Ping is absolutely right when he says that Gibson is a phony futurist. He has only pretended to be a futurist, and he hasn't pretended very hard, frankly. Where he's wrong is thinking that this makes Gibson a hack, that somehow it lessens his accomplishments or that he's not "really" writing science fiction. There are as many definitions of science fiction as there are writers, probably -- maybe even as many as there are readers -- but only a very small subset of the books and short stories published as "science fiction" are in any way concerned with predictive extrapolation of current scientific trends, and it's been that way since at least the mid-1950s. There probably hasn't been a movie like that since "Destination Moon." Science fiction does not equal futurism, although futuristic fiction does fall within the category of science fiction. It's like complaining that an ant isn't an insect because it's not a bee.

Ten years ago, when I interviewed him for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about the time "Virtual Light" came out, I dragged out that old hoary interviewer question that you hate to ask because you know he's heard it a hundred thousand times but it's part of your job to ask him: "What made you choose to write science fiction rather than some other type of literature?" Here's what he said:

"Potentially, I thought there was no better way of dealing with contemporary reality than to treat it as science fiction . . . I think that anyone today attempting to write a realistic novel, whatever that is, will be dealing with certain themes that have always been the provenance of science fiction.

"It's a nice, sunny, West Coast day outside. If you go out and lay in the grass with your shirt off long enough, you're going to get skin cancer, and that's because we've altered the planet to that extent."

So again, Ping is right when he says that Pattern Recognition is the first time Gibson has come out and admitted IN HIS FICTION (he's admitted it in interviews, like that one, for years) that he's doing what he's been doing all along: not writing about the future, but writing about right now using science fiction as a way of getting at the fact that we live in a science fictional world.

Way back in 1970, Alvin Toffler wrote "Future Shock," which told us that we are already living in the future. To some people, the year after the Moon landing, which came only 66 years after the Wright Brothers flew the very first crude airplane, this seemed obvious. But there were, as Toffler pointed out, a lot of subtle but in some ways more powerful alterations in our world than just the obvious changes. First and foremost, there was the fact of change itself, the fact that we no longer inhabitted a static world that we could reasonably expect to be the same from childhood through maturity to death. For most of humanity's existence on this planet, even most of written history, the world remained mostly unchanged from one century to the next, and only those who lived to be an advanced age -- over 60, for sure -- would be likely to be able to look back and see the world they grew up in as being very different from the world they were living in. Nowadays, you can have that feeling at 25 -- indeed, you're remarkable if you don't because 20 years ago almost no one had heard of the Internet and only rich people had cell phones, just to give a couple of obvious examples.

"Neuromancer" is less about cyberspace than it is about the things that were happening in the lives of people in the 1980s, the rise of multinational corporations owing allegiance to no country accumulating power that seemed capable of eventually dwarfing and replacing the power of the nation/state (and I'm still not sure if that little bit of speculation on Gibson's part won't eventually turn out to be right, but it's not the speculation that's important, it's the fact that they were accumlating the power when he was writing), the alienation of modern life that is a general background drone of much of 20th Century literature but nonetheless an accurate picture of the lives of many people, the fact that even before the Internet came along the general trend of our electronic communications networks has been to bring us closer and closer to people far away and drive us further and further apart from people in the same room, symbolized in Gibson by Case jacked in to his cyberspace deck, keenly in touch with Molly but completely oblivious to his surroundings.

The melodramatic plots and the gee-whiz gizmos are fun, they're what pull us along like a speeding train the first time we read and make sure the books sell well enough to feed Gibson's children, but their not the reason we keep coming back to them, the reason why, ultimately, his writings are worth thinking of as literature. It's what he has to say about who we are and where we are, right here and now, that has always been what's important about his books.

Pattern Recognition is the first book he has written that doesn't have any fictional science in it. But it's still science fiction, in a very real way. And it's because we've all become aware of Toffler's message over the last 30 years, we all KNOW that technology and changing lifestyles are what our world is all about that one can write a book that takes place in the present day and features only known technology and yet feels completely and utterly, and is, unquestionably, a science fiction novel.

William Gibson may end up being remembered as the man who coined "cyberspace" (although he didn't mean by it what the dictionary does), but that's not what makes him an important writer.

quote:

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...one can write a book that takes place in the present day and features only known technology and yet feels completely and utterly, and is, unquestionably, a science fiction novel.

