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I like how filthy his settings can be. I picture his bridge town looking like someone built a plywood shack, then someone else built one next to it, using a wall of the standing shack as one of his own, then someone else said gently caress y'all, I wanna poo poo directly into the river, so he built one above the first one and made it 4 feet wider and longer than the first one, built a frame in the corner over the river with a hole under it, nailed a toilet seat stolen from the 7-11 ladies' room on it and called it good, the guy over him called him a loving puss, and built his to drop right outside rivershitter's window, and decided gently caress climbing down 3 stories, crossing the bridge, and climbing up to visit my buddy across the way, I'm getting some long boards to lay from my door to his, and I'm getting a deep fryer so I can start selling deep fried rat as chicken nuggets, etc., and finally Skinner said eat me, I'm living in a 12x12 shack up here above all y'all toetonguers and I'm moving a teenage bike messenger in so I don't have to leave.
Anil Dikshit fucked around with this message at 12:31 on May 5, 2014 |
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May 5, 2014 12:28
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Pretty much, it's basically like Kowloon Walled City and the bridge had a baby. I'd love to see an actual good movie set there. The one in the Johnny Mnemonic movie seems to have been vaguely inspired by it, but it's definitely not the same; it also definitely isn't the Lo-teks hangout either. God that movie sucked.
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May 6, 2014 22:20
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a kitten posted:Pretty much, it's basically like Kowloon Walled City and the bridge had a baby. I'd love to see an actual good movie set there. The one in the Johnny Mnemonic movie seems to have been vaguely inspired by it, but it's definitely not the same; it also definitely isn't the Lo-teks hangout either. God that movie sucked. But it was one of the best Dolph Lundgren roles ever! Totally not in the book. And Rollins too, for that matter, not in the book whatsoever. And yeah, just had to shoehorn a boy-meets-girl type thing in there. Sally did hook up w Johhny I think after the story and before Neuromancer, but that's only mentioned once, in a brief aside. I've since then had somebody tell me I just have to watch it with just the right grain of salt and it would be enjoyable. I think something like a liter or two of vodka or something might do it. Just about any Gibson would be really hard to encapsulate in a movie. BTW, nobody mentions his shorts collection, "Something something holographic rose something." It was great. There's even a bit of old-school science fiction in there that was really good. If I recall correctly, "Surfacing" was one of his stories that I really liked from that, pretty conventional scifi for the time.
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May 7, 2014 18:00
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Johnny Mnemonic may have been a completely terrible movie, but I think it captured a very Gibson-esque look and setting. Everything was gritty and dirty and used looking. But yeah, not a good movie.
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May 7, 2014 18:04
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It'd be a good movie if I didn't know it was a Gibson adaptation. Which I didnt know when I watched it and why I love that stupid, crazy movie.
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May 7, 2014 21:15
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Shoehead posted:It'd be a good movie if I didn't know it was a Gibson adaptation. Which I didnt know when I watched it and why I love that stupid, crazy movie. That's a very good point. I'll just have to get really tipsy next time. I'm sure that will help.
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May 7, 2014 22:57
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SnakePlissken posted:
Burning Chrome is indeed a great collection of short stories. There's not a story there I don't like. I own the shiny silver version with the scrambled up digital looking guy on the front. God, I love that book cover.
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May 8, 2014 03:29
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Burning Chrome is a fantastic collection and is maybe the best thing to suggest if someone asks what Gibson book to read first. I don't think it had the movie tie-in decal I had that one too (edit: wait, mine wasn't chromed), it straight up vanished a couple of years ago though and I had to replace it with a newer version. I had an autographed version of Idoru that vanished as well, probably with a lovely short term roommate. A couple of characters from stories in it turn up in the Sprawl books too, Molly/Sally obviously, but also Bobby Quine (from the titular Burning Chrome) is mentioned as someone Case learned from, and the Finn pops up as well. In the non-Sprawl stuff I loving love Hinterlands and The Belonging Kind is a pretty nifty, creepy little story.
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May 8, 2014 03:46
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I'm really excited for his new book, The Peripheral. It looks like it's going to be having a lot more, I don't want to say fun, but it looks like something a younger Gibson would have penned. I heard him read one of the chapters and it's got a lot going on and I expect that I'm going to just inhale it.
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May 8, 2014 16:09
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a kitten posted:In the non-Sprawl stuff I loving love Hinterlands Have you read Frederik Pohl's Gateway? Has a very similar basic setup, and is a good book as well (won the Hugo that year). I just reread Burning Chrome, I'd forgotten how good it was. For some reason the story that's always stuck with me the most is Dogfight, it's just so depressing  Also  someone made an actual (really lovely looking) augmented reality version of the game from it.
