, Informative)

    by handy_vandal ( 606174 ) on Friday January 03, 2003 @11:45PM (#5012279) Homepage Journal
    I like Gibson's work as much as the next reader, but for my money the grandfather of all cyberpunk writers is John Varley.

    Varley's first novel, The Ophiuchi Hotline, has everything you could possibly want from a cyberpunk novel -- high tech, low tech, smartass computers, do-it-yourself cloning, alien invaders, polymorphous sex, plentiful drugs, multiple viewpoints, stylistic panache up the yingyang -- and was published way back in the dark ages of 1977, before anyone had heard the word cyberpunk.

    • John Brunner: Cyberpunk Emeritus (Score:4, Informative)

      by Xtifr ( 1323 ) on Saturday January 04, 2003 @12:46AM (#5012539) Homepage
      While I like Varley, I think that Brunner has a better claim to the title of "Cyberpunk Emeritus." He wrote a lot of dreck, but four titles (at least) redeem him and stake his claim to greatness: Stand on Zanzibar (1968), Jagged Orbit (1970), The Sheep Look Up (1972), and Shockwave Rider (1975). SOZ is my personal favorite (and the only one to win the Hugo), but SR is the most cyber- of them, and the one most often referenced on cyberpunk-related sites. My main problem with SR is that it was too short and didn't really cover enough (any?) new ground, in the context of having read the others already. But it's a fan favorite, and often quoted as the "first cyberpunk novel", so who am I to carp?

      And, of course, the influence of Vernor Vinge's classic (and excellent) story True Names (1981) cannot be overlooked.

      On the gripping hand, Gibson is a fine writer, and it's his works that really put the term "cyberpunk" on the map.
    • Thanks for the suggestion. I came upon Varley's Titan trilogy and was very impressed. I wasn't aware he had done anything in the cyperpunk vein; I'm now looking forward to finding these. Unfortunately Varley is not a very well-stocked author at most places.
    • is my personally defended origin of cyberpunk: check out The Stars My Destination [sfsite.com] (1956). It's got the "high tech/low life" feel that tends to characterize cyberpunk for me, physical enhancements (synthetic silver nervous systems as speed/reflex boosts), style, machinations, etc. Great book, even if you don't agree with me about it and cyberpunk.
      • Excellent observation about Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination -- remarkably cyber ... a very punk story about amazing future technologies. Not so saturated in technical details, but a rich work of literature, both serious and comic, by a damned good writer.

        He was diverse: among other things, Bester wrote the Green Lantern oath, in use to this day:
        "In brightest day, in blackest night,
        no evil shall escape my sight!
        Let those who worship evil's might,
        beware my power.. Green Lantern's light!"
        (Qualifier: there were various oaths over time. Bester's oath is the classic among them.)

        Here's a nice little poem and bio page [bloodhag.com] about Bester.
  • God I hope he hasn't simply recycled one of his brilliant short stories again. I really hope it's something good and not the same old same old.

  • william went to singapore (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hfastedge ( 542013 ) on Friday January 03, 2003 @11:56PM (#5012329) Homepage Journal
    Singapore is a high tech nation.

    In 1994, the fledling (but well backed) wired magazine sent william to the tiny island nation. I was browsing wired archives a few weeks ago and found this.

    http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.04/gibson.htm l?person=laurie_anderson&topic_set=wiredpeople [wired.com]
  • I was intrigued by what I heard about Neuromancer, Mona Lisa Overdrive etc and dutifully slogged through them, and someone gave me Virtual Light for Christmas one year - but by then I'd discovered Snowcrash and Virt and realised that Gibson's really just an historical curiosity, on a par with da Vinci's sketches of helicopters... except that Gibson never painted a Mona Lisa.

    Anyway, who needs fiction when there's Jean Baudrillard [baudrillard.com]? I defy anyone here to read America [amazon.com] and tell me it doesn't change their life, or rather their perception of their cultural environment [amazon.com] forever.

    • Re:Gibson overrated (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jonathan ( 5011 ) on Saturday January 04, 2003 @12:24AM (#5012442) Homepage
      I don't see how you can appreciate _Snowcrash_ without reading _Neuromancer_ -- It would be like watching _Blazing Saddles_ without ever seeing a real Western.

      • Re:Gibson overrated (Score:2, Insightful)

        by garibald ( 17833 )
        actually it's fairly easy to appreciate cyberpunk without reading Neuromancer, given the proliferation of the genre into the mainstream. By way of movies, terminology, and whatnot.

        I personally find reading Gibson to be painful at times because all of his conventions and ideas have been so assimilated that the originals seem... rough and unpolished. But that's just my opinion.

