William Gibson C/D

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.

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.

better go back to Burning Chrome and take it from there

pattern recognition was good but didn’t manage much of the peripheral.

I love the Bridge Trilogy, especially Virtual Light, but I revisit Pattern Recognition every few years, it's flawed but idk, so enjoyable.

where's a good place to start with classic gibson? just neuromancer?

def - i think it’s aged v well

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.

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...)

Thanks for the recs, folks

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 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.

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.

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.

razorgirl molly millions is not the most well-drawn character in the gibson canon, it’s true

Agency feels like he was rushing to wrap up the ending, the Clinton stuff is cringeworthy. Worst of the post-Pattern Recognition novels.

My copy arrived yesterday, and now slotted in reading pile after a few library borrows. I like the tactile cover's feel!

erm, but you know what they say...?

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.

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/

finished the new one. agree with unperson about Verity. not entirely sure a lot of the other characters did much either. ash? wilf? rainey? all pretty much only there because they were in the last book.

still, was a good excuse to reread the peripheral.

Should note that I read an interview with Gibson where he said that Verity's lack of agency was deliberate.

Smiled wryly on page 54, as Rainey and Wilf are discussing Verity's stub (timebranch):

"...Why aren't they happy there?"

"The drivers for the jackpot are still in place, but with less torque at that particular point." He took a seat at the table. "They're still a bit in advance of the pandemics, at least."

Reading the Fractured Europe quadrilogy instead of re-reading the Blue Ant books. They make for an interesting comparison as a series that could be set in the same universe - more Le Carre, less Japanese denim.

Reading Burning Chrome, it's funny that his foreword has a bit about the big sci-fi guys of his adolescence (Asimov, Heinlein) reading the future incorrectly... then it's just "wot if Japan took over the world" in every other story.

The story about the guy dropping into visions of the perfect art deco sci-fi version of the '80s was great.

Was Neuromancer the last time anyone in a Gibson book had sex?

been working through the sprawl trilogy myself

Count Zero has a merc in rehab having sex in the first act. Gibson definitely shied away from writing sex for the most part as time’s gone on

Who needs sex when you can have selvage denim devoid of branding or decoration?

Gibson pioneered consumer affect pornography, the scene mh mentioned is in the fact the only thing he's written post-Neuromancer that ISN'T a sex scene

I kinda remember the security contractor/private eye guy from Knoxville in Virtual Light getting it on, but maybe that is just what you think Private dicks do in books.

(virtual light ebook is 99p on amazon.co.uk (and kobo.com) at the moment btw. last month it was idoru. i am waiting for ATP.)

I ordered the UK Penguin paperbacks of the Bridge trilogy from Blackstones last night. I like the matching covers and haven't read the books since they were new, so birthday present to myself (I turn 50 next month).

yeah, i re-bought the original trilogy (and the matching Burning Chrome) after i lost the first set to a flood.

virtual light was the first i bought, remaindered in a bookshop in leicester. everything since has been the hardback. and ATP is signed "merry xmas '99" (was a present, i didn't get to meet him).

There’s probably something Gibsonian to the fact that I own paperbacks of the sprawl trilogy but the idea of digging out a yellowed, dusty copy that’d make me sneeze and turn my reading light up made me just procure the ebook

The footage forum stuff in Pattern Recognition reads like early ILX. You lurk in’, William?

reminded me of newsgroup conspiracy theories tbh

Gibson's best joke is reducing all of Pattern Recognition to creating "Trope Slope, for instance, our viral pitchman platform" in Spook Country

First teaser trailer for The Peripheral tv series is out...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSaWHbCSmRI

I did not imagine the pre-Jackpot humans with Appalachian accents

that trailer is actively making me not want to see it

production design-wise it looks not too far off what i had in my head when i read it but that's not MY flynne and burton ffs, casting seems way off

this reminds me i need to get back to slogging through the last quarter of AGENCY, which i am not enjoying at all

Revive made me think he'd Prokofieved it

I did not imagine the pre-Jackpot humans with Appalachian accents

Yeah, that's where the book takes place, out in the sticks.

It's pretty explicitly mentioned in the book!

I think this looks really good myself and very closely matches up with both how I envisioned the setting and the characters, so I'm excited for it.

this reminds me i need to get back to slogging through the last quarter of AGENCY, which i am not enjoying at all

I had the same experience. The first half was good and felt like it was building toward something; the end of the book is seriously underwhelming.

I don't have a lot of confidence that they'll pull off anything great, but I usually enjoy Chloë Grace Moretz's acting and Nolan/Joy have pulled off some decent television on occasion, so..

Agency was very whatever, but (I’m hoping) planted seeds that will sprout in the next book.

I watched the trailer. Dunno how I feel about it. Not gonna spring for Amazon Prime to watch it, but if DVD sets are available for rent at some point, might check it out.

Out in the sticks does not mean "up in the holler" - the contemporary setting seemed more decaying rust belt Ohio or Pennsylvania, empty Kansas town maybe, rather than east Kentucky. It doesn't matter but it just didn't sound right for the characters to me.

Looks pretty cool. I don't mind if they take some liberties with this book/series, because the source material isn't perfect.