'William Ford Gibson' (born ,
Conway, South Carolina) is an American-born
science fiction author who has been called the father of the
cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction, partly due to coining the term
cyberspace in 1982,
[Cyberspace at The Jargon File; cyberspace ] and partly because of the success of his first novel, ''
Neuromancer'', which has sold more than 6.5 million copies worldwide since its publication in
1984.
[5]
Biography
Early life
William Ford Gibson was born in 1948 in the coastal city of
Conway, South Carolina and spent most of his childhood in
Wytheville, Virginia although his family moved around frequently due to his father's position as manager in a large construction company.
After his father's death when Gibson was six years old, his mother returned them to South Carolina, which he later described as "a place where
modernity had arrived to some extent but was deeply distrusted" and credits the beginnings of his relationship with
science fiction with the subsequent feeling of abrupt
exile.
[6] At fifteen he was sent to a private boarding school in
Tucson, Arizona by his mother, by now "chronically anxious and depressive".
commented that Gibson "grew up in an America as disturbing and surreal as anything
J. G. Ballard ever dreamed."
[7]
Life in Canada
In 1967, Gibson went to
Canada "to
avoid the Vietnam war draft",
[8] and "did literally evade the draft, as they never bothered drafting me."
That year he appeared in a
CBC newsreel item about
hippie subculture in
Yorkville, Toronto.
[9] After travelling to
Europe, he and his future wife settled in
Vancouver,
British Columbia in 1972. Gibson earned "a desultory bachelor's degree in English"
at the
University of British Columbia, where he attended his first course on
science fiction at the end of which he was encouraged to write his first short story, "
Fragments of a Hologram Rose".
Thereafter, Gibson worked at various jobs, including a three-year stint as
teaching assistant on a film history course of his
alma mater, before resolving to write full-time.
Although he retains U.S. citizenship,
[10] Gibson has spent most of his adult life in Canada, and still lives in the Vancouver area.
Literary career
Gibson's early writings are generally
futuristic stories about the influences of
cybernetics and cyberspace (computer-simulated reality) technology on the human race. His themes of hi-tech
shantytowns, recorded or broadcast stimulus (later to be developed into the "sim-stim" package featured so heavily in ''Neuromancer''), and dystopic intermingling of technology and humanity, are already evident in his first published short story, "
Fragments of a Hologram Rose" (1977). The latter thematic obsession was described by Gibson's friend and fellow author,
Bruce Sterling, in the introduction to Gibson's short story collection ''
Burning Chrome'', as "Gibson's classic one-two combination of lowlife and high tech."
[11]
In the 1980s, his fiction developed a
film noir, bleak feel; short stories appearing in ''
Omni'' began to develop the themes he eventually expanded into his first novel, ''
Neuromancer''. ''Neuromancer'' was the first novel to win all three major science fiction awards: the
Nebula, the
Hugo, and
Philip K. Dick Award.
The subsequent novels which complete his first trilogy - commonly known as "the
Sprawl trilogy" - are ''
Count Zero'' (1986) and ''
Mona Lisa Overdrive'' (1988).
Following the completion of the Sprawl trilogy, Gibson's next project was a departure from his cyberpunk roots; a
steampunk collaboration with Bruce Sterling. ''
The Difference Engine'', an
alternate history novel set in a technologically advanced
Victorian era Britain was nominated for the
Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1991 and the
John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1992. Gibson's second trilogy, "the
Bridge trilogy" composed of ''
Virtual Light'' (1993), ''
Idoru'' (1996), and ''
All Tomorrow's Parties'' (1999), centres on
San Francisco in the near future and evinces Gibson's recurring themes of technological, physical, and spiritual transcendence in a more grounded, matter-of-fact style than his first trilogy. A common theme up to this point has been the use of characters with seemingly innate abilities in the technological world they inhabit.
