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{{Infobox Writer| name = William Gibson| image = William Gibson by FredArmitage.jpg| imagesize = 250px| caption = William Gibson in August 2007| birth_date = | birth_place = Conway, South Carolina, South Carolinaist| period = [1977 in literature —| genre = Science fiction| debut_works = "[Fragments of a Hologram Rose"
(short story, 1977)
''[Neuromancer'' (novel, 1984) | influences = Alfred Bester,{{cite web] |publisher= William Gibson's blog| quote = Whatever of my work may be there, it seems to me to have gotten there by exactly the kind of creative cultural osmosis I've always depended on myself. If there's NEUROMANCER in THE MATRIX, there's The Stars My Destination and Dhalgren in NEUROMANCER, and much else besides, down to and including actual bits of embarrassingly undigested gristle. And while I was drawing directly from those originals, and many others, the makers of THE MATRIX were drawing through a pre-existing "cyberpunk" esthetic, which constituted as much of a found object, for them, as "science fiction" did for me. From where they were, they had the added luxury of choosing bits from, say, Billy Idol’s "Neuromancer" as well. When I began to write NEUROMANCER, there was no "cyberpunk". THE MATRIX is arguably the ultimate "cyberpunk" artifact. Or will be, if the sequels don't blow. I hope they don't, and somehow have a hunch they won't, but I'm glad I'm not the one who has to worry about it.--> Samuel R. Delany, Dashiell Hammett, Robert Stone, Jorge Luis Borges, William S. Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Ursula K. Le Guin, Joanna Russ, [Richard Morgan, Linda Nagata, Neal Stephenson, Charles Stross) is an [United States of America-Canada writer who has been called the father of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction, having coined the term cyberspace in 1982 Cyberspace at The Jargon File; and popularizing it in his first novel, Neuromancer (1984), which has sold more than 6.5 million copies worldwide.

While his early writing took the form of short stories, later Gibson has written nine critically acclaimed novels (one in collaboration), contributed articles to several major publications, and has collaborated extensively with performance artists, filmmakers and musicians. His thought has been cited as an influence on science fiction authors, in academia, cyberculture, and technology.

Biography William Ford Gibson was born in 1948 in the coastal city of Conway, South Carolina and spent most of his childhood in Wytheville, Virginia although his family moved around frequently due to his father's position as manager in a large construction company. When Gibson was six years old, his father choked to death in a restaurant while on a business trip. His mother was unable to bring the young boy the bad news and someone else informed him about his father's death.{{cite news | last = Solomon | first = Deborah | title = Back From the Future | work = Questions for William Gibson | pages = 13 | publisher = ''[The New York Times Magazine '' | date = [2007-08-19 | url = http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/magazine/19wwln-q4-t.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss | accessdate = 2007-10-13 --> After this tragedy, Gibson's mother returned them to South Carolina, which he later described as "a place where modernity had arrived to some extent but was deeply distrusted" and credits the beginnings of his relationship with science fiction with the subsequent feeling of abrupt exile. At fifteen he was sent to a private boarding school in Tucson, Arizona by his then "chronically anxious and depressive" mother. Tom Maddox has commented that Gibson "grew up in an America as disturbing and surreal as anything J. G. Ballard ever dreamed."{{cite web] "to Draft dodger#Draft dodging and the Vietnam War", and "did literally evade the draft, as they never bothered drafting me." That year he appeared in a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation newsreel item about hippie subculture in Yorkville, Toronto. After travelling to Europe, he and his future wife settled in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1972. Gibson earned "a desultory bachelor's degree in English" at the University of British Columbia. Through studying English literature, Gibson was exposed to a wider range of fiction than he would have read otherwise, something he credits with giving him ideas inaccessible from within the culture of science fiction, including an awareness of postmodernity. It was at UBC that he attended his first course on science fiction, at the end of which he was encouraged to write his first short story, "Fragments of a Hologram Rose". Thereafter, Gibson worked at various jobs, including a three-year stint as teaching assistant on a film history course of his alma mater, before resolving to write full-time. Although he retains U.S. citizenship, Gibson has spent most of his adult life in Canada, and still lives in the Vancouver area.

