http://boingboing.net/2015/03/06/william-gibson-on-fashion.html
― MaresNest, Friday, 6 March 2015 19:21 (nine years ago) link
Hahaha yeah like I'd ever spend any money on that
― 龜, Friday, 6 March 2015 19:27 (nine years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/jQxrvVb.jpg
Just bought this cool jacket what do you guys think
at the coffee shop by my office i saw a barista wearing a self edge brand presumably selvedge apron. idk if everyone there has them or if he brought it from home and also idk which of those options is more sad
― adam, Friday, 6 March 2015 19:36 (nine years ago) link
looks nice, can you spin around a little so I can see the back xp
― mh, Friday, 6 March 2015 19:36 (nine years ago) link
Which came first, Pattern Recognition or Gibson's fashion line?
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Friday, 6 March 2015 19:36 (nine years ago) link
Pattern Recognition, he mentioned a black jacket from that line, which wasn't a real thing, and they made it later
― mh, Friday, 6 March 2015 19:37 (nine years ago) link
If it's not rhetorical, PR came first.
― MaresNest, Friday, 6 March 2015 19:38 (nine years ago) link
all that buzz rickson shit is mad ugly and william gibson has always had all the style and grace of anthony michael hall playing bill gates in _pirates of silicon valley_ but apparently the wg x br line has been going strong for 10 years so wtf do i know
― adam, Friday, 6 March 2015 19:38 (nine years ago) link
his characters wear it better than him for sure
― mh, Friday, 6 March 2015 19:47 (nine years ago) link
I always figured William Gibson just walked into a Muji store and did a charcoal sketch of everything he saw for that part in pattern recognition
― 龜, Friday, 6 March 2015 19:54 (nine years ago) link
Just noticed my Amazon wishlist for "Agency" now has a 4/2/19 release date. I added that book to my wishlist 5/15/17. It's been a while coming. I wonder if there are reader copies of the original, pre-rewritten version floating out there?
― the body of a spider... (scampering alpaca), Wednesday, 3 October 2018 18:42 (five years ago) link
I thought of Peripheral when the whole "ass in the jackpot" thing blew up over the summer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkJgN7N6WJo
Deadspin has an article about it that dug up all kinds of earlier uses of the phrase, missing out (unsurprisingly) on William Gibson's. Urban Dictionary actually has a nice succinct definition of the phrase which seems to suggest at least Gibson was familiar with the phrase:
"The state of being in trouble of one's own making"
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Wednesday, 3 October 2018 18:51 (five years ago) link
I follow him on Twitter. He mostly retweets stuff, but occasionally says something. This is from last week:
Am starting Chapter 70 today. (As with The Peripheral, many are quite short.) Fingers crossed (when not typing) for April. https://t.co/nMqph6dCtk— William Gibson (@GreatDismal) September 29, 2018
― grawlix (unperson), Wednesday, 3 October 2018 18:57 (five years ago) link
The 'whot if Hillary won' angle sounds so bad.
― louise ck (milo z), Wednesday, 3 October 2018 19:15 (five years ago) link
It really does. I hope that gets shaved down to nothing in the final book - like, there's one sentence referring to the president as "she" and then the standard Gibson plot goes on.
― grawlix (unperson), Wednesday, 3 October 2018 19:28 (five years ago) link
*unreasonable expectations for the new book*
― Elvis Telecom, Tuesday, 26 March 2019 23:22 (five years ago) link
If it's still the "wut if Hillary won" plot he was talking about, I'd say any expectations are unreasonable.
― Greta Van Show Feets BB (milo z), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 23:52 (five years ago) link
"Agency" now showing Jan 21, 2020 as a "new William Gibson book" search result.
― the body of a spider... (scampering alpaca), Thursday, 25 April 2019 18:46 (five years ago) link
From this NPR review, I guess it's really, finally, truly released today.
― the body of a spider... (scampering alpaca), Wednesday, 22 January 2020 03:30 (four years ago) link
I preordered an e-cooy and it showed up yesterday evening. Digging it.
― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, 22 January 2020 03:50 (four years ago) link
Purchased and now anticipating! Rounded out the Amazon order for free shipping with the Sicario soundtrack. RIP, JJ.
― the body of a spider... (scampering alpaca), Wednesday, 22 January 2020 04:29 (four years ago) link
i hope it's better than The Peripheral
― Ste, Wednesday, 22 January 2020 08:09 (four years ago) link
completely forgot it was coming out this week and tackled something like three chapters before falling asleep last night
so far: if you didn't like The Peripheral, it does not bode well for you. it's a continuation
― babu frik fan account (mh), Wednesday, 22 January 2020 15:54 (four years ago) link
guh, if it's a sequel then I need to re-read the Peripheral I guess
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Wednesday, 22 January 2020 21:00 (four years ago) link
"San Francisco, 2017"
what is this, historical fiction?
(i'm going to need to reread the peripheral too, given that i can't remember anything about it beyond the name)
((need to read the sprawl trilogy again, as it's my favourite))
> Rounded out the Amazon order for free shipping
in the uk the free postage threshold is £20 for non-book things but £10 of books qualifies the entire order for free delivery, which is odd, but useful. (and this was £12 ish)
― koogs, Thursday, 23 January 2020 17:18 (four years ago) link
Sprawl trilogy is my favorite trilogy of his too! Best individual book for me is Pattern Recognition (best response to 9/11 in fiction I've encountered, not that I am looking) followed closely by Neuromancer.
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Thursday, 23 January 2020 18:14 (four years ago) link
Started in on the Peripheral, wow I bet this one is off-putting if you aren't already in Gibson's corner.
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Thursday, 23 January 2020 18:15 (four years ago) link
I need to revisit the Bridge trilogy as I feel like those have probably aged the worst.
The trilogy before this one (Pattern Recognition, Spook Country, Zero History) was really good, even if it got a little thin, conceptually, toward the end - I remember thinking, Really? This is a book about pants?
About 2/3 of the way through Agency now; will probably need to read it twice.
― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Thursday, 23 January 2020 18:42 (four years ago) link
hahaha, the Blue Ant trilogy it's called... and yeah, he seems to really be indulging his own interests in that one. Although he was always doing that, he just... now has different interests than I do (clothing design, watches, augmented reality). We used to be on the same page... apocalypse, cute bike messengers, corporate malfeasance. Who can't relate to those things.
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Thursday, 23 January 2020 18:48 (four years ago) link
iirc the blue ant trilogy ended in an anticlimactic fight about a mile north of here.
i missed the neuromancer trilogy completely, and the first thing i bought was a remaindered copy of Virtual Light.
― koogs, Thursday, 23 January 2020 20:10 (four years ago) link
Started on the new one last night, realized two pages in I needed to re-read the Peripheral. 15% of the way into that, still struggling to keep the names straight.
― Greta Van Show Feets BB (milo z), Thursday, 23 January 2020 22:45 (four years ago) link
better go back to Burning Chrome and take it from there
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Thursday, 23 January 2020 22:48 (four years ago) link
pattern recognition was good but didn’t manage much of the peripheral.
― Fizzles, Thursday, 23 January 2020 23:10 (four years ago) link
I love the Bridge Trilogy, especially Virtual Light, but I revisit Pattern Recognition every few years, it's flawed but idk, so enjoyable.
― Maresn3st, Friday, 24 January 2020 18:20 (four years ago) link
where's a good place to start with classic gibson? just neuromancer?
― bidenfan69420 (jim in vancouver), Friday, 24 January 2020 18:26 (four years ago) link
def - i think it’s aged v well
― chapoquidditch (bizarro gazzara), Friday, 24 January 2020 18:30 (four years ago) link
If choosing classic, yes. It leads to Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive. Or go for the short stories of Burning Chrome, maybe, if you haven't read anything and are curious if you'd even like his writing.
From his Wikipedia entry, this is interesting.