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May 9, 2014 06:25
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Gibson did some neat stuff with a poem he wrote back in '92. (edit, whoops this was posted on the first freaking page and I missed it somehow)quote:Agrippa (A Book of the Dead) is a work of art created by speculative fiction novelist William Gibson, artist Dennis Ashbaugh and publisher Kevin Begos Jr. in 1992. The work consists of a 300-line semi-autobiographical electronic poem by Gibson, embedded in an artist's book by Ashbaugh. Gibson's text focused on the ethereal nature of memories (the title is taken from a photo album). Its principal notoriety arose from the fact that the poem, stored on a 3.5" floppy disk, was programmed to encrypt itself after a single use; similarly, the pages of the artist's book were treated with photosensitive chemicals, effecting the gradual fading of the words and images from the book's first exposure to light. Of course, since this is the internet age you can find and read it at your leisure here: http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/source/agrippa.asp You should lose the link once you're done tho.  Blog Free or Die posted:
I'll give him a C for effort. Oh dear.
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May 10, 2014 03:44
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So, I have a question about the style of Neuromancer, and the Sprawl Trilogy including the short fiction. What made it? Its like a teenaged Don DeLillo who is paranoid and on loads of heroin. He says in his documentary that he was legitimately crazy when he wrote Neuromancer. Does anyone know anything about his life during the late 70's early 80's?
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May 23, 2014 09:21
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God Of Paradise posted:So, I have a question about the style of Neuromancer, and the Sprawl Trilogy including the short fiction. A hunger for the taste of blue, to feed the crystal forests of his eyes, stupid.
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May 23, 2014 12:37
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I finished Count Zero, and I absolutely loved it. I actually liked it better than Neuromancer I think, because the characters were a little less archetypal... But I made the mistake of starting Pattern Recognition next. I thought it was off to a great start by when I got the part near the beginning where the super rich influential guy (Bigend) hires the Cayce, who is a progeny of creative instinct, to track down the creator of a mysterious and mindblowing series of art pieces, I had to put it down because I just read this book!
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May 23, 2014 19:43
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Snak posted:I finished Count Zero, and I absolutely loved it. I actually liked it better than Neuromancer I think, because the characters were a little less archetypal... But I made the mistake of starting Pattern Recognition next. I thought it was off to a great start by when I got the part near the beginning where the super rich influential guy (Bigend) hires the Cayce, who is a progeny of creative instinct, to track down the creator of a mysterious and mindblowing series of art pieces, I had to put it down because I just read this book! Heheh yeah, that happens with his books. He recycles ideas a lot, and usually it's to good effect. I personally liked Pattern Recognition better, and there were several years' separation between the two books. I felt like Count Zero was too cartoonish and Pattern Recognition was a more poignant rendition of a similar theme, IIRC. But yeah, one pet peeve I have w his work is the reuse of favorite phrases, sometimes. The first time somebody said "your eyes look like pissholes in the snow," it was clever. But less established writers couldn't get away with it a 2nd time. Or the bad guys in two novels have the same uncanny lines in their faces. Or cutting tools that have a genuine fractal edge, or wars of "abiding stupidity" -- although I really like "abiding stupidity" because it just says mankind so well to me. I can't recall if somebody has said "you look like hammered poo poo" twice in his novels or whether I'm thinking of Blade Vampire Hunter II, where a guy named Skinner said it. Coincidence, you say? SnakePlissken fucked around with this message at 22:19 on May 23, 2014 |
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May 23, 2014 22:17
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SnakePlissken posted:Heheh yeah, that happens with his books. He recycles ideas a lot, and usually it's to good effect. I personally liked Pattern Recognition better, and there were several years' separation between the two books. I felt like Count Zero was too cartoonish and Pattern Recognition was a more poignant rendition of a similar theme, IIRC. What did you find cartoonish about Count Zero? and did you like Neuromancer? Because I thought that despite the setting being the same, Count Zero was much less over the top than Neuromancer.
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May 24, 2014 00:31
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You should look up how many times George RR Martin says stuff like "Much and more" and "for half a groat.." it would drive you nuts. I've been hunting Mona Lisa Overdrive and Burning Chrome for a few weeks now. Whoever decided all of Gibson's books had to have lovely composite YA looking hacker stuff on the covers is some sort of blind nazi.
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May 24, 2014 00:35
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Shoehead posted:You should look up how many times George RR Martin says stuff like "Much and more" and "for half a groat.." it would drive you nuts. amazon sort by price ascending works pretty well. Old paperbacks arent usually in high demand
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May 24, 2014 00:37
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I kind of like the modern covers, if they're the ones I'm thinking of. At least they aren't pictures of badasses or space ships or whatever. The are abstract and imply complexity.