Literary career {{Quote_box| width = auto|align=right| quote = …the street finds its own uses for things.| source = "Hackers (short stories)#"Burning Chrome"" (1981)-->Gibson's early writings are generally futuristic stories about the influences of cybernetics and cyberspace (computer-simulated reality) technology on the human race. His themes of hi-tech shantytowns, recorded or broadcast stimulus (later to be developed into the "sim-stim" package featured so heavily in Neuromancer), and dystopic intermingling of technology and humanity, are already evident in his first published short story, "Fragments of a Hologram Rose" (1977). The latter thematic obsession was described by Gibson's friend and fellow author, Bruce Sterling, in the introduction to Gibson's short story collection Burning Chrome, as "Gibson's classic one-two combination of lowlife and high tech."

In the 1980s, his fiction developed a film noir, bleak feel; short stories appearing in Omni (magazine) began to develop the themes he eventually expanded into his first novel, Neuromancer. Neuromancer was the first novel to win all three major science fiction awards: the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award, and Philip K. Dick Award.Although much of Gibson's reputation has remained rooted in Neuromancer, his work continued to evolve conceptually and stylistically. The subsequent novels which complete his first loose trilogy - commonly known as "the Sprawl trilogy" - are Count Zero (1986) and Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988).

Following the completion of the Sprawl trilogy, Gibson's next project was a departure from his cyberpunk roots; a collaboration with Bruce Sterling. The Difference Engine, an alternate history (fiction) novel set in a technologically advanced Victorian era Britain, is often cited as a central steampunk novel,{{cite news| first = Peter | last = Bebergal | title = The age of steampunk | url = http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/26/the_age_of_steampunk/ | format = article | publisher = [The Boston Globe | page = 3 | date = [2007-08-26 | accessdate = 2007-10-14 --> and was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1991 and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1992. Gibson's second series, "the Bridge trilogy" composed of Virtual Light (1993), Idoru (1996), and All Tomorrow's Parties (novel) (1999), centres on San Francisco in the near future and evinces Gibson's recurring themes of technological, physical, and spiritual transcendence in a more grounded, matter-of-fact style than his first trilogy. A common theme up to this point has been the use of characters with seemingly innate abilities in the technological world they inhabit.

Later 21st–century incarnation during the Pattern Recognition (novel) book tour.{{epigraph| quote =…I felt that I was trying to describe an unthinkable present and I actually feel that science fiction's best use today is the exploration of contemporary reality rather than any attempt to predict where we are going…The best thing you can do with science today is use it to explore the present. Earth is the alien planet now. | cite =William Gibson in an interview on CNN, [August 26, [. --> After All Tomorrow's Parties, Gibson began to adopt a more realism (arts) style of writing, with continuous narratives — "speculative fiction of the very recent past." Critic John Clute has interpreted this approach by Gibson as the recognition that traditional science fiction is no longer possible "in a world lacking coherent 'nows' to continue from", characterizing it as "SF for the new century". Gibson's novels Pattern Recognition (novel) (2003), and Spook Country (2007), were both set in the same contemporary universe — "more or less the same one we live in now" — and put Gibson's work onto mainstream bestseller lists for the first time. As well as the setting, the novels share some of the same characters, including Hubertus Bigend and Pamela Mainwaring - employees of the enigmatic marketing company Blue Ant.

Collaborations, adaptations and miscellanea Literary collaborations Three out of 10 Gibson's early stories later collected in Burning Chrome were written in collaboration; "The Belonging Kind" (1981) with John Shirley, "Hackers (anthology)#"Dogfight"" (1985) with Michael Swanwick and "Red Star, Winter Orbit" with friend and fellow founder of the cyberpunk movement Bruce Sterling. Gibson and Sterling co-wrote the Nebula Award-nominated Alternate history (fiction) novel The Difference Engine (1990), one of the founding texts of the steampunk sub-genre of speculative fiction.

Gibson, together with his friend Tom Maddox, wrote the X-Files episodes "William Gibson's "The X-Files" episodes". In 1998, Gibson wrote the introduction to the Art of the X-Files. Gibson also made a cameo appearance in the miniseries Wild Palms. Gibson also wrote the foreword to the novel City Come A-walkin by fellow cyberpunk and occasional collaborator John Shirley. ]|accessdate=2007-05-01| first=William|last=Gibson--> In 1993, Gibson contributed lyrics and featured as a guest vocalist on Yellow Magic Orchestra's Technodon album, and co-wrote lyrics to the track "Dog Star Girl" for Deborah Harry's Debravation.

