I just met William Gibson

[TrogL]

He's got a new book out and is on a release tour.

He read two chapters from the book and took questions.

Mine was about religion, synchronicity and the archetypes. His answer was thoughtful and too detailed to list here.

Other questions were about voodoo, writing styles.

He said 'Necromancer' was a reaction to Reaganomics.

He acted fairly embarassed about questions about predicting the Internet and HIV/AIDS. His point was that authors write marks on paper, words at best. It's the reader who turns them into stories. Stories cannot predict the future because they're not real. The reader brings his real experiences to the stories.

He said to write good science fiction, look to history.

He got the biggest laugh for this: (paraphrased)

"Could you imagine if I went to my editor in the 80's and said 'I want to write this book in which there's this disease that turns into an epidemic but almost nothings done about it, religious fanatics would fly airplanes into the two tallest buildings in New York amd emissions would become so bad they'd screw up the climate itself? He's laugh me out of the office."

Necromancer was

[Kutjara]

1. Neuromancer was an inspirational book for me.

I read it at a very impressionable age and obviously got the wrong end of the stick, because I spent nearly a decade thinking about how I could help to bring that world into being. After I grew up a bit, I spent an equal amount of time thinking about how I could prevent it from coming about. I still find so many resonances from the book in contemporary life. The dystopia is upon us, all we need to complete the picture is some "Blade Runner" set design.

[MrCoffee]

2. That is undeniably awesome

kick for awesomeness

[Vidar]

3. Wow. The "cyberpunk' subgenre is often too gloomy for me. Unfortunately,

they're usually right.

[Redneck Socialist]

4. He has a new book out?

Yea! (RS does a happy dance!) :bounce:

Off to the bookstore tomorrow!

[MrCoffee]

5. it's pretty good...

although i will confess that the Sprawl books & stories are my favorites

[_testify_]

7. Agreed.

The Sprawl stories are the real gritty ones, and I think his writing is a bit more poetic in those books. But damn if I didn't get sucked into all the others too - especially Pattern Recognition. I don't think I put that one down until I was finished.

[MrCoffee]

8. i just could not get into Pattern Recognition

it just didn't do anything for me.

[_testify_]

9. Really?

I felt that way about Idoru. And Spook Country (not done with it yet) was hard to start, but once I got through the first few chapters it's been much better.

I think I may have asked you this once before, have you read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson? Read anything else by him?

[MrCoffee]

10. i've read all Stephenson's stuff (Except the Big U)

Cryptonomicon is probably my favorite of his, with Snow Crash a very close second.

[_testify_]

12. I haven't read anything else of his, but I will now.

Thanks for the input!

[_testify_]

6. Too cool.

I'm so jealous. Easily my favorite writer.

[redqueen]

11. After reading this thread, I'm thinking I might read one of his books...

interesting stuff.

[MrCoffee]

13. highly recommended...give Neuromancer a try

it won the Nebula, Hugo and PKD Awards in 1984 (!!!)

[redqueen]

14. Yes, I did a little looking around after I saw this thread...

that he won those three awards certainly piqued my interest.

:hi:

[KamaAina]

15. I'm not worthy! I'm not worthy!

He said to write good science fiction, look to history.

I'm not actually certain I'd classify Gibson as "science fiction". You might almost define a new genre -- call it "sci-curious" :P -- for him, Vonnegut (who spent years denying he wrote SF), etc. In any event, even traditional SF writers have been distancing themselves from the label, some calling it "speculative fiction" instead.

:yourock:

[NV Whino]

16. Wow!

I'll have to look for his new book. I love that guy. He is one of the few contemporary science fiction writers I read. Necromancer was astounding. I like Pattern Recognition as well.

[derby378]

17. BURNING CHROME is one of my all-time favorites

It should be turned into a movie by the likes of Quentin Tarantino or someone who can just as easily preserve the very human element of that story.