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May 24, 2014 02:53
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Snak posted:What did you find cartoonish about Count Zero? and did you like Neuromancer? Because I thought that despite the setting being the same, Count Zero was much less over the top than Neuromancer. I think Neuromancer had a sheen of plausibility that kept it going for me despite the Rastafarians in space. Or maybe my identification with Case allowed me to suspend my disbelief a bit more. I'm not a hacker and never was but some of Case's character I could identify with. Like the back of one of Gibson's novels said, 'rustbelt refugee.'
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May 24, 2014 11:13
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SnakePlissken posted:I think Neuromancer had a sheen of plausibility that kept it going for me despite the Rastafarians in space. Or maybe my identification with Case allowed me to suspend my disbelief a bit more. I'm not a hacker and never was but some of Case's character I could identify with. Like the back of one of Gibson's novels said, 'rustbelt refugee.' Case is the best part of Neuromancer because he's a really believable deadbeat. I identify with him too, but it's a bit hard to put my finger on why. I think it's really interesting how Count Zero almost stands completely on its own, but you really need to have read Neuromancer to get certain bits. I think my favorite moment in Count Zero is the first time that Bobby sees Turner. Turner is no doubt a badass, but chapters from his point of view reveal his doubts and general low opinion of himself. He's kind of lost. So when he is described from the point of view of the dumb rich-kid hacker, it's really neat to see the same character described from a different point of view, where he just sees him as an imposing badass.
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May 24, 2014 19:24
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SnakePlissken posted:A hunger for the taste of blue, So he never went on the record more than saying I did drugs and was crazy. But yeah, meth, selling junk from thrift stores and Lou Reed and Joy Division records could easily equal the mind-state necessary for writing Neuromancer. There really are constant references to amphetamines and speeds in his early work. Strangely I remember him saying that Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen influenced his early work, but he substituted cars for computers.
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May 25, 2014 11:44
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God Of Paradise posted:So he never went on the record more than saying I did drugs and was crazy. But yeah, meth, selling junk from thrift stores and Lou Reed and Joy Division records could easily equal the mind-state necessary for writing Neuromancer. There really are constant references to amphetamines and speeds in his early work. If you want to go into what fed Gibson's creativity, I'd include a diet of 60s-70s science fiction by people including Vinge, Delaney and probably Zelazney and the like.
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May 25, 2014 14:33
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Don't forget Steely Dan. Especially the Donald Fagen solo album Kamakiriad (which is The Gernsback Continuum) although I don't remember if that album came out before or after Gibson made it. I think I may have that album backwards. Point is, Gibson has Steely Dan shout outs and later Steely Dan includes Gibson shout outs.
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May 27, 2014 21:38
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Fun fact: 80s cartoon/toy commercial The Centurions did an episode called "Zone Dancer" which was a colossal ripoff of all things Gibson: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xz8g26_centurions-41-zone-dancer_shortfilms
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May 28, 2014 19:18
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SnakePlissken posted:If you want to go into what fed Gibson's creativity, I'd include a diet of 60s-70s science fiction by people including Vinge, Delaney and probably Zelazney and the like. Here's a thing he wrote about writing, framed around his friendship with Timothy Leary: http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/archive/2003_01_12_archive.asp
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May 29, 2014 12:55
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I'm one of those nerds who got him to sign the back of my ebook (dark) in silver sharpie. Also have several dead tree autographed.
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Jun 4, 2014 06:16
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Thanks, guys, I haven't opened a Gibson book in about ten years. Just finished Burning Chrome and Neuromancer, and now onto Count Zero. I forgot how much fun his stuff was.
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Jun 4, 2014 06:28
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Gibson tweeted yesterday that he's finished the Copy Edit draft for "The Peripheral" at 125,000 words. He plans on releasing it early November. He also got to use the phrase "baptist anime."
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Jun 10, 2014 14:45
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I just finished Pattern Recognition the other day... I really loved it, although reading it immediately after Count Zero was very strange. I'm pretty sure wanted to explore the ideas in the artist plot of Count Zero without the distraction of the scifi setting and action elements. And I think that he succeeded. I think that he's very good at writing his characters as realistically insecure, and captures pretty well the way that regular people are just faking their way through things sometimes. I did not feel at all like Pattern Recognition built to a climax, which is strange, but okay. I actually think that about Neuromancer and Count Zero as well. It could just be the way I read, I suppose, but it seems like two major elements contribute to this: First, he spreads intense events pretty even throughout all three those books. There are exciting things happening in the beginning, the middle, and the end. He definitely doesn't save "the big action scene" for the ending. Second, these books are so much about ideas, and the characters coming to realize, understand, or accept them. But it's not generally a big revelation at the end, it's more often a confirmation of what the character already suspects. Cathartic for both the character and the viewer, but not necessarily dramatic. I'm going to have to read everything he's ever written, I think... But for now I'm reading Philip K. Dick's VALIS, I assume there's a PKD thread about...
