From today's most excellent /. interview with Neal Stephenson:

In a fight between you and William Gibson, who would win?

Neal:

You don't have to settle for mere idle speculation. Let me tell you how it came out on the three occasions when we did fight.

The first time was a year or two after SNOW CRASH came out. I was doing a reading/signing at White Dwarf Books in Vancouver. Gibson stopped by to say hello and extended his hand as if to shake. But I remembered something Bruce Sterling had told me. For, at the time, Sterling and I had formed a pact to fight Gibson. Gibson had been regrown in a vat from scraps of DNA after Sterling had crashed an LNG tanker into Gibson's Stealth pleasure barge in the Straits of Juan de Fuca. During the regeneration process, telescoping Carbonite stilettos had been incorporated into Gibson's arms. Remembering this in the nick of time, I grabbed the signing table and flipped it up between us. Of course the Carbonite stilettos pierced it as if it were cork board, but this spoiled his aim long enough for me to whip my wakizashi out from between my shoulder blades and swing at his head. He deflected the blow with a force blast that sprained my wrist. The falling table knocked over a space heater and set fire to the store. Everyone else fled. Gibson and I dueled among blazing stacks of books for a while. Slowly I gained the upper hand, for, on defense, his Praying Mantis style was no match for my Flying Cloud technique. But I lost him behind a cloud of smoke. Then I had to get out of the place. The streets were crowded with his black-suited minions and I had to turn into a swarm of locusts and fly back to Seattle.

The second time was a few years later when Gibson came through Seattle on his IDORU tour. Between doing some drive-by signings at local bookstores, he came and devastated my quarter of the city. I had been in a trance for seven days and seven nights and was unaware of these goings-on, but he came to me in a vision and taunted me, and left a message on my cellphone. That evening he was doing a reading at Kane Hall on the University of Washington campus. Swathed in black, I climbed to the top of the hall, mesmerized his snipers, sliced a hole in the roof using a plasma cutter, let myself into the catwalks above the stage, and then leapt down upon him from forty feet above. But I had forgotten that he had once studied in the same monastery as I, and knew all of my techniques. He rolled away at the last moment. I struck only the lectern, smashing it to kindling. Snatching up one jagged shard of oak I adopted the Mountain Tiger position just as you would expect. He pulled off his wireless mike and began to whirl it around his head. From there, the fight proceeded along predictable lines. As a stalemate developed we began to resort more and more to the use of pure energy, modulated by Red Lotus incantations of the third Sung group, which eventually to the collapse of the building's roof and the loss of eight hundred lives. But as they were only peasants, we did not care.

Our third fight occurred at the Peace Arch on the U.S./Canadian border between Seattle and Vancouver. Gibson wished to retire from that sort of lifestyle that required ceaseless training in the martial arts and sleeping outdoors under the rain. He only wished to sit in his garden brushing out novels on rice paper. But honor dictated that he must fight me for a third time first. Of course the Peace Arch did not remain standing for long. Before long my sword arm hung useless at my side. One of my psi blasts kicked up a large divot of earth and rubble, uncovering a silver metallic object, hitherto buried, that seemed to have been crafted by an industrial designer. It was a nitro-veridian device that had been buried there by Sterling. We were able to fly clear before it detonated. The blast caused a seismic rupture that split off a sizable part of Canada and created what we now know as Vancouver Island. This was the last fight between me and Gibson. For both of us, by studying certain ancient prophecies, had independently arrived at the same conclusion, namely that Sterling's professed interest in industrial design was a mere cover for work in superweapons. Gibson and I formed a pact to fight Sterling. So far we have made little headway in seeking out his lair of brushed steel and white LEDs, because I had a dentist appointment and Gibson had to attend a writers' conference, but keep an eye on Slashdot for any further developments.

[ed] The entire interview is this good! Highly recommended.

I'll have some of whatever he's having, thank you

That's classic!

I love it when celebrities mock their audience and the audience loves them for it. It is, in fact, irony distilled and bottled by Peruvian maidens at the source. Or something.

Wow; they're more formidable than I'd thought. The Pope wouldn't stand a chance these days.

Ah, but the Pope you can know is not the real Pope....

But the pope can combine with his flying battleship to form the SuperMechaPope

Oh, for shame. You guys really need to ask?

Gibson. Hands Down.

(I'd suspect he'd fight dirtier).

Yep. Stephenson talks a big game, but it's the quiet ones you have to look out for.

I don't know who this Stephenson geek is, but he writes fight scenes that are almost as good as Splitcoil's.

I'm not worthy! I'm not worthy!

It's a shame he didn't throw us a bone and work the Pope into the answer.

I wonder if Stephenson occasionally checks out the WGB. Maybe he thinks "I wonder what those crazy Gibsonites are plotting?" (did we agree sometime ago that we were Gibsonites or was it Gibsonistas?).

