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Northwest Passages: William Gibson
Vancouver, B.C.-based author William Gibson first rose to fame for his seminal 1984 science fiction novel Neuromancer. The novel imagined a future in which rebellious hackers commit crimes in a digital virtual reality. The book won all three major science fiction awards that year, the Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Award and the Hugo Award. In 2005, Time Magazine named Neuromancer among the 100 best English-Language novels since 1923, calling the book "violent, visceral and visionary."
Gibson's new book Zero History is the most recent of three novels set in the present time, though with an eye turned decidedly towards people living on the outskirts of mainstream society and at the vanguard of new technologies and ideas.
His characters try to navigate a rapidly-changing world, in which technology becomes omnipresent in our daily lives, changing how we communicate, how we create and consume art, music, culture and fashion, and changing our relationship with political and geographical boundaries.
What questions do you have for William Gibson?
Tagged as: northwest passages · science fiction
Photo credit: Michael O'Shea
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Amazing post Maki. Like reading copywriting book from Joe Sugarman or Dan Kennedy. Now I just have to apply the information to my business
Sodium Metabisulfite
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I see bike riders with cell phones mashed to their heads as they negotiate bikes through car traffic. My friends look up things on their smart phones creating big gaps in our conversation as they check out socially.
How has the recent pervasive use of cell phones and other technology influenced your thinking and writing?
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Future tech is always a balance of good uses and not so good ones. I have friends and relatives in Japan tell me that they use cell phones in a variety of ways, like locating each other in a busy, crowded department store (which is a positive use, I think) to a not so good one, where entire families are only able to talk with each other by using their cell phones (even if they are all present in the same household), meaning they are no longer able to talk to each other face to face....
I think science fiction is able to show us what can be possible or reflect what is currently going on in our own reality, but shifted slightly to show what might happen if things were a bit different, and perhaps show what may happen if we are not careful.
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I am attempting to find representation for a recently completed near-future sci-fi YA novel. While writing, I struggled to overlay thrills on the slow paced backdrop of a mid-western farm.
You have mentioned that while creating Neuromancer, you attempted to write a hook on every page. In addition, you describe the importance of specificity in writing. I don't find the two notions explicitly contrary, but based on our new methods of communication, it would seem readers attention spans are ever shrinking. How do you see your job as a writer changing as technology changes the way we think?
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Perhaps technology is its own worst enemy. It seems as though when people dreamed of technology they first imagined it enabling them to do things more easily, to make life a simpler and less arduous one. But, this effort at simplicity has an inherent structure of complexity that is inescapable---and the result is that so many of the efforts were, and are, self defeating. I tend to love and hate technology at the same time. I admire the dream, the possibilities, but I can’t rid myself of the feeling that it is a vacant endeavour. Where exactly are we trying to get to? And, is there really anywhere worthwhile to go? After-all, at the end of the day, so many people do still tend to vacation in Hawaii.
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William Gibson just mentioned that he downloaded Uzu for his iPad this morning. Here's the link in case you'd like to play too! http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/uzu/id376551723?mt=8
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Hi William,
It's interesting that you look at technology from an anthropological perspective, i.e. how technology affects humans.
What do you think about how your (and others) writings of technology also affects it's use and direction of development?
I think your books have had a huge influence on this.
On a personal level, your writing had a huge affect on me. It had more than a little to do with why I spent almost 4 years in Japan (I wanted to see if the sky over Chiba was really the color of tv, tuned to a dead channel) and move into the software industry.
It's interesting to think about how much the market drives the direction of technology versus how much science fiction drives it.
Rhyc (pronounced like 'Rick')
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I'm not traditionally a sci-fi reader though Neuromancer was indeed so exciting and new and a must read among art/lit college types when I read it in the late 80s. I'm a huge fan of your books that are set in the present - Pattern Recognition especially. They really illuminate how we're living in an in between time now and somehow transitioning to the not so benign "future". Can you talk more please about your own transition to writing about the present, the impact 9/11 may have had on that (for Pattern Recognition especially) and your own thoughts real, human, person to person connection in the 21st century. Thanks!
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How do you feel about how your work has been treated in film? I'd love to see "Burning Chrome" on the big screen but cringe to think how it might be changed from the story I love.
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Last week I watched a NASA "Green Aviation" conference about NASA enabling a massive effort to research and design better aircraft and all of the systems associated with them.
I was really impressed, but what it brought up in me was the idea of doing the same kind of massive effort to "Make Better People". Bring together a conference of scientists in psychology, sociology, anthropology, economic systems, political systems, financial systems, mythologies (Religions), and every other studier of humans and what we humans do, and brainstorm ideas of how to "Make Better People". Then sort through those ideas and figure out which ones ought to be funded for further research and possible experimental trials.
The idea is that We The People of the US Government fund and sponsor basic research that drives technology for the business economy and we ought to do the same for We The People. We make better technology but our people making systems are still based way back in the days of KIngs, Pharoahs, Caesars and the like. All of our systems were created and developed to make people that served "Kings"; including our economics, financials, Corporations, schools, mythologies(religions), business, technologies, sports, etc.
"Make Better People" has a vast future potential.
And I would invite science fiction writers to speculate about what that sort of future could look like. Science fiction about how people would change, rather than about people staying the same and technology doing the changing.
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It seems Sci-Fi fans always dream of a futuristic utopia and it always has a dystopia silver lining. Where we once dreamed of the Jetsons and Spaceage, now many are longing for a Scandinavian social welfare state with such futuristic features as state sponsored healthcare, government provided education and a nanny state from cradle to grave. We always want what we don't have. IS our Future going retro from laser blasters on starships to laser eye surgery paid for by medicare?
How does an Empire Fall? Is it gradual or does it happen overnight?Will citizens be aware or is it left to historians hundreds of years into the future. What does a post-American Future look like in the world?
Are you surprised of the new political/ military relevance of old fashioned Religion in a post modern world? Is terrorism an eternal blight and part of modern reality or will it be disinfected with sunlight in the Age of Information.
Do you see a clash of Civilizations in a post modern /post war world? Does it bother you that Religious Extremists do not seem to care for Sci/ Fi or vice versa? Seems both believe in a future utopia.
If ALL Information and Ideas ever conceived in civilization are ready at fingertips 24/7 for everyone on the planet, will there be planet enlightment or multidinous special interest groups gaming, shopping and enjoying pornography of the mind.