Later 21st–century incarnation
After ''All Tomorrow's Parties'', Gibson began to adopt a more
realistic style of writing, with continuous narratives. His novel
''Pattern Recognition'', set in the present day, broke into mainstream bestseller lists for the first time.
[12]
Gibson finished writing a new novel entitled ''
Spook Country'' in October 2006 and it was released in the US on August 7, 2007. Gibson says: "It's set 'in the same universe,' as they say, as ''Pattern Recognition''. Which is more or less the one we live in now. It takes place during the spring of 2006."
[13] ''Spook Country'' was released in hardback in the UK on August 2, 2007 and features some of the same characters as ''Pattern Recognition'', including
Hubertus Bigend and Pamela Mainwaring - employees of the enigmatic marketing company Blue Ant.
Collaborations, adaptations and miscellanea
Literary collaborations
In 1990, Gibson co-wrote the
Nebula Award-nominated
alternate history novel ''
The Difference Engine'' with friend and fellow founder of the cyberpunk movement
Bruce Sterling. The novel is notable for being one of the founding texts of the
steampunk sub-genre of speculative fiction.
Gibson, together with his friend
Tom Maddox, wrote the ''
X-Files'' episodes "
Kill Switch" and "First Person Shooter". In 1998, Gibson wrote the introduction to the ''Art of the X-Files''. Gibson also made a cameo appearance in the miniseries ''
Wild Palms''. Gibson also wrote the foreword to the novel ''City Come A-walkin'' by fellow cyberpunk and occasional collaborator
John Shirley.
[14] In 1993, Gibson contributed lyrics and featured as a guest vocalist on
Yellow Magic Orchestra's ''
Technodon'' album,
and co-wrote lyrics to the track "Dog Star Girl" for
Deborah Harry's ''
Debravation''.
[16]
Exhibitions and performance art
Gibson has contributed text to be integrated into a number of
performance art pieces. In October 1989, Gibson wrote text for such a collaboration with future ''
Johnny Mnemonic'' director
Robert Longo entitled ''Dream Jumbo: Working the Absolutes'', which was displayed in Royce Hall,
University of California Los Angeles. Three years later, Gibson contributed original text to "Memory Palace", a performance show featuring the theatre group "
La Fura dels Baus" at Art Futura,
Barcelona, which featured images by
Karl Sims,
Rebecca Allen,
Mark Pellington and music by
Peter Gabriel and others.
Gibson's latest contribution was in 1997, a collaboration with critically acclaimed Vancouver-based
contemporary dance company
Holy Body Tattoo.
In 1990, Gibson wrote an article about a decaying
San Francisco, its Bay Bridge closed and taken over by the homeless (a theme later to form the setting of the Bridge trilogy) as part of a collaboration with the architects Ming Fung and Craig Hodgetts; this article became part of an exhibit at the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art[17] featuring the author on a monitor discussing the future and reading from "
Skinner's Room", a short story prequel to the trilogy.
A particularly well-received work by Gibson was ''
Agrippa (A Book of the Dead)'' (1992), a 300-line semi-autobiographical electronic poem that was his contribution to a collaborative project with artist Dennis Ashbaugh and publisher Kevin Begos, Jr.
[18] Gibson's text focused on the ethereal nature of memories (the title refers to a photo album) and was originally published on a 3.5"
floppy disk embedded in the back of an
artist's book containing
etchings by Ashbaugh (these were supposed to fade from view once the book was opened and exposed to light — they never did). "Ashbaugh's design eventually included a supposedly
self-devouring floppy-disk intended to display the text only once, then eat itself."
[19] Contrary to numerous colorful reports, the diskettes were never actually "
hacked." Instead the poem was manually transcribed from a surreptitious video tape of its screen projection at a public showing in Manhattan in December 1992, and released on the
MindVox BBS the next day; this is the text that still circulates widely on the Internet today.