Exhibitions and performance art Gibson has contributed text to be integrated into a number of performance art pieces. In October 1989, Gibson wrote text for such a collaboration with future Johnny Mnemonic (film) director Robert Longo entitled Dream Jumbo: Working the Absolutes, which was displayed in Royce Hall, University of California Los Angeles. Three years later, Gibson contributed original text to "Memory Palace", a performance show featuring the theatre group "La Fura dels Baus" at Art Futura, Barcelona, which featured images by Karl Sims, Rebecca Allen, Mark Pellington and music by Peter Gabriel and others. Gibson's latest contribution was in 1997, a collaboration with critically acclaimed Vancouver-based contemporary dance company Holy Body Tattoo.

In 1990, Gibson wrote an article about a decaying San Francisco, its San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge closed and taken over by the homeless (a theme later to form the setting of the Bridge trilogy) as part of a collaboration with the architects Ming Fung and Craig Hodgetts; this article subsequently became part of an exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art featuring the author on a monitor discussing the future and reading from "Skinner's Room", a short story prequel to the trilogy.

A particularly well-received work by Gibson was Agrippa (A Book of the Dead) (1992), a 300-line semi-autobiographical electronic poem that was his contribution to a collaborative project with artist Dennis Ashbaugh and publisher Kevin Begos, Jr.Alan Liu, The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2004), pp. 339-48. Gibson's text focused on the ethereal nature of memories (the title refers to a photo album) and was originally published on a 3.5" floppy disk embedded in the back of an artist's book containing etchings by Ashbaugh (these were supposed to fade from view once the book was opened and exposed to light — they never did). "Ashbaugh's design eventually included a supposedly Self-destruct floppy-disk intended to display the text only once, then eat itself." Contrary to numerous colorful reports, the diskettes were never actually "Hacker." Instead the poem was manually transcribed from a surreptitious videotape of its screen projection at a public showing in Manhattan in December 1992, and released on the MindVox Bulletin board system the next day; this is the text that still circulates widely on the Internet today.Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination (Cambridge and London: The MIT Press, forthcoming January 2008).

Film adaptations and screenplays " in No Maps for These Territories (1999)Two of Gibson's short stories, both set in the Sprawl trilogy universe, have been loosely Film adaptation as films: 1995 Johnny Mnemonic (film) with screenplay by Gibson and starring Keanu Reeves, and 1998 New Rose Hotel (film), starring Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe, and Asia Argento. In late 1980s Gibson wrote an early treatment of Alien³, few elements of which found their way into the film. A film adaptation of Pattern Recognition by director Peter Weir was in development, but according to Gibson, Weir is no longer attached to the project. An anime adaptation of Gibson's Idoru was announced as in development in 2006. Neuromancer, after a long stay in development hell, is in the process of adaptation as of 2007.

Gibson was the focus of a 1999 documentary film by Mark Neale called No Maps for These Territories, which followed Gibson across North America discussing various aspects of his life, literary career and cultural interpretations. It features interviews with Jack Womack and Bruce Sterling, as well as recitations from Neuromancer by Bono and The Edge.

Journalism Gibson is a sporadic contributor to Wired (magazine), and has written for The Observer, Addicted to Noise, New York Times Magazine and Rolling Stone. Archive of articles written by Gibson, retrieved April 9, 2007 He commenced writing a blog in January 2003, which remains active, with one major hiatus (September 2003 – October 2004) as of October 2007. During the process of writing Spook Country, Gibson frequently posted short nonsequential excerpts from the novel to the blog.; ;