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Jun 10, 2014 19:19
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Snak posted:But for now I'm reading Philip K. Dick's VALIS, I assume there's a PKD thread about... There was a while ago, but it's sunk into Archives. He's my favorite writer of all time, maybe I'll make a thread since the release of the film of Radio Free Albemuth is finally happening. http://www.radiofreealbemuth.com/
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Jun 12, 2014 18:03
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Since I just finished reading Pattern Recognition I decided to look up Curta calculators... I can see why the chapter where they were introduced was called "Math Grenades"  They are fascinating and unfortunately cost between $1,100 and $1,900.
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Jun 15, 2014 18:21
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Snak posted:Since I just finished reading Pattern Recognition I decided to look up Curta calculators... I can't believe I hadn't thought to look those up before. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYsOi6L_Pw4 so cool
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Jun 15, 2014 18:35
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y9711pvZkc Gibson/GITS fans, this looks pretty sweet. They seem to have the look down right. Dat background detail!
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Jun 30, 2014 12:41
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Rough Lobster posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y9711pvZkc That video is a year and a half old, so it'll probably be great when that game comes out in 20 years. Seriously though that looks good.
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Jun 30, 2014 20:52
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precision posted:That video is a year and a half old, so it'll probably be great when that game comes out in 20 years. There haven't been any updates in a long time that I've seen. My guess is that the game is dead in the water. The video does capture a lot of the feeling that I got the first time I read through Neuromancer, but even more so Idoru. There's a different sort of action in the books of course, but anything that can capture that idea and turn it into a brilliant film or game is on my list of things to watch and play. It's too bad there's so much SFX inherently involved in any undertaking like that. I'll settle for rereading the books for now.
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Jun 30, 2014 23:51
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I just finished Zero History, capping off the entire Blue Ant trilogy and I loved it. It did leave one plot thread hanging: Milgrim never gave Hollis her dongle back  (does anyone actually use that word?)
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Jul 1, 2014 19:04
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Red Crown posted:I just finished Zero History, capping off the entire Blue Ant trilogy and I loved it. It did leave one plot thread hanging: All the time in enterprise IT, tons of companies still use goofball non-standard serial pinouts on enterprise gear.
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Jul 1, 2014 20:32
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Just finished the Sprawl trilogy, and I never realized that I hadn't read Mona Lisa Overdrive. I really enjoyed it. It got kind of abstract at the end and maybe not so satisfying because of that, but it was nice to have a wrap on certain players that had been there even before Neuromancer (Molly and the Finn). I read Neuromancer in high school as part of a science fiction class, so it's a real favorite of mine. About a year or two later, armed with the purchasing power that comes with after-school jobs, I joined a CD club, this thing they had in the 90's that let you buy a bunch of CD's for cheap up front, if you promised to buy 4 at full price over a year. In the 90's, it was among the better ways to get your hands on music if you lived in the suburbs far from cool record stores, and generally couldn't stomach the $17 price tag that albums came with back then. At any rate, I bought Billy Idol's Cyberpunk album for cheapie cheaps, and it was a revolutionary buy. It introduced me (as someone who listened almost exclusively to top 40 modern rock/grunge) to a more electronically produced and manipulated sound, to non-music skits in between tracks, stuff like that. Plus, the theme was very obviously cribbed from Gibson's works, and the feeling of movies and music from that era and genre. It was just this great, weird, melty thing that seemed to contain a world inside of it. It also marks a point in my media consumption career where I realized that I could really enjoy something that can probably objectively be reviewed as a completely unlistenable disaster. I never read a review of the album, but I have a very strong feeling to this day that it could not possibly have performed very well. Cyberpunk is simultaneously a work of genius, and a piece of garbage, and I love it.  I mean, just take a look at that cover. I think the word "Cyberpunk" written in the default Greek font that comes with every word processor, that every middle schooler who finds it and uses it because it looks cryptic, says it all.
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Jul 1, 2014 20:56
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Christ I had forgotten that Billy Idol album existed. That might be the most 90s thing ever.
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Jul 2, 2014 04:51
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