[20]
Film adaptations and screenplays
Two of Gibson's short stories, both set in the
Sprawl trilogy universe, have been loosely
adapted as
films: 1995's ''
Johnny Mnemonic'', starring
Keanu Reeves (for which Gibson wrote the screenplay), and 1998's ''
New Rose Hotel'', starring
Christopher Walken,
Willem Dafoe, and
Asia Argento. In late 1980es Gibson wrote an early treatment of ''
Alien³'', few elements of which found their way into the film. A film adaptation of ''Pattern Recognition'' by director
Peter Weir was in production, due for release in 2008,
[21] but according to Gibson, Weir is no longer attached to the project.
[22] An
anime adaptation of Gibson's ''
Idoru'' was announced as in development in 2006;
[23] the project remains unlisted by the
Imdb as of 2007.
[24] ''Neuromancer'', after a long stay in
development hell, is in the process of adaptation
as of 2007[25] for release in 2009.
[26]
Gibson was the focus of a 1999
documentary film by Mark Neale called ''
No Maps for These Territories'', which followed Gibson across the North America discussing various aspects of his life, literary career and cultural interpretations. It features interviews with
Jack Womack and
Bruce Sterling, as well as recitations from ''Neuromancer'' by
Bono and
The Edge.
Journalism
Gibson is a sporadic contributor to
''Wired'' magazine, and has written for ''
The Observer'', ''Addicted to Noise'', ''
New York Times Magazine'' and ''
Rolling Stone''.
[27] He commenced writing a blog in January 2003, which remains active, with one major hiatus (September 2003 – October 2004) as of August 2007. During the process of writing ''
Spook Country'', Gibson frequently posted short nonsequential excerpts from the novel to the blog.
[28]
Influence
Hailed by the ''
Literary Encyclopedia'' as "one of North America's most highly acclaimed science fiction writers",
[29] Gibson first achieved critical recognition with his debut novel, ''
Neuromancer'', which won the "holy trinity" of science fiction awards; the
Nebula Award, the
Philip K. Dick Award, and the
Hugo Award. Notwithstanding this, Gibson was read outside science fiction circles as early as the
Sprawl trilogy era.
[30] His work, which has received international attention,
is often situated by critics within the context of
postindustrialism as a construction of "a mirror of existing large-scale techno-social relations",
[31] and as a
narrative version of
postmodern consumer culture.
[32] It is praised by critics for its depictions of
late capitalism and its "rewriting of
subjectivity, human
consciousness and behaviour made newly problematic by technology."
Cultural influence
Gibson's work has influenced several popular musicians; references to his stories appear in the music of
Stuart Hamm,
[33] Billy Idol,
[34] Warren Zevon,
[35] Deltron 3030,
Straylight Run[36] and
Sonic Youth.
U2 at one point planned to scroll the text of ''Neuromancer'' above them on a concert tour, but ended up not doing it. Members of the band did, however, provide background music for the audiobook version of ''Neuromancer'' as well as appearing in Gibson's biographical documentary, ''
No Maps for These Territories''.
[37] Gibson returned the favour, writing
'U2's City of the blinding light' about U2 on tour for
Wired Magazine.
In the landmark cyberpunk film ''
The Matrix'' (1999), the title itself and some of the characters were inspired by the novel;
Neo and
Trinity in ''The Matrix'' show similarities to Case and
Molly in ''Neuromancer''.
[38] ''
Hackers'' (1995) is another film, which although not drawing influence from Gibson directly, pays homage to him — the computer which the hackers break into toward the end of the film is called "the Gibson."
[39]
Visionary influence
Gibson coined the term
cyberspace[ and in ''Neuromancer'' first used the term 'matrix' to refer to the visualised Internet.[40] He predicted the rise of the Internet and many of the subcultural aspects of it, e.g. the hacker's subculture in ''Neuromancer''.]