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If PR didn't have WGs name on it, you wouldn't call it Sci-fi. Modern perhaps, but not sci-fi.

WG happened to hear about this computer thing before the general reading (or writing) audience, and capitalized on this fact. Each novel has become progressively less speculative as said technology disseminated to the masses. WG caught the wave and the wave crested. He has now realized this finally! and is moving on in hopes of not becoming a hasbeen. I pity those people who still listen to the same music when they are 35 as they did when they were 13. WG is trying to grow. Good. I applaud that. Again, finally!


66 years. Hmmm. If we do a careless linear projection. 1969 + 66 = 2035. By 2035 I predict we will travel to another star system. We will name the man-beasts natives Gibsonites. We will teach them of the Lord and baby Jesus. But we will call the god child William in reverence. In the name of Baby William be healed of thy sins heathen! The cross will be replaced by a big photocomposite 'T' of the holy footagee and the iconic art of the crusci-fiction will show that William's hands and feet were bound by Cat5. The most popular baby name will be Case. Deck Cowboy will become a term of endearment. The main city - Neuromancium.

Ping - you're getting predictable. You're supposed to ping, not echo (that's a different command).

Bones?

quote:

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Originally posted by Ping:

If PR didn't have WGs name on it, you wouldn't call it Sci-fi. Modern perhaps, but not sci-fi.

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I disagree, but this is at least debatable.

quote:

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WG happened to hear about this computer thing before the general reading (or writing) audience, and capitalized on this fact. Each novel has become progressively less speculative as said technology disseminated to the masses. WG caught the wave and the wave crested. He has now realized this finally!

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No, YOU have apparently only just now realized that he was NEVER doing future speculation. That was the whole point of quoting a ten-year-old interview (available at http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/9923/igib1.html for those interested, by the way). And I'm pretty sure I didn't have a "scoop" on this one, that Gibson had said much the same thing before that. Even if I was the first interviewer he'd said it to, though, the quote shows quite clearly that his reason for writing science fiction in the first place had nothing to do with predicting the future, and that at least as long as 10 years ago, he was saying that he was essentially writing about right now but using the metaphor of science fiction to do so.

You persist in saying that he has "now realized" that he's bad at predicting the future even when it's proved that he never had any such intention. There's a word for that, but "scientific" isn't it.

Yeah, ping's missing the signal. Gibson has said over and over that not only is *he* writing about the present (at the time of writing) in his books, but that all really great scifi is about nothing more than the present. The tools of science fiction are great for getting at some pretty deep code in the modern day, but they're really no good for prediction. PKD did this, Vonnegut and Wells and Huxley, they were all writing about their "today" not anyone's tomorrow.

Since when is nanotechnology a metaphor for the present?
Since when are neural implants a metaphor for the present?
Since when are space stations and defunct bridges a metaphor for the present?
Rastars in space?
Inter-solar system AIs communicating?
Ninjas with laser wire thumbs?

Perhaps cz, mlo and the bridge series got a little bit more into social commetary. But WG certainly didn't start off with that at the core of his writing. He may want people to believe that this was his intension. But that's ego folks.

The arguement can of course be made that WG has moved to using his writing to comment on present society more and more. But that does not alter the fact that WG was trying to write sci-fi first and comment on the present state of society second at best. I just don't buy the whole enlighted master interview crap. He was a guy who wanted people to read his books. He was a hack trying to make a buck in a tough industry. And he suceeded. Hell we're still talking about it today, it is such a big deal that we even know his name. Think of how many hacks are out there with rejected manuscrips. WG fit the suit. Right place at the right time. The Johnny Bravo of sci-fi.

His own opinion of what he was trying to do after the fact is mute. His work speaks for itself. He was/is a hack sci-fi writer who has recently finally realized that he has played that game out as far as it was going to go. So he is moving on into essentially present day fiction. I see this trend from the beginning of his writing career. He was never good at sci-fi, or using sci-fi as a metaphor as you suggest, he perhaps always wanted to be writing about the present and making social comment. PR certainly does that.

As I have said all along, Gibson is a futurist hack, PR is just the first time he has admitted it. Let's hope he stays the new course.


Echo off

Ping, you really come across as like a Creationist trying to debunk Evolution.

quote:

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Originally posted by Dog Soldier:
Ping, you really come across as like a Creationist trying to debunk Evolution.