Influence Hailed by the Literary Encyclopedia as "one of North America's most highly acclaimed science fiction writers",{{cite web| last =Rapatzikou | first =Tatiani | title ="William Gibson." | work =[The Literary Encyclopedia | publisher =The Literary Dictionary Company | date =2003-06-17 | url =http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5198 | format =encyclopedia entry | accessdate =2007-08-27 --> Gibson first achieved critical recognition with his debut novel, ''[Neuromancer'', which won three major science fiction awards – the [Nebula Award, the [Philip K. Dick Award, and the [Hugo Award; by the last installment of the [Sprawl trilogy his work had attracted an audience from outside the genre, as an "evocation of life in the late [1980's". His work, which has received international attention, is often situated by critics within the context of [postindustrialism as a construction of "a mirror of existing large-scale techno-social relations", and as a [narrative version of [Postmodernity [consumer culture.{{cite online journal | last = Sponsler | first = Claire | year = 1992 | month = Winter | title = Cyberpunk and the Dilemmas of Postmodern Narrative: The Example of William Gibson | journal = Contemporary Literature | volume = 33 | issue = 4 | pages = 625-644 | url =http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0010-7484%28199224%2933%3A4%3C625%3ACATDOP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9 | accessdate = 2007-08-27 --> It is praised by critics for its depictions of [late capitalism and its "rewriting of [subjectivity, human [consciousness and behaviour made newly problematic by technology."

Cultural influence writer Cory Doctorow (right), who was influenced by him.In his early short fiction, Gibson is credited by the Literary Encyclopedia as effectively renovating science fiction, a genre at that time considered widely "insignificant." Gibson's work has influenced several popular musicians; references to his stories appear in the music of Stuart Hamm, Billy Idol, Warren Zevon, Deltron 3030, Straylight Run and Sonic Youth. U2 at one point planned to scroll the text of Neuromancer above them on a concert tour, but ended up not doing it. Members of the band did, however, provide background music for the audiobook version of Neuromancer as well as appearing in Gibson's biographical documentary, No Maps for These Territories. Gibson returned the favour, writing "U2's City of Blinding Lights" about U2 on tour for Wired (magazine).

{{epigraph| quote = ''[The Matrix'' is arguably the ultimate “cyberpunk” artifact. | cite = William Gibson on his blog, 2003 -->

In the landmark cyberpunk film The Matrix (1999), the title itself and some of the characters were inspired by the novel; Neo (The Matrix) and Trinity (The Matrix) in The Matrix show similarities to Case and Molly Millions in Neuromancer. Hackers (film) (1995) is another film, which although not drawing direct influence from Gibson, pays homage to him—the computer which the hackers break into toward the end of the film is called "the Gibson."{{cite web|url =http://www.scifimoviepage.com/hackers.html|title =Hackers|last =O'Ehley |first =James|year =|format =|work =|publisher =Sci-Fi Movie Page|accessdate=2007-09-24-->

Visionary influence {{epigraph| quote = The future is already here — it's just not evenly distributed. | cite =William Gibson, quoted in ''The Economist'', [December 4 [{{cite news | title = Books of the year 2003 | url = http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_NNGVRJV | format = book review; paid archive | work = BOOKS & ARTS | publisher = ''[The Economist'' | date = [2003-12-04 | accessdate = 2007-08-06 --> --> Gibson coined the term cyberspace and in Neuromancer first used the term 'wikt:matrix' to refer to the visualised Internet, predicting a worldwide communications network eleven years before the origin of the World Wide Web. He predicted the rise of [Reality television, the Internet and many of the [subculture aspects of the latter, e.g. the hacker's [subculture in ''Neuromancer''.

-->

In Pattern Recognition, an important plotline revolves around snippets of film footage posted anonymously at various locations on the Internet. Characters in the novel speculate about the filmmaker's identity, motives, methods and inspirations on several websites, anticipating the 2006 Lonelygirl15 internet phenomenon. However, Gibson refuted the notion that he predicted Lonelygirl15 or YouTube stating: "Wow, the legend grows and grows! You could probably make a case that I predicted Lonelygirl in Pattern Recognition. But I don't think the people who did were thinking, 'This sounds like a riff from a William Gibson novel!'"August 14 2006 edition of the free daily Metro International, interview by Amy Benfer (amybenfer (at) metro.us)

Gibson has never had a special relationship with computers. Neuromancer was in fact written on a manual typewriter (he eventually upgraded to a Macintosh SE/30). In 2007 he said:

Bibliography Novels Voyager trade paperbacks of the Sprawl trilogy with covers by Gary Marsh.



Short fiction Collected Burning Chrome (1986, Preface by Bruce Sterling) which includes: Uncollected

Articles {{Quote box| width= 25em; |align= right|quote= Emergent technology is, by its very nature, out of control, and leads to unpredictable outcomes.|source= Gibson's address at the Directors Guild of America Digital Day, Los Angeles, May 17, 2003 -->

, released in 1992

Miscellaneous other work

Further reading

Footnotes I. Several track names on Hamm's Kings of Sleep album ("Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics", "Count Zero", "The Winter Market") reference Gibson's work.II. See, for example, Idol's Cyberpunk (album) album.III. Transverse City was inspired by Gibson.

References External links

References

Notable fan sites

Interviews Chronological order of publication (oldest first)

{{Persondata] author, cyberpunk pioneer], [1948, [South Carolina {{Infobox Writer| name = William Gibson| image = William Gibson by FredArmitage.jpg| imagesize = 250px| caption = William Gibson in August 2007| birth_date = | birth_place = Conway, South Carolina, South Carolinaist| period = [1977 in literature —| genre = Science fiction| debut_works = "[Fragments of a Hologram Rose"
(short story, 1977)
''[Neuromancer'' (novel, 1984) | influences = Alfred Bester,{{cite web] |publisher= William Gibson's blog| quote = Whatever of my work may be there, it seems to me to have gotten there by exactly the kind of creative cultural osmosis I've always depended on myself. If there's NEUROMANCER in THE MATRIX, there's The Stars My Destination and Dhalgren in NEUROMANCER, and much else besides, down to and including actual bits of embarrassingly undigested gristle. And while I was drawing directly from those originals, and many others, the makers of THE MATRIX were drawing through a pre-existing "cyberpunk" esthetic, which constituted as much of a found object, for them, as "science fiction" did for me. From where they were, they had the added luxury of choosing bits from, say, Billy Idol’s "Neuromancer" as well. When I began to write NEUROMANCER, there was no "cyberpunk". THE MATRIX is arguably the ultimate "cyberpunk" artifact. Or will be, if the sequels don't blow. I hope they don't, and somehow have a hunch they won't, but I'm glad I'm not the one who has to worry about it.--> Samuel R. Delany, Dashiell Hammett, Robert Stone, Jorge Luis Borges, William S. Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Ursula K. Le Guin, Joanna Russ, [Richard Morgan, Linda Nagata, Neal Stephenson, Charles Stross) is an [United States of America-Canada writer who has been called the father of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction, having coined the term cyberspace in 1982 Cyberspace at The Jargon File; and popularizing it in his first novel, Neuromancer (1984), which has sold more than 6.5 million copies worldwide.

While his early writing took the form of short stories, later Gibson has written nine critically acclaimed novels (one in collaboration), contributed articles to several major publications, and has collaborated extensively with performance artists, filmmakers and musicians. His thought has been cited as an influence on science fiction authors, in academia, cyberculture, and technology.

Biography William Ford Gibson was born in 1948 in the coastal city of Conway, South Carolina and spent most of his childhood in Wytheville, Virginia although his family moved around frequently due to his father's position as manager in a large construction company. When Gibson was six years old, his father choked to death in a restaurant while on a business trip. His mother was unable to bring the young boy the bad news and someone else informed him about his father's death.{{cite news | last = Solomon | first = Deborah | title = Back From the Future | work = Questions for William Gibson | pages = 13 | publisher = ''[The New York Times Magazine '' | date = [2007-08-19 | url = http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/magazine/19wwln-q4-t.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss | accessdate = 2007-10-13 --> After this tragedy, Gibson's mother returned them to South Carolina, which he later described as "a place where modernity had arrived to some extent but was deeply distrusted" and credits the beginnings of his relationship with science fiction with the subsequent feeling of abrupt exile. At fifteen he was sent to a private boarding school in Tucson, Arizona by his then "chronically anxious and depressive" mother. Tom Maddox has commented that Gibson "grew up in an America as disturbing and surreal as anything J. G. Ballard ever dreamed."{{cite web] "to Draft dodger#Draft dodging and the Vietnam War", and "did literally evade the draft, as they never bothered drafting me." That year he appeared in a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation newsreel item about hippie subculture in Yorkville, Toronto. After travelling to Europe, he and his future wife settled in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1972. Gibson earned "a desultory bachelor's degree in English" at the University of British Columbia. Through studying English literature, Gibson was exposed to a wider range of fiction than he would have read otherwise, something he credits with giving him ideas inaccessible from within the culture of science fiction, including an awareness of postmodernity. It was at UBC that he attended his first course on science fiction, at the end of which he was encouraged to write his first short story, "Fragments of a Hologram Rose". Thereafter, Gibson worked at various jobs, including a three-year stint as teaching assistant on a film history course of his alma mater, before resolving to write full-time. Although he retains U.S. citizenship, Gibson has spent most of his adult life in Canada, and still lives in the Vancouver area.

Literary career {{Quote_box| width = auto|align=right| quote = …the street finds its own uses for things.| source = "Hackers (short stories)#"Burning Chrome"" (1981)-->Gibson's early writings are generally futuristic stories about the influences of cybernetics and cyberspace (computer-simulated reality) technology on the human race. His themes of hi-tech shantytowns, recorded or broadcast stimulus (later to be developed into the "sim-stim" package featured so heavily in Neuromancer), and dystopic intermingling of technology and humanity, are already evident in his first published short story, "Fragments of a Hologram Rose" (1977). The latter thematic obsession was described by Gibson's friend and fellow author, Bruce Sterling, in the introduction to Gibson's short story collection Burning Chrome, as "Gibson's classic one-two combination of lowlife and high tech."

In the 1980s, his fiction developed a film noir, bleak feel; short stories appearing in Omni (magazine) began to develop the themes he eventually expanded into his first novel, Neuromancer. Neuromancer was the first novel to win all three major science fiction awards: the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award, and Philip K. Dick Award.Although much of Gibson's reputation has remained rooted in Neuromancer, his work continued to evolve conceptually and stylistically. The subsequent novels which complete his first loose trilogy - commonly known as "the Sprawl trilogy" - are Count Zero (1986) and Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988).

Following the completion of the Sprawl trilogy, Gibson's next project was a departure from his cyberpunk roots; a collaboration with Bruce Sterling. The Difference Engine, an alternate history (fiction) novel set in a technologically advanced Victorian era Britain, is often cited as a central steampunk novel,{{cite news| first = Peter | last = Bebergal | title = The age of steampunk | url = http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/26/the_age_of_steampunk/ | format = article | publisher = [The Boston Globe | page = 3 | date = [2007-08-26 | accessdate = 2007-10-14 --> and was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1991 and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1992. Gibson's second series, "the Bridge trilogy" composed of Virtual Light (1993), Idoru (1996), and All Tomorrow's Parties (novel) (1999), centres on San Francisco in the near future and evinces Gibson's recurring themes of technological, physical, and spiritual transcendence in a more grounded, matter-of-fact style than his first trilogy. A common theme up to this point has been the use of characters with seemingly innate abilities in the technological world they inhabit.

Later 21st–century incarnation during the Pattern Recognition (novel) book tour.{{epigraph| quote =…I felt that I was trying to describe an unthinkable present and I actually feel that science fiction's best use today is the exploration of contemporary reality rather than any attempt to predict where we are going…The best thing you can do with science today is use it to explore the present. Earth is the alien planet now. | cite =William Gibson in an interview on CNN, [August 26, [. --> After All Tomorrow's Parties, Gibson began to adopt a more realism (arts) style of writing, with continuous narratives — "speculative fiction of the very recent past." Critic John Clute has interpreted this approach by Gibson as the recognition that traditional science fiction is no longer possible "in a world lacking coherent 'nows' to continue from", characterizing it as "SF for the new century". Gibson's novels Pattern Recognition (novel) (2003), and Spook Country (2007), were both set in the same contemporary universe — "more or less the same one we live in now" — and put Gibson's work onto mainstream bestseller lists for the first time. As well as the setting, the novels share some of the same characters, including Hubertus Bigend and Pamela Mainwaring - employees of the enigmatic marketing company Blue Ant.

Collaborations, adaptations and miscellanea Literary collaborations Three out of 10 Gibson's early stories later collected in Burning Chrome were written in collaboration; "The Belonging Kind" (1981) with John Shirley, "Hackers (anthology)#"Dogfight"" (1985) with Michael Swanwick and "Red Star, Winter Orbit" with friend and fellow founder of the cyberpunk movement Bruce Sterling. Gibson and Sterling co-wrote the Nebula Award-nominated Alternate history (fiction) novel The Difference Engine (1990), one of the founding texts of the steampunk sub-genre of speculative fiction.

Gibson, together with his friend Tom Maddox, wrote the X-Files episodes "William Gibson's "The X-Files" episodes". In 1998, Gibson wrote the introduction to the Art of the X-Files. Gibson also made a cameo appearance in the miniseries Wild Palms. Gibson also wrote the foreword to the novel City Come A-walkin by fellow cyberpunk and occasional collaborator John Shirley. ]|accessdate=2007-05-01| first=William|last=Gibson--> In 1993, Gibson contributed lyrics and featured as a guest vocalist on Yellow Magic Orchestra's Technodon album, and co-wrote lyrics to the track "Dog Star Girl" for Deborah Harry's Debravation.

Exhibitions and performance art Gibson has contributed text to be integrated into a number of performance art pieces. In October 1989, Gibson wrote text for such a collaboration with future Johnny Mnemonic (film) director Robert Longo entitled Dream Jumbo: Working the Absolutes, which was displayed in Royce Hall, University of California Los Angeles. Three years later, Gibson contributed original text to "Memory Palace", a performance show featuring the theatre group "La Fura dels Baus" at Art Futura, Barcelona, which featured images by Karl Sims, Rebecca Allen, Mark Pellington and music by Peter Gabriel and others. Gibson's latest contribution was in 1997, a collaboration with critically acclaimed Vancouver-based contemporary dance company Holy Body Tattoo.

In 1990, Gibson wrote an article about a decaying San Francisco, its San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge closed and taken over by the homeless (a theme later to form the setting of the Bridge trilogy) as part of a collaboration with the architects Ming Fung and Craig Hodgetts; this article subsequently became part of an exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art featuring the author on a monitor discussing the future and reading from "Skinner's Room", a short story prequel to the trilogy.

A particularly well-received work by Gibson was Agrippa (A Book of the Dead) (1992), a 300-line semi-autobiographical electronic poem that was his contribution to a collaborative project with artist Dennis Ashbaugh and publisher Kevin Begos, Jr.Alan Liu, The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2004), pp. 339-48. Gibson's text focused on the ethereal nature of memories (the title refers to a photo album) and was originally published on a 3.5" floppy disk embedded in the back of an artist's book containing etchings by Ashbaugh (these were supposed to fade from view once the book was opened and exposed to light — they never did). "Ashbaugh's design eventually included a supposedly Self-destruct floppy-disk intended to display the text only once, then eat itself." Contrary to numerous colorful reports, the diskettes were never actually "Hacker." Instead the poem was manually transcribed from a surreptitious videotape of its screen projection at a public showing in Manhattan in December 1992, and released on the MindVox Bulletin board system the next day; this is the text that still circulates widely on the Internet today.Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination (Cambridge and London: The MIT Press, forthcoming January 2008).

Film adaptations and screenplays " in No Maps for These Territories (1999)Two of Gibson's short stories, both set in the Sprawl trilogy universe, have been loosely Film adaptation as films: 1995 Johnny Mnemonic (film) with screenplay by Gibson and starring Keanu Reeves, and 1998 New Rose Hotel (film), starring Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe, and Asia Argento. In late 1980s Gibson wrote an early treatment of Alien³, few elements of which found their way into the film. A film adaptation of Pattern Recognition by director Peter Weir was in development, but according to Gibson, Weir is no longer attached to the project. An anime adaptation of Gibson's Idoru was announced as in development in 2006. Neuromancer, after a long stay in development hell, is in the process of adaptation as of 2007.

Gibson was the focus of a 1999 documentary film by Mark Neale called No Maps for These Territories, which followed Gibson across North America discussing various aspects of his life, literary career and cultural interpretations. It features interviews with Jack Womack and Bruce Sterling, as well as recitations from Neuromancer by Bono and The Edge.

Journalism Gibson is a sporadic contributor to Wired (magazine), and has written for The Observer, Addicted to Noise, New York Times Magazine and Rolling Stone. Archive of articles written by Gibson, retrieved April 9, 2007 He commenced writing a blog in January 2003, which remains active, with one major hiatus (September 2003 – October 2004) as of October 2007. During the process of writing Spook Country, Gibson frequently posted short nonsequential excerpts from the novel to the blog.; ;

Influence Hailed by the Literary Encyclopedia as "one of North America's most highly acclaimed science fiction writers",{{cite web| last =Rapatzikou | first =Tatiani | title ="William Gibson." | work =[The Literary Encyclopedia | publisher =The Literary Dictionary Company | date =2003-06-17 | url =http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5198 | format =encyclopedia entry | accessdate =2007-08-27 --> Gibson first achieved critical recognition with his debut novel, ''[Neuromancer'', which won three major science fiction awards – the [Nebula Award, the [Philip K. Dick Award, and the [Hugo Award; by the last installment of the [Sprawl trilogy his work had attracted an audience from outside the genre, as an "evocation of life in the late [1980's". His work, which has received international attention, is often situated by critics within the context of [postindustrialism as a construction of "a mirror of existing large-scale techno-social relations", and as a [narrative version of [Postmodernity [consumer culture.{{cite online journal | last = Sponsler | first = Claire | year = 1992 | month = Winter | title = Cyberpunk and the Dilemmas of Postmodern Narrative: The Example of William Gibson | journal = Contemporary Literature | volume = 33 | issue = 4 | pages = 625-644 | url =http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0010-7484%28199224%2933%3A4%3C625%3ACATDOP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9 | accessdate = 2007-08-27 --> It is praised by critics for its depictions of [late capitalism and its "rewriting of [subjectivity, human [consciousness and behaviour made newly problematic by technology."

Cultural influence writer Cory Doctorow (right), who was influenced by him.In his early short fiction, Gibson is credited by the Literary Encyclopedia as effectively renovating science fiction, a genre at that time considered widely "insignificant." Gibson's work has influenced several popular musicians; references to his stories appear in the music of Stuart Hamm, Billy Idol, Warren Zevon, Deltron 3030, Straylight Run and Sonic Youth. U2 at one point planned to scroll the text of Neuromancer above them on a concert tour, but ended up not doing it. Members of the band did, however, provide background music for the audiobook version of Neuromancer as well as appearing in Gibson's biographical documentary, No Maps for These Territories. Gibson returned the favour, writing "U2's City of Blinding Lights" about U2 on tour for Wired (magazine).

{{epigraph| quote = ''[The Matrix'' is arguably the ultimate “cyberpunk” artifact. | cite = William Gibson on his blog, 2003 -->

In the landmark cyberpunk film The Matrix (1999), the title itself and some of the characters were inspired by the novel; Neo (The Matrix) and Trinity (The Matrix) in The Matrix show similarities to Case and Molly Millions in Neuromancer. Hackers (film) (1995) is another film, which although not drawing direct influence from Gibson, pays homage to him—the computer which the hackers break into toward the end of the film is called "the Gibson."{{cite web|url =http://www.scifimoviepage.com/hackers.html|title =Hackers|last =O'Ehley |first =James|year =|format =|work =|publisher =Sci-Fi Movie Page|accessdate=2007-09-24-->

Visionary influence {{epigraph| quote = The future is already here — it's just not evenly distributed. | cite =William Gibson, quoted in ''The Economist'', [December 4 [{{cite news | title = Books of the year 2003 | url = http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_NNGVRJV | format = book review; paid archive | work = BOOKS & ARTS | publisher = ''[The Economist'' | date = [2003-12-04 | accessdate = 2007-08-06 --> --> Gibson coined the term cyberspace and in Neuromancer first used the term 'wikt:matrix' to refer to the visualised Internet, predicting a worldwide communications network eleven years before the origin of the World Wide Web. He predicted the rise of [Reality television, the Internet and many of the [subculture aspects of the latter, e.g. the hacker's [subculture in ''Neuromancer''.

-->

In Pattern Recognition, an important plotline revolves around snippets of film footage posted anonymously at various locations on the Internet. Characters in the novel speculate about the filmmaker's identity, motives, methods and inspirations