In ''Pattern Recognition'', an important plotline revolves around snippets of film footage posted anonymously at various locations on the Internet. Characters in the novel speculate about the filmmaker's identity, motives, methods and inspirations on several websites, anticipating the 2006 Lonelygirl15 internet phenomenon. However, Gibson refuted the notion that he predicted Lonelygirl15 or YouTube[41] stating: "Wow, the legend grows and grows! You could probably make a case that I predicted Lonelygirl in ''Pattern Recognition''. But I don't think the people who did were thinking, 'This sounds like a riff from a William Gibson novel!'"
Gibson has never had a special relationship with computers. ''Neuromancer'' was in fact written on a manual typewriter (he eventually upgraded to a Macintosh SE/30). In 2007 he said:
Bibliography
Novels
★ Sprawl trilogy:
★ # ''Neuromancer'' (1984)
★ # ''Count Zero'' (1986)
★ # ''Mona Lisa Overdrive'' (1988)
★ ''The Difference Engine'' (1990; with Bruce Sterling)
★ Bridge trilogy:
★ # ''Virtual Light'' (1993)
★ # ''Idoru'' (1996)
★ # ''All Tomorrow's Parties'' (1999)
★ ''Pattern Recognition'' (2003)
★ ''Spook Country'' (2007)
Short fiction
;Collected
''Burning Chrome'' (1986, Preface by Bruce Sterling) which includes:
★ "Fragments of a Hologram Rose" (1977, ''UnEarth 3'')
★ "Johnny Mnemonic" (1981, ''Omni'')
★ "The Gernsback Continuum" (1981, ''Universe II'')
★ "Hinterlands" (1981, ''Omni'')
★ "New Rose Hotel" (1981, ''Omni'')
★ "The Belonging Kind", with John Shirley (1981, ''Shadows 4'')
★ "Burning Chrome" (1982, ''Omni'')
★ "Red Star, Winter Orbit", with Bruce Sterling (1983, ''Omni'')
★ "The Winter Market" (Nov 1985, ''Vancouver'')
★ "Dogfight", with Michael Swanwick (1985, ''Omni'')
|
;Uncollected
★ "Tokyo Collage" in ''SF Eye'', August 1988.
★ "Hippy Hat Brain Parasite" in SemiotextE Sf, , Rudy, Rucker, Autonomedia, 1989,
★ "The Nazi Lawn Dwarf Murders" (unpublished)[42]
★ "Doing Television" in Tesseracts 3, , Candas Jane, Dorsey, Porcépic, 1989,
★ "Darwin" in ''Spin'', April 1990, 21-23.[ William Gibson Bibliography / Mediagraphy ]
★ "Skinner's Room" in Visionary San Francisco, , Paolo, Polledri, Prestal, 1990,
★ "Academy Leader" in Cyberspace, , Michael, Benedikt, MIT Press, 1991,
★ "Cyber-Claus" in Christmas Stars, , David, Hartwell, Tor Books, 1992,
★ "Where the Holograms Go" in Wild Palms Reader, , Roger, Trilling, St Martins Pr, 1993,
★ "Thirteen Views of a Cardboard City" in New Worlds, , Brian, Aldiss, White Wolf Pub, 1997,
|
Articles
★ Rocket Radio (1989), ''Rolling Stone'', (June 15, 1989)
★ Disneyland With The Death Penalty (1993), ''Wired Magazine'', 1.04
★ The Net Is a Waste of Time…and That's Exactly What's Right About It (1996), ''New York Times Magazine'' 1996-07-14: 31.
★ "'Virtual Lit': A Discussion" (1996) ''Biblion: The Bulletin of The New York Public Library'', Fall 1996: 33-51.
★ Dead Man Sings (1998) Forbes ASAP, 30 Nov. 1998 supp.: 177.
★ My Obsession (1999), ''Wired Magazine'', 7.01
★ William Gibson's Filmless Festival (1999), ''Wired Magazine'', 7.10
★ My Own Private Tokyo (2001), ''Wired Magazine'', 9.09
★ Blasted Dreams in Mr. Buk's Window (2001), ''National Post'', 2001-09-20
★ The Road to Oceania (2003), ''The New York Times'', 2003-06-25
★ God's Little Toys (2005), ''Wired Magazine'', 13.7
★ U2's City of Blinding Lights (2005), ''Wired Magazine'', 13.8
Miscellaneous other work
★ ''Count Zero'' shortened and bowdlerised[43] serialization illustrated by J. K. Potter, ''Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine'', January, February, March 1986 issues.
★ ''Agrippa (A Book of the Dead)'' (1992) — an artist's book.
★ Narration of ''Neuromancer'' for Time Warner Audio Books on 4 audio cassettes (1994)
★ Johnny Mnemonic: the Screenplay and the Story, , William, Gibson, Ace Books, 1995,
★ Introduction to The Art of the X Files, , Chris, Carter, HarperPrism, 1998, (1998)
★ Screenplay for two episodes of ''The X-Files''. (1998, 2000)
★ Introduction to Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings, , Jorge, Borges, New Directions, 2007,
★ Foreword to Phantom Shanghai, , Greg, Girard, Magenta Foundation, 2007,
Further reading
★ William Gibson, , Lance, Olsen, Borgo Press, 1992,
★ Cyberpunk and Cyberculture, , Dani, Cavallaro, Athlone Press, 2000,
★ Full Metal Apache: Transactions between Cyberpunk Japan and Avant-Pop America, , Takayuki, Tatsumi, Duke University Press, 2006,
References
1. An Interview with William Gibson
2. PHILIP K. DICK
3. God's Little Toys:Confessions of a cut & paste artist
4. Cory Doctorow Talks About Nearly Everything
5. 77. Neuromancer (1984)
6. "Since 1948"
7. Maddox on Gibson
8.
9.
10. William Gibson interview, , J. Stephen, Bolhafner, Starlog, 1994
11. Burning Chrome, , William, Gibson, Harper Collins, 1986,
12. Books: Hardbacks
13. Q&A: William Gibson, , Angela, Chang, PC Magazine,
14.
15. Yellow Magic Orchestra - Technodon
16. Bibliography of Works By William Gibson
17. Architecture View; In San Francisco, a Good Idea Falls With a Thud Paul Goldberger
18. Alan Liu, The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2004), pp. 339-48.
19. Introduction to Agrippa: A Book of the Dead by William Gibson
20. Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, ''Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination'' (Cambridge and London: The MIT Press, forthcoming January 2008).
21. Pattern Recognition
22. I'VE FORGOTTEN MORE NEUROMANCER FILM DEALS THAN YOU'VE EVER HEARD OF
23. William Gibson’s Idoru Coming to Anime
24. Imdb Title Search for Idoru
25. Neuromancer comes
26.
27. Archive of articles written by Gibson from the Aleph, retrieved April 9, 2007
28. MOOR ; JOHNSON BROS. ; THEIR DIFFERENT DRUMMER
29. "William Gibson."
30. The Lessons of Cyberpunk, , Peter, Fitting, Technoculture, 1991
31. The Business of Cyberpunk: Symbolic Economy and Ideology in William Gibson, , David, Brande, Configurations, 1994
32.
33. Several track names on his ''Kings of Sleep'' album ("Black Ice", "Count Zero", "Kings of Sleep") are references to Gibson's work
34. See his ''Cyberpunk'' album
35. ''Transverse City'' was inspired by Gibson
36. Straylight Run
37. GPod Audio Books: Neuromancer by William Gibson
38. The Matrix Problem I: The Matrix, Mind and Knowledge, , Karl, Hepfer, Erfurt Electronic Studies in English, 2001
39. Trivia for ''Hackers'' (1995)
40. Matrix
41. in the August 14 2006 edition of the free daily publication, ''Metro International'', while being interviewed by Amy Benfer (amybenfer (at) metro.us)
42. Tom Maddox Unreal-Time Chat
43. SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION: THE LETTER COLUMN
External links
;Official
★ http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com – personal website
★
★ Archive index for William Gibson's weblog
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