  • Met the guy 12 years ago... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by teutonic_leech ( 596265 ) on Saturday January 04, 2003 @12:09AM (#5012377)
    I met William Gibson 12 years ago in Austria at the Ars Electronica conference. Everyone was all dressed up and stuff and the guy shows up to hold a speech in sneakers and a beat-up pair of jeans that I bet he still wears today. Really shy - not the extravert type - I liked him right away :-) Anyway, can't wait to read his latest work - if it's anything like Neuromancer, it's a must read.
    • Yeah, William Gibson is just an incredibly approachable guy. When he was giving a signing a few years back, I stood at the back of the line so I could talk to him longer and interview him for my zine without disrupting anyone waiting to have their books signed. He spent a little over half an hour with me, talking about the script to Neuromancer, William Burroughs, Bruce Sterling, and everything else under the sun. I left feeling great, knowing I'd connected with an author whose works I really enjoyed.

      I had pretty much the opposite experience with Douglas Coupland, who rather testily blew off a small crowd of people (including me) after a reading, even though I'd already confirmed the post-reading interview with his publicist. Maybe Doug was just having a bad day, but it says a lot for Gibson that nearly every story I've heard about him casts him in a positive light. It's good to know that nice guys occasionally do finish first. If Gibson makes a visit to your town, I highly recommend attending.

  • I guess I'm in the minority (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Call Me Black Cloud ( 616282 ) on Saturday January 04, 2003 @12:21AM (#5012425)
    I've read a couple of his books (Neuromancer, The Difference Engine) and I think he's overrated. Granted, the Difference Engine seems to be generally regarded as not good, but even Neuromancer I thought was fairly boring. So he coined a word, yee haw. He might have a vision but his expression of that vision is lacking.

    Have you coined a word? Want credit [m-w.com] for it?
  • I know there are talks of a new Gibson movie running rampant, but somehow I doubt any future production will top the Matrix prequel and sequel. And the irony is that half of that is based on his pioneering works. I'd prefer he just stick to books because the odds are always greater they'll screw up another Book-->Movie conversion before making a good one, let alone one as good as what's already on the way...
  • Enjoyed the early works, for sure....and I think Stephenson borrowed much early on. But was has Gibson really done for us lately? Hmmmmm?

    Cryptonomicon is still one of my faves of all time.

    -psy

  • Cyberpunk is dead (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Animats ( 122034 )
    Cyberpunk is over, and it's been over for quite a while. Now that everyone has Internet access, it's like reading railroad stories [pinnaclewebs.com]. Besides, punk died over a decade ago. Give it up.

    "In the future, everyone will carry tiny radio-telephones in their pockets!"

    We badly need a new vision of the future. We seem to be headed for Orwell's vision: "You want a vision of the future, Winston? Imagine a boot stepping on a face for eternity". That's no good.

    • Re:Cyberpunk is dead (Score:3, Informative)

      by Yokaze ( 70883 )
      > punk died over a decade ago.

      Did it ever live in the US? I think most people who could have been punks are now in NGOs like ATTAC. (FYI: I neither disrespect punks, nor ATTAC)

      > Now that everyone has Internet access

      I think, that it is hardly the net access, that is the most important theme of the book. It is the social enviroment. The characters are (or will be) drop-outs from the society, working against the establishement, the transnational companies.
      Hence, punk.

      > We badly need a new vision of the future.

      Neal Stephensons "Diamond Age" is post-cyberpunk and its vision differs greatly from cyberpunk-vision.
      But, considering the current fast pace, with that the world is changing, I think no vision would be satisfying.

  • Gibson's Novels and Japanese Pop (Score:3, Interesting)

    by skSlashDot ( 518871 ) on Saturday January 04, 2003 @02:02AM (#5012864) Journal
    Neuromancer et al. were great. I read Virtual Light a couple times, but still can't remember a damn thing about it. Something about sunglasses, right?

    Idoru is okay, but it's a much better book if you're already a fan of Japanese Pop, or a fan of HEY! HEY! HEY! MUSIC CHAMP [google.com]. It's kind of like the American Bandstand equivalent for Japanese pop music. (For a quick English description, try here [fujitv.co.jp]). I watch HHHMC on International Channel [i-channel.com] on cable, and even if you don't speak Japanese (which I don't, really) it's alternately fascinating and hilarious. Want to watch Japanese pop stars give the show's hosts haircuts on the island of Guam? You need to watch it!

    I also really liked The Difference Engine, but it's an entirely different kind of book. I'd recommend it to any programmer, though. They just don't teach the young people enough about Ada Lovelace these days! (Okay, so Gibson's work is fiction; does that really matter [darpa.mil] these days?)

  • You might want to check out the following authors, I enjoyed their works during the time when I read Gibson, Sterling, and Stephenson.

    Daniel Keys Moran - "Emerald Eyes", "The Long Run", "The Last Dancer"

    A. A. Attanasio - "Radix"

    There is another book by Neal Stephenson called "Interface" that was published under the name Stephen Bury that I enjoyed as well.

    None of the above have the same "magic" memories as the first time I read Neuromancer but I enjoyed them.

  • than the last x-files episode he wrote.

    That was bad bad episode.
  • so damn tired. All I can think of now is that I'd like to bid on that thing on ebay, and I wish so many other people haddn't already...

  • for those other slashdotters completely uninterested in tv land

    from the biography notes [williamgibsonbooks.com] on his official site -

    ...the really peculiar thing about me, demographically, is that I probably watch less than twelve hours of television in a given year, and have watched that little since age fifteen. (An individual who watches no television is still a scarcer beast than one who doesn't have an email address.) I have no idea how that happened. It wasn't a decision.

    ...

    I suspect I have spent just about exactly as much time actually writing as the average person my age has spent watching television, and that, as much as anything, may be the real secret here.

    • That's odd. Gibson co-wrote two episodes of the X-Files, "Kill Switch" and "First Person Shooter". So he doesn't watch TV, but writes for it. Both episodes involved much of the plot in "CyberSpace", Kill Switch had an AI living in a trailer park that could control an orbiting laser platrorm. I didn't see the other one.

      Lame web site about the episodes here [antonraubenweiss.com].
  • Bruce Sterling:
    I find it useful to think of Bruce Sterling as a contemporary Mark Twain. His keynotes at various tech and design conferences are always hysterically funny and inspiring. His short stories are also top drawer. I agree that his novels are hard work, though, with perhaps only 'Holy Fire' rating as truly excellent. I'd recommend all Slashdotters with any design/environmental interest at all join his Viridian mailing list [viridiandesign.org].

    Gibson:
    I always find the weakest part of Gibson's work to be the OTT violence and happy-face Hollywood endings. The writing is so beautiful I can forgive the guy anything, though. All three of the 'Sprawl' trilogy are truly great books. The 'Bridge' trilogy is maybe more exciting to think about (nanotech, virtual pop stars made flesh etc) than to actually read. It's pretty patchy stuff and you often feel like you're being strung along. Wish he still wrote short stories but I haven't heard tell of a new one in a long time.

    Sterling/Gibson/Cyberpunk in 2003:
    These guys are aging pretty gracefully considering how badly they could have been smeared when cyberpunk flamed out. I think they also set the bar pretty high for the next generation of writers and I'm not sure someone like Neal Stephenson has advanced the state of the art very much.

    I'm basically happy these two brilliant, thoughtful, talented guys are still working and trying to help us come to grips with it all.

    Glin,
    Closet Cyberpunk 4ever

  • Great Novel (Score:3, Informative)

    by PollyJean ( 54795 ) on Saturday January 04, 2003 @11:19AM (#5013989)

    I've read Pattern Recognition. I was lucky enough to get a review copy from a local independent bookstore. It is one of Gibson's best. The interesting thing about it is that it takes place in the present. My feeling while reading the book was that the reason it worked so well in the present is because so much of the present has become the future of Gibson's previous novels (Neuromancer was published in '84. Hard to believe, sometimes).

    (a brief plot summary follows. It doesn't contain anything too spoilish, but if you don't like that kind of thing, skip it):

    The protagonist's name is Cayce Pollard (her first name is pronounced "Case," which Gibson fans will recognize as a name he seems to like). As the novel opens, Cayce is on a job in London (she lives in New York). Cayce works in advertising, and has an ability to sense what will work on not work almost immediately in things like corporate logos. She's also a "cool hunter," not in the sense of middle-aged wannabe hipsters hanging out with teenagers to see what's "in," but in the sense that she can recognize what trends will be picked up by the general public and which ones won't. Her abilities are very valuable to ad agencies, and she makes a living hiring out her services. The down side to her ability is that she's very sensitive to the point of illness to the sight of some logos. She calls it an allergy. When she sees certain logos, she'll have a panic attack.

    In her spare time, Cayce participates in an online discussion group revolving around clips of a film that have mysteriously and anonymously been turning up online. No one knows who made the film or in what order if any the the clips are supposed to be viewed, but underground interest in the clips has sprung up worldwide.

    The plot revolves around Cayce's work in advertising and her footage interest coming together, which leads her around the world. There's also a subplot involving her father's disappearance (he was last seen taking a cab in the direction of the World Trade Center on the morning of Sept. 11th, 2001), as well as several other subplots that all come together very nicely.

    (end of summary bit)

    If you've liked Gibson's other work, I strongly recommend picking this one up. It's interesting to read Gibson's writing style in a book that doesn't take place in the future (or, in the case of the Difference Engine in the past). As usual, it's the details and ideas that really make the novel. The characters are fascinating, too, particularly Cayce.

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