Has anyone noticed how William Gibson always links something or makes reference to Something Russian in almost all his books ? to name just a few you from the top of my head right now you have Ratz prosthetic arm,the two cops in Virtual light (Svobodov and Orlovsky), then he finally based must of the Story in Pattern Recognition in Russia.

Well, I don't know how old you are, but Russia used to be the biggest thing looming on the consciousnous of "the free world". The place is even more interesting now that the curtain has fallen.

So does Tom Clancy, Larry Bond, Clive Cussler.....

Fifteen minutes later

.....Matthew Reilly, Dale Brown, and Andy McNab.

Back in the bad ol' eighties (fashion-wise at least), I guess the USSR, as Martin mentioned, did loomed pretty heavily on the Western mind.

I guess WG wanted to throw that in as a bit of shock and awe, that Russian goods made it to the Holy Shores of the US and were as good, if not better, than some of the Western gear - the novelty is that it probably would've been a bit daring suggesting that the USSR cranked out material goods that could compete with Western ones.

My slightly more real opinion is that the USSR back then was just another country. Shock, horror. It made stuff, exported stuff, used stuff, etc, etc ad infinitum et nauseum. He could've just as easily used Spanish cybernetics for Ratz's hand, or, say, Morrocan software to break ICE. Could've set PR in New Zealand, though he'd have to work sheep and hobbits in there somehow.

(Although, for PR, I think it WG like the curious setting of a plutocracy).

Jeez, it's one of the greatest books of the twentieth century. Must we dissect it like a pinned frog?

While a some of WG's stuff was written in coldwartime, anyone can see that there are a lot of Russians & other East Europeans (not to forget Japanese, also very prominent in novels, and LOTS of others, you know who you are...) active on the net - there has to be a lot of intellectual and creative activity that trickles only slowly over to the english language gestalt. There's a lot of stuff that I know I am missing because I am not multilingual. I think WG is very aware of this in his thinking & writing.

To me, Russia has always been quintessentially cyberpunky. The massive inequalities of wealth are perhaps even more stark there than in the West, the urban decay is wonderful, and there are a lot of folk there who have a combination of technical smarts and street smarts that's less common in the West. The urban decay is exquisite. Anyone who has travelled in the East bloc has seen the old factories that are literally rusting and crumbling away before your eyes. It's beautiful and inspirational, IMHO.

Plus, Russians do corruption and black marketry like Americans do consumption. They're in the DNA of the culture at this point. If the czars hadn't done it, the Coms would have taken care of it.

The Russians, and the Japanese, show up in the Sprawl books because at the time they were written they looked like they would be important-- and also because they were exotic (at least from a North American point of view). They continue to show up because, well, Splitcoil has it, I think. Mainly it comes down to their being lots of them (people-wise), and begin different (culture-wise), but still being accessible and only mildly uncomfortable for a 'westerner'.

Or maybe he just likes them because they're cool.

I agree with all the above (although I might trifle a bit about the wonders of urban decay having spent a bit of time in small town in Poland that was nothing but).

And I think another reason Russia is attractive to Mr Gibson is that Russians make good characters - there's lot of different types of them and within each of these types there are many potential drivers unique to Russia.

Moreover, I think you see the development (much like the way Mr Gibson described the development of his ability to write women characters) come to full blossom in PR; in PR we have fully formed, walkin', talkin' peoples unlike the character-actors types of his earlier works. So, in that sense, I think he's found a vein to mine and finally gotten to "the good stuff" with Russian characters.

Mind ye, when I say urban decay of the Soviet variety is "wonderful," I don't mean it in a "this is the kind of place you'd want to settle down in" kind of way. The crumbling post-Soviet world is an alluring place to visit under the right circumstances. It's not an attractive place to live, for most people.

I think the most alluring thing about it to me was that the people I associated with in that part of the world were very well-educated, Westernish to a great degree, and quite cosmopolitan. Yet they lived in a crumbling, frayed-at-the-edges 1950's alternate world where no construction material seemed good for more than 20 years and hay was still transported by horse cart. It was kind of a time-travel/Buck Rogers/post-apocalyptic fantasy fulfillment experience for me.

Let's hear it for state socialism! The only system that can create decent and educated people while simultaneously preventing them from accomplishing much of anything.

I have once again been enlightened, All of you have valid points! but I still feel there might be more to it though, maybe someday i'll get to ask the man himself! I've been in moscow for like 2 months now, and from the few places i've been to its safe to say they are quite cyberpunkish over here. But they still aren't or ever will be as cyberpunkish as Japan...VIVA LA TOKYO...

Perhaps China is the new Russia then?

/to no-one in particular

quote:

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Originally posted by Nwazo:
But they still aren't or ever will be as cyberpunkish as Japan...VIVA LA TOKYO...

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So there'll be tentacles in WG's next work?