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Originally posted by ArkanGL:

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Gibson academics

I wonder what they look like.
An assembly of old men, with grey beards and British accents?

Near-sighted girls with Harry Palmer glasses and harsh bangs

and eyes like pissholes in a snowbank.

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Originally posted by fuldog:
Yes, I guess Cayce would have fainted. _NSFW

Now, I understand this link!

Finally found time to listen to the interview. I was interupted the last time I tried.

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

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Originally posted by Fashionpolice:

quote:

Originally posted by ArkanGL:

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Gibson academics

I wonder what they look like.
An assembly of old men, with grey beards and British accents?

Near-sighted girls with Harry Palmer glasses and harsh bangs

I've met none like that so far, but I do have a British accent (for obvious reasons).

Having met only a few people who've studied Gibson's works in any depth, I can say that they seem to have a common interest in wearing black, unusual hair choices, and are generally slim.

Having been exposed to Gibson's books from the tender age of sixteen, I think my fashion sense has been warped a little. Amusingly, I naturally developed a dislike for labels on products, and 'Morgan' tops give me the shivers, so I couldn't help but laugh when I read PatRec! It's a bit like Gibson thought 'what would a person who has grown up on cyberpunk be like?' and then wrote the female version of me.

A question I wonder about: do I like Gibson's fiction because I'm like his characters, or am I like his characters because I like Gibson's fiction? Tricky, and there's no way of answering.

A more open question, if Gibson academics are slim British guys, dressed in black with interesting hair, does that mean we all have careers ahead of us playing villians in American films?

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The New York Times Arts & Leisure Weekend talk with William Gibson now available.

http://podcasts.nytimes.com/podcasts/2006/04/03/03timestalks.mp3
78 minutes

(listening to it now)

I read this as time stalks. Yeah.

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It's a bit like Gibson thought 'what would a person who has grown up on cyberpunk be like?' and then wrote the female version of me.

This is very true.

But what will happen to people who grow up on this post-cyberpunk ?
I mean : sure, I love PR as much as any devout Gibsonite... but it lacks the kind of 'WAKE THE FUCK UP!' energy cyberpunk had.

Well, you could argue that that kind of energy is rather rare, and ends up defining new (sub)genres. How many new genres have been defined lately? (China Mieville is getting close, I think, but I'm not sure if he's there yet.)

A discussion for Random Thoughts, to be sure.

I think of China as the Sterling of his Movement.

Mieville has this weird word-repetition thing going. In Perdido, it was 'cul-de-sac.' Everywhere there were culs-de-sac. Couldn't turn a corner without him telling you about a cul-de-sac.

In the Scar, it's 'recurved.' Everything is recurved. Don't get me wrong, I love recurved. I carry a knife with a recurved blade. I study a martial art that really likes recurved blades. But recurved yachts? Recurved skinning knives (recurved blades are HORRIBLE for skinning; they're the opposite of what you want for skinning)? Recurved sandwiches?

Okay, I made up the sandwiches. But really. Enough with the recurved.

rain-slickened neon. slithering whir. fuck.

I often wonder if I really read Perdido or not.
Everybody seems to love it here while it really
didn't do anything for me.

I quite liked Perdido Street Station at first, but I finished it less enthusiastic. I didn't finish The Scar. I'm a great sf fan, but China Mieville ain't my cuppa tea.

I had to read it twice. Actually, I started it, didn't care for it because I was expecting something else, stopped reading it, came back to it about six months later, and loved it. A lot of my liking it has to do with learning to ignore what he was actually *writing* and seeing what was behind the words. Does that make sense?

I think Neuromancer got a lot of its energy from the textural density, and that only happened because Gibson wasn't a 'writer' back then. He could create in great spouts of kinaesthetic prose, but when it came to really writing a story he was pretty limited.

These days we've got stories that are far easier to follow and Gibson expresses himself more clearly when he goes back down the semi-poetic alleyways of description. Perhaps there is less ambiguity, but there is still evocation.

If I'm anything to do with it, then the next generation will also grow up on cyberpunk

To continue with the threadjacking :

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I think Neuromancer got a lot of its energy from the textural density

To me, its energy derives from its subtext that shouted (at me) :

"This world is rotten.
Pachydermic corporations hold everything in their grip.
Change can only come from underdogs who got to touch the limits of the systems."

This interpretation is what I get when I choose to ignore the part played by 'higher powers' (Neuromancer, Wintermute, Rei Toei) in the books.

Edit :
I don't really ignore the AIs.
I reckon their part in the books is to synchronize the character's actions, and make things happen.
In a world without AIs, I figure things can be handled without the need for an 'higher power'.
A collective will can do it.
At least, in my vision of things.

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Change can only come from underdogs who got to touch the limits of the systems."

But what changed? I don't think anyone in the Sprawl trilogy really changed much of anything. They started and ended as puppets, whether puppets of corps or AIs, it hardly seemed to have any effect on the way the world worked in the end. Nor were they portrayed as being agents of change, I think. Not a negative, just an observation.

Indeed, I was going to say something like that myself. I think the sprawl stories are generally studies of people trapped in the grip of 'great powers': AI, governments, corporations, criminal organizations. Generally these people seem to be struggling to save their own sweet asses, to coin a phrase, and not change the world. Change is something that happens to them.

Some things changed by the end of the series. By the end of the trilogy there were some who knew of those who escaped - Molly, whatshisname the hair dresser, Mona. They all knew that it was possible to escape and that knowledge would most likely, in Gibson's world, stay secret.

And surly many others who were aware of the theft of the Aleph and its likely.

So by the end of the trilogy, things did change. Now, one could make the case the Bobby and Angie were elites, in fact part of the system, and that this allowed them access to resources making their escape (and change) possible, but the fact remains that WG did plot a path out of the hell that was that future.

/lazy post-building ahead
Change. It's always change what WG's books are about. For me, that is. But of course, I'm not an english-accented scholar.

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Originally posted by Splitcoil: Recurved skinning knives (recurved blades are HORRIBLE for skinning; they're the opposite of what you want for skinning)?

Mmmhh. Interesting...

Change?

At the end of Neuromancer, the newly merged AIs are freed in the network.
Dixie Flatline gets to become a resident ghost in cyberspace.
The AIs get to initiate contact with alien entities.

It opens the door to inifinite possibilities.
While in the beginning, there was no future.