After viewing the first 20 minutes of landmark cyberpunk film Blade Runner (1982) which was released when Gibson had written a third of the novel, he "figured Neuromancer was sunk, done for. Everyone would assume I'd copped my visual texture from this astonishingly fine-looking film." He re-wrote the first two-thirds of the book twelve times, feared losing the reader's attention and was convinced that he would be "permanently shamed" following its publication; yet what resulted was a major imaginative leap forward for a first-time novelist.
So Agency's delay isn't the first instance of delays due to rewriting.
― the body of a spider... (scampering alpaca), Friday, 24 January 2020 18:38 (four years ago) link
neuromancer, virtual light, pattern recognition all good starts (all are starts of trilogies).
(as for ageing, iirc one of the books, i forget which, maybe the Johnny Mnemonic thing in burning chrome, talks about megabytes as if it's a lot...)
― koogs, Friday, 24 January 2020 19:05 (four years ago) link
Thanks for the recs, folks
― bidenfan69420 (jim in vancouver), Friday, 24 January 2020 19:06 (four years ago) link
milo z is right, the beginning of the Peripheral is worse than an Agatha Christie novel, dude is throwing so many names at you it is v. confusing
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Friday, 24 January 2020 19:16 (four years ago) link
The section of Virtual Light where Rydell describes his mom and how he grew up in Knoxville is maybe a bit too on the money for 2020.
― earlnash, Friday, 24 January 2020 19:38 (four years ago) link
There's no easy way into Gibson, you just have to take a dice so Neuromancer is as good a place as any really. Although if you are in the mood for something other than hard dystopian sci-fi then I would say Pattern Recognition also is a good place to begin.
every time i read a new one of his books i want to start a william gibson mad libs like "In the year [YEAR NO MORE THAN 15 NO FEWER THAN 3 YEARS IN THE FUTURE], a renegade [HACKER/BIKE MESSENGER/BOUNTY HUNTER WITH MADE-UP SCI-FI JOB NAME] comes into possession of [URBAN PLANNING DOCUMENTS/PASSWORD TO SOMETHING/ORPHAN CHILD WITH SPECIAL SKILL] and has to battle off [RUSSIAN GOONS/OTHER HACKERS/OTHER BOUNTY HUNTERS WITH MADE-UP SCI-FI JOB NAMES/SENTIENT COMPUTER] in a race to save [CITY/COUNTRY/WORLD].
― max, Wednesday, January 28, 2009 3:36 AM (ten years ago) bookmarkflaglink
^This, though is still pretty much on the money for much of his career.
― Maresn3st, Friday, 24 January 2020 20:17 (four years ago) link
I read Neuromancer for the first time last year and the treatment of the main (and p much only) female character has aged very badly, I would say.
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 24 January 2020 20:44 (four years ago) link
razorgirl molly millions is not the most well-drawn character in the gibson canon, it’s true
― chapoquidditch (bizarro gazzara), Friday, 24 January 2020 20:48 (four years ago) link
Agency feels like he was rushing to wrap up the ending, the Clinton stuff is cringeworthy. Worst of the post-Pattern Recognition novels.
― Greta Van Show Feets BB (milo z), Thursday, 30 January 2020 17:08 (four years ago) link
My copy arrived yesterday, and now slotted in reading pile after a few library borrows. I like the tactile cover's feel!
― the body of a spider... (scampering alpaca), Thursday, 30 January 2020 17:27 (four years ago) link
erm, but you know what they say...?
― Ste, Thursday, 30 January 2020 17:56 (four years ago) link
I liked it, but it's definitely a little light. The "present-day" characters are much more interesting than the "alternate-future" characters, something that wasn't true of The Peripheral. And the initial protagonist is a passenger in the plot — like, she literally spends a lot of the book being driven here and there and given things that will be necessary for the plot later. The book is called Agency, but she has very little. (Which may be ironic and deliberate.) I'll re-read it in a few months.
― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Thursday, 30 January 2020 18:03 (four years ago) link
re-reading the peripheral ahead of the new one.
he talks about one of the peripherals being a "washing machine", which is an actual thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_6p-1J551Y
also, the wheely boy is also a thing (which i posted at the time). as seen on Community.
http://www.doublerobotics.com/
― koogs, Saturday, 8 February 2020 21:56 (four years ago) link