New York Magazine has a list of ten science fiction books recommended by William Gibson. Gibson’s new book, Zero History is due out in September.
Faint harmonics, tiny inaudible voices rattling across some orbital link, and then a sound like the wind.
—William Gibson, Neuromancer, pp. 98
Fresh off a re-reading.
(as encountered while staying in a hotel room last night)
After you told me this I watched 500 days of summer and the girl in it is called Summer Finn.
William Gibson’s fashion empire continues to grow, with the introduction of these Buzz Rickson Officer Boots and a $250 wallet.
Cohen introduced us and explained that Dialta was the prime mover behind the latest Barris-Watford project, an illustrated history of what she called “American Streamlined Moderne.” Cohen called it “raygun Gothic.” Their working title was “The Airstream Futuropolis: The Tomorrow That Never Was.”
—The Gernsback Continuum W. Gibson, 1981
What Would Cayce Pollard Do? Would she wear these new William Gibson Collection sneakers made by Buzz Rickson. If that wasn’t enough, Buzz Rickson and Porter have collaborated on William Gibson laptop bags.
Purists can just stick with the Pattern Recognition MA-1 jacket.
But then again I am somewhat the opposite of Alan Moore, in that I regard screen adaptations of my work with little more than simple childlike curiosity.
—William Gibson on the Neuromancer film
Cyberpunk author William Gibson has a cameo appearance as himself. When the author of Neuromancer is introduced as the man who invented the term “Cyberspace”, he remarks, “and they’ve never let me forget it.”
—Wild Palms Wikipedia page.
I finished Spook Country the other night on the plane. I was surprised to find Johan Kugelberg among the closing Thank You list.
Curious about the connection between the two, I did a bit of googling. William Gibson once wrote about Skip Spence for one of Kugelberg’s frequent outlets, Ugly Things. In addition, they both contributed to the Velvet Underground 40th anniversary book, c/o The Velvet Underground, New York, NY.
I hoped that I had somehow missed a mention of a band off of Kugelberg’s (in)famous top 100 DIY records list, but I don’t think so. There is mention of a fictional (or ridiculously obscure) 60’s garage band called the Mopars that the musician-cum-journalist once did a feature on for a fictional New York music shop in-house magazine…
I was going for a giant blue disembodied head of william gibson effect there, but images are styled
background-color: #FEFEFE;
so no dice.
and that would be intentional!
But there are moments when—depending on what neighborhood I’m in, or what city I’m in, or what channel on television I’m watching—my eyes get really wide and I go, “Chandler wasn’t even close. This shit is truly dire.”
—–william gibson in the avclub interview
actually practically every line in this interview is gold. this guy even talks cool.
it’s nice to read an interview with billy g where the interviewer appears to have some familiarity with his work and has actually thought up some legit questions.
also: tagline gold.
last comment, I promise. just had to call this out: “if you’re seeing characters operating on the outside of things that they can’t fully comprehend, then you’re seeing part of the zeitgeist, and I think you might also be seeing an emergent, new kind of realism, where the individuals that write books are willing to admit to themselves—and to some extent to the reader—that they don’t know what the hell is going on.”
They’ve also printed a list of historical fiction recommendations from Peter Carey.
Holy Fire? Seriously, Gibson? Man. It’s not that I don’t like this book its just that I like every other Sterling novel I’ve read better than it. I guess it would be hard for Gibson not to pick the BruceS novel with characters like The Cultural Critic though, right?