Is there a Stephenson board? Of course he has the MetaWeb, but that's not really a board. If he doesn't have a board is there any mileage in contrasting the fact that Gibson has a board while Stephenson has the MetaWeb?

The rain tore down in jagged sheets, from dark and heavy clouds torn by jagged forks of cobalt-blue lightning. The sky would've been the colour of television, but the clouds were in the way.

Gibson and Stephenson faced each other off, waiting an eternity for the other to make their move, each on their respective sides of the US-Canadian border. The shattered Peace arch was wet scrap beneath the rain; their combat ripping it up and apart in the manner of a stool in a spaghetti western bar fight.

Gibson panted, glaring evilly at his adversary from behind his spectacles. He spat an incisor and most of Stephenson's left ear onto the mud. He was pretty sure most of the blood was his. Ears bleed less than teeth do, he thought wryly.

"Neal," Gibson said, lightning cutting the sky, "I'm getting too fucking old for this shit."

Neal smiled, crooked and long, "But your honour's riding on this, William," he reminded the near-shattered father of Cyberpunk. At the last syllable he winced. Five cracked ribs will do that to a man.

Gibson slowly shook his head. The ice chill of the rain fended of the creeping edges of punch-drunkeness, but Neal wasn't doing too well, either. WG had broken his nose with a well aimed Glasgow kiss, the kind they'd use in a maximum security wing of a British prison. And most of his right eye was closed by a dark blue bruised growing like a gorging leech.

He closed his eyes, wanting to fall down in the mud-

-and Stephenson seized his chance, ripping the Japanese WWII officer's katana from the scabbard between his shoulder blades, wheeled it over his head, the blade cleaving raindrops into mist and singing single high pitched whine, like a note no violin could reach, swung down, reaching for Gibson's skull...

"WAIT!"

The blade stopped. Hung midair, still poised like a flat steel cobra, waiting to strike.

Gibson looked up at the blade, cool, detached.

"Wait," he gasped, pleading, "you wouldn't hit a man"-dramatic, weighted paused-"with glasses."

Stephenson paused. Well, he already had - the knuckles on both his hands said so, cracked and bleeding - but, jeez, WG was right. Schoolyard honour sorta dictated that. And besides, those frames looked like titanium. Might chip his katana. Stephenson dropped the sword to his side.

"You're right. Remove them. This will be an honourable fight for both ofarrrghmyfuckingnutsyoubastard," Stephenson screamed as Gibson's toe swung up and caught him in the testicles. He collapsed in the foetal position, curled up in the mud and making strange gurgling noises.

"Ha-ha!" Gibson laughed at his fallen foe. "Victory is mine! And," he said, quickly rifling through Stephenson's pockets, "So is your wallet! Double victory!"

This message has been edited. Last edited by: lithos,

That's entertainment.

As my mother always used to say "kick him in the junk and take his wallet!"

that was so awesome....ima have good dreams tonight.

Proof positive that pilates can endow a man with wushu powers of combat

jaydee

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spiff:
As my mother always used to say "kick him in the junk and take his wallet!"

---

Spiff. Has. The Coolest. Mother. Ever.

And with the minimum of spelling mistakes (in my story).

And Stephenson and WG? This was Satire! Satire I say! pleasedon'thuntmedownandkillme

There was an alternate ending, but someone getting kicked in the gallooleys is always fun.

The worse bit was I wrote that when I was meant to be writing a portfolio for a uni application.

The wind picked up suddenly stinging the eyes of the two entranced combatants with dust and grit.
Slowly circling each other while assuming ancient poses of unimaginable power and ironic significance they waited for just the right camera angle to catch the glint in single molecule gravity well sonic blades with pulsating vibrate feature made by 100 year old Japanese fashion designers.


"You know I will never fade from the annals of time, don't you?" The thin pleat wearer inquired gently.

The Pope reached slowly into his titanium/kevlar Pontificator 3000(tm) robe and with drew a single sheet of paper.
"This will erase you from all those wanna-be innovator geeks memories' forever Gibson." The last word spate like a bite of rotten deviled egg.

"What could you possibly have on that paper that would cause my legion of well groomed, savvy and articulate Gibsonistas to desert me?"

The earth began to tremble and heave as Æther began to coalace on each mans finger tips and directly between their eyes.

The Pope promptly folded the paper into a perfect replica of a F-22 Raptor and flung it at Gibson effortlessly without coming out of Crane stance.


The paper contained the heading "Fatima Prophesy" and dropped neatly into Gibson's outstreched hand. A bead of sweat appeared on the disaffected prose conjurer's brow after a moment. There were four signatures on the bottom of the paper. Gibson grinned the smile of one who laughs after an adders bite.

One was the little girl from Fatima.
One was in an ancient script that kept changing as the light glistened off the still wet ink.
One was the Pope's.
The last was Neal Stephenson's.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Myth,

someday Myth will harness the full power of his easily distracted condition......

I hope i am there to bear witness.