The novels are dandy and all but it'd be nice if WG published more short stories. Anyone know why it seems as if he's stopped working on the form entirely?

I'd hazard that the short story market can't really afford that pricey, genu-wine Gibson-brand muse, but that'd make him out to be perhaps too mercenary.

He writes for lurve, too, yes?

CM

I asked him about this at a Virtual Light reading in Boston. He said it *was* because they didn't pay very well, and at the time, he'd been busy with various scripts.

I wish he'd write more short stories too, but it made sense to me. I'd rather he put as much time into crafting all that great prose in his novels as he can.

I'm not sure how to say this without sounding like a teenybopper gushing about the latest boy band single, but I do mean this most earnestly and literally:

I think that _The Winter Market_ is one of the most perfect short stories ever written.

Yes, ever. Transcending genre considerations completely (though I suppose you have to be willing to accept a certain futurishness; I wouldn't give it to my grandfather). Nabokov would drool with envy, were he around to read it. I've thus far restrained myself from starting a discussion topic devoted to it.

As best as I can tell, TWM was the one 'new' story in Burning Chrome, and if he could write short stories on that level again, I might quit the office job, don sackcloth robes, and become a street prophet, spreading the word. And if the trend actually continued upward, I would likely combust in a rather less than canon-worthy ecstasy.

Ok, so I sound like a cult member rather than a teenage girl. Hmmm. Consider me one solid vote in favor of the occasional new short story...