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That's nicer than the terms I would have used to describe him.

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"Twice you burned your life's work; once to start a new life, once just to start a fire." --John Roderick, NEW GIRL

I even read Cyberpunk: a short story by Bruce Bethke in Amazing Tales or whatever when it was first published. I never once thought of it a "speculative fiction". I recognized Cases world, I was buying surplus office equipment at State Salvage and repairing it for resale. When I read Burning Chrome I could identify with someone that had some screwball piece of military surplus equipment. Hell, I know where there's some USAF Tempest computers in a mini storage right now. WG IS NOT a "Futurist Hack", and Ping really doesn't have a clue. When it comes to Cyberpunk all I can say is "Hell, I was there..."

... that ping is a pretty simple tool. And if you flick the right switch, it'll go on forever.

-t Ping the specified host until stopped.
To see statistics and continue - type Control-Break;
To stop - type Control-C.

Since when is nanotechnology a metaphor for the present?
Since when are neural implants a metaphor for the present?
Since when are space stations and defunct bridges a metaphor for the present?
Rastars in space?
Inter-solar system AIs communicating?
Ninjas with laser wire thumbs?

Nanotechnology/cyberspace - integration of man and machine. replacement of man and machine, the switching of the roles of these two devices, is all through gibson's work. Since before neuromancer, gibson has been interested in what happens when machines start to replace man, and what happens when that replacement is integration rather than occupation.

The Bridge Society - Come on. If you can't see the ramifications of social disorder presented in those books, you're just not looking.

My favorite one of all - Space stations. I'm going to assume you're talking about the villa straylight. Straylight is about more than spacestations. It's about the consumer machine, straining money from its crop. It's about the bizarre separation of the extremely rich, until they're another species, another creature than man. And in cz...again the man/machine connection, the poet that is nothing more than a metal mind, working in junk and vacuum.

That's Rastah, man. Get it straight.

Shadoth - trying desperately to have an intelligent conversation with a man apparently determined to rant. You want to actually discuss this topic, smartie pants, or do you want to just keep typing the words futurist hack over and over again. The problem, I think, is in your ability to read.

with that last one.

Oh, now I feel awful. I've been mean to Ping and it never occured to me that he might be dyslexic, or maybe even lesdixic

If I wanted to have an intelligent conversation then I would cease to be Ping. Ping is necessarily outside that which it tests. There is necessarily a distance and an objectiveness. I think we've gotten out some good thought on WG. I still say he's a futurist hack though.

I guess there's your answer Shadoth. I have to say I'm a little disappointed. There was some good stuff coming out of these threads, once in a while. I can see how trying to keep that ranting-lone-crusader thing going can get tiring though (no matter how much it may stroke your ego to get threads named after you).

Me, I've got Ping to thank for my new copies of the Sprawl books and Burning Chrome, and my starting to read them again. I just read The Winter Market last night. Thank you Ping.

Ne? Ne!

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Originally posted by Ping: I still say he's a futurist hack though.

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echo

<echo off>

Don't mistake distance and objectiveness with ignorance. Being unfamiliar with your subject does not make you distant, it makes you uninformed. Reading something but not being smart enough to get the point doesn't make you objective, it makes you juvenile. I passed through a similiar phase in my life, enjoying things but ignoring deeper waters. Drop by again when you've grown up a little.

Shadoth, you just don't seem to get it. I wasn't the one having the conversation. You were. Although it was my mistake to take the bait a few times and try to get into the mix. I read most of WGs book so long ago I barely remember the characters. I'm out of my league in a straight conversation. We all know this by now. So I decided to have some fun. Did anyone get hurt?

When I say 'objective' I mean not part of - outside. If I had wanted intelligent conversation then I wouldn't have been able to get all this energy going. The two are mutually exclusive to a point. If you prefer to see this as juvenile then so be it. But this board was pretty boring when I got here. And look at all the fun you alone speaking of ego are having. Please feel free to make the check out to...

Ah, but I think I do get it. I consider sniping just to incite someone, just to make things interesting, fairly juvenile. If you want to present radical ideas, or at least ideas that are radically at odds with the general populace, you should be prepared to defend them. If you can't defend them, either because you are unwilling or mentally incapable, then keep it shut. I'm always open to intelligent discussion, but trolls are just annoying.