William Gibson

[droid]

Pattern recognition was overtly influenced by Pynchon and that trilogy is pretty good. As Danny says his later work is more elegant and almost entirely shorn of the cringe factor that infected the edges of his earlier, visionary work. His themes over the last 20 years or so have involved teasing out the nuances within the confluence of technology, capitalism and power. At times he has a tendency to over-egg things a bit or veer into techno thriller territory, but his work does have this oblique, disassociated tone, dry observational humour and irresistible momentum.

The peripheral was good, currently just finished the new one and its ridiculously assured, no grand revelations, but still the work of a master.

 

[version]

Which are your favourites of his?

 

[droid]

Dunno. There's stuff in every book that I like. Certainly the early works have dated a bit, but its impossible to overstate their cultural importance in shaping views of technology, and even technology itself. The internet would probably be a different place without him, and there'd be no matrix and a million other works of fiction without the sprawl.

If you wanna pick something up, try the peripheral, then agency - they'll feel most relevant - and then work your way back through the trilogies.

 

[luka]

The first three, the pulp ones are worth reading. The rest, burn. Although Danny makes a good 'case' for them. Neuromancer obviously is a huge influence on the best film ever made so that's mandatory reading

 

[luka]

My favourite is Count Zero. It's the silliest and pulpiest. It's got a voodoo theme.

 

[mvuent]

is it a pleb opinion to say that he should have been a director or a video game designer or something instead of a novelist? i feel like he's ridiculed this view in interviews but to me it seems accurate.

 

[version]

I'll probably read the other two Sprawl ones, Burning Chrome and try Pattern Recognition.

 

[version]

is it a pleb opinion to say that he should have been a director or a video game designer or something instead of a novelist? i feel like he's ridiculed this view in interviews but to me it seems accurate.

A Hideo Kojima?

 

[mvuent]

A Hideo Kojima?

i guess, yeah. when i was reading the peripheral it was just striking how the visuals and world were amazing but didn't seem like they were being used to their full narrative potential. the strengths of the novel format don't seem to match what he's most focused on.

 

[version]

His silliness would definitely be more at home in a video game. Kojima gets away with stuff that wouldn't fly at all in a novel.

 

[version]

There's apparently a series being made of The Peripheral. I doubt it'll be any good as it's being made by the people who made Westworld.

 

[catalog]

My dad borrowed my copy of Neuromancer, read about half of it then handed it back because he said the whole thing seemed to be taking place on a white background. It was all just names and vague descriptions so he couldn't situate the characters and get drawn into it.

I agree with your dad here. Same thing for me with infinite jest. Enjoyable bits and bobs, the odd insight, but nothing to care about

 

[sufi]

They just made Dr Who a black woman.

While I can see the issue with blatant bbc tokenism slathering over the show, the joy and adulation on black twitter is something wonderful to behold

 

[version]

William Gibson on the apocalypse: “it’s been happening for at least 100 years”

For four decades, the inventor of cyberpunk has described near futures that have seemed uncannily well judged. What's worrying about his latest novel is that it gives a credible account of the end of the world.

www.newstatesman.com

 

[entertainment]

i'm giving the new one a read. lotsa cool details.

 

[IdleRich]

I quite enjoyed Pattern Recognition, maybe the story petered out somewhat but there were some great ideas in there. Didn't Dominic Cummings mention it in his advert for cool new civil service disruptors? Apologies if that is what started off the whole thread...

 

[version]

Didn't Dominic Cummings mention it in his advert for cool new civil service disruptors?

Yeah, it's mentioned in the interview I posted last night.

Cummings wrote on his blog that he wanted “weirdos from William Gibson novels” to work in Downing Street rather than “Oxbridge English graduates” (Cummings studied history at Oxford). Gibson was “amused”, he says, but far from flattered. “It was as though Steve Bannon had announced himself a fan.” He also thinks that Cummings has either failed to understand his books, or “glanced through” them in a clumsy attempt to compare himself to Hubertus Bigend, the puppetmaster of Gibson’s Blue Ant trilogy. “It would never have occurred to Cummings,” he says, “that Hubertus Bigend is the villain of the piece.”

Gibson has fans across the political spectrum, but he compares those to the right to “those Midwestern teenage boys who think that ‘Born in the USA’ is a patriotic anthem. They haven’t yet realised that Bruce is a big liberal. And when they do, they’re downcast. With my Twitter, I probably manage to do that to someone a few times a week.”

 

[IdleRich]

I doubt it'll be any good as it's being made by the people who made Westworld.

Digression I know but you didn't like Westworld? I really enjoyed the first season, and I thought it was good that it finished at what felt like a reasonable end point, in contrast to so many things that are clearly fishing for a second series by finishing on a cliffhanger or, at least, with major plotlines unresolved. I agree that - despite the fact that the reviews I saw raved about it as an improvement - the second season was a bit of a mess with the smaller number of clever ideas and great scenes struggling to be visible above a morass of fights and confused timelines. Possibly (despite my having just praised this) this was as a result of having completed the story in the first series and then having to make something up quickly to fill up the second... whatever the cause for the drop in quality, I see no reason to think that the people behind it are not capable of making a good series in the future. Especially one where there is already a complete story for them to use.

 

[version]

I only watched the first season, but nah. I didn't mind Ed Harris and Anthony Hopkins, but as a whole I just found it strained and bland. You could tell it was made by one of the Nolans. It had the same dearth of texture and personality as The Dark Knight Rises. That sanitised, glossy sheen.

 

[IdleRich]

Really? I thought that that guy who was the head of the programmers was an interesting, multifaceted and sympathetic character. I've seen that actor in various things before (normally small roles) and thought he always stood out doing that, glad to see him with a more meaty part and I think he did it well. Also Hopkins was good and Thandie Newton... there were a couple of characters and bits of storylines that annoyed me but the basic idea is a fascinating (albeit implausible) and I think that they explored it really rather well.
Of course from the start we knew that there were gonna be some moments when a robot turned out to really be a human or a human was actually a robot but they managed to hold that actually happening for quite a few episodes and still make it shocking and effective when it did happen. Very nicely done I thought.
I suppose that arguably it was a show more about ideas than characters but for me that was not a problem. It's an attempt to make a more cerebral programme and I think that if every show was tilted as far in that direction then I would be crying out for some more real (cos let's face it the premise is kinda ridiculous... if such advanced technology existed then surely it would be deployed in a million other places before a theme park, if the robots revolted then the army would be called in in ten seconds and I'm sure that a lot of the ideas for the AIs that they talk about could be knocked over in seconds by anyone actually studying or working in that field etc etc) and gritty things. But on its own terms, on the whole, I think it succeeds. At least the first series.