Throughout Gibson's corpus there is constant mention of things Australian, sometimes the kind of things- like redback beer or R.M Williams- which speak of a deep familarity with the place- or at least an extended holiday.

What fascinates me most about Gibson's pattern of reference is the aspect of recognition. Growing up in Australia one is conditioned to belive that you have to leave the country in order to make any kind of global impression, that the local culture is, from a gloabl perspective, irrelevant. So in a sense finding references to Australia in the work of non-Australians is a weird form of vindication, a kind of verification of cultural existence on the global stage.

I've had this experience with other works but Gibson is only writer I can think of off-hand who uses Australian references on an ongoing basis.

After all his reading of one of Chopper Read's (Australia's most infamous living criminal)books informed his depiction of the Blackwell character in Idoru, so the Australian influence seems to be more than incidental.

I've often wondered if Gibson is ever going to use Australia as a setting, as he did once in the short piece "Academy Leader" which posited the existence of a Darwin Free Trade Zone, which got me thinking about my the possible future of my own country in ways I hand't previously thought of.

Given that Gibson's work contains references to various countries, cultures and sub-cultures I wonder if this kind of experience is common, if there are Spainish readers whom have felt a similar jolt of recognition and difference from reading his descriptions of Gaudi's Garden. And so on.

It would also be interesting to see if Gibson would write about anything regarding Pine Gap. Watching the news today, it was revealed that Pine Gap is going to be used extensively when/if an attack on Iraq takes place. This makes Australia even more of a terrorist target. Also no-one really knows what is inside of it, we know that it is used for ommunications, however are there any other uses? Defence systemes e.t.c. If America has suck a stake in Pine Gap, then I wonder if the Government has any control over involvement with the U.S at all.

I am even more surprised he hasn't set anything in his hometown Vancouver. If you ever walked Robson on a Saturday, you'd wonder as well...

In Virtual Light/Idoru, there are several references to Mexico City. Some of them hardly flattering... but right on the money, even today. I imagined his tall figure, strolling around the Zona Rosa like any just another tourist, wary, somewhat fearful but still fascinated at the sights... or watching the traffic down Lazaro Cardenas Avenue... he came here just before "Parties" coming out, and got toured around by the people of some of the city's cultural institutes, AFAIK.

He's got quite a gift on conveying the flavor of a city. I particulary like his description of light seeping down the door in Tokyo...

The Winter Market is set in Vancouver, but I don't know of any other WG work that features the city.

Yeah, he just replied to this in his blog--gives you kind-of a warm, fuzzy feeling deep down, aye? The way he wrote it hit me instantly as a complete other-end-of-the-spectrum from the very, very, and yes once again -very- good cyberpunk graphic novel series called Transmetropolitan-surely someone else here has read it? It's main character is Spider Jerusalem, a rather infamous journalist in a town known simply as 'The City'. It delves deeply into his person at times, and on more than one occasion he brings up how he has to live in The City, regardless of how much he hates it, in order to write. In actuality, it's shown when in The City, all he can do is write. William seems different; he needs his 'civilian' life as he put it there, in order to write about everywhere else.
Interesting indeed.

ut now when I see her sometimes when I'm trying
to sleep, I see her somewhere out on the edge of all this
sprawl of cities and smoke, and it's like she's a
hologram stuck behind my eyes.

The Australian references in All Tomorrow's Parties seemed to get out of hand...

Not only did Blackwell make an appearance, but Chevette's friend Tessa was an Aussie Media student, who managed to find a Bridge bar that stocked Redback Beer (brewed in Flemington Road, Melbourne)

Then the nameless assassin's watch was ex-Royal Australian Airforce ordinance...

Interesting comment in the blog that to Canadians, Australia seems a mirror-world of the US, and NZ a mirror-world of Canada.

Lots of Oz-Canada resonances in my (limited) experience. BC felt quite a lot like home in many ways.

Never mind upside-down light switches though - my mirror-world moment came at a party where all the guys gathered in the kitchen for a passionate discussion of hockey (would have been Aust Rules football in this neck of the woods)!

Transmet is hardly cyberpunk. The writer, Warren Ellis hates cyberpunk. There may be shared elements, but I'd call it post-cyberpunk if you have to label it.

The Australian characters in Gibson's Cyberspace trilogy were awful-- badly drawn impressions by an artist who must have had little experience with real Aussies.

These pseudo aussies spoke like Australians do in many American movies and tv shows--like second-rate Cockneys.

'I'm gunna scarper orf for a pint, I am, cobber'

The Australian references in the early novels didn't affect me that way partly because there seemed to be a deliberate play with cliche and cultural archetypes.

Though the references in the Virtual Light sequence resonnated most strongly partly because of the mention of incedental details, like redback beer.

I've had a similar connection sense when listening to band interviews and they cite some garage band as an influence as opposed to one of the usual type suspects.

The aspect of mirroring which Gibson mentions in his blog also made realise the extent to which fiction and other writing by non-Australians (also references in film and song) has acted as a mirror of my own set of hopes regarding my status as an Australian, namely that something distincly Australian could have a kind of gloabal cultural impact.

And here it's worth mentioning that I first read Gibson back in my late teens in a pre-Russel Crowe type universe, when most foreign awareness of Australian culture was limited to Mad Max and AC/DC- or Air Supply and the Bee Gees I guess, depending on one's tastes and all that.

In the middle of Canberra (probably non-Canberran Australians least-liked town, and whose suburbs were recently and radically redesigned by Mother Nature), there is a corner where a Starbucks and an R.M. Williams sit right next to each other, with only an inoffensive little side alley to separate them. Since reading WG's blog, I cannot now pass this corner without thinking of it as Gibson Place. Actually, unlike most other corners in central Canberra, it doesn't appear to have an official name, so maybe I should write to the city council and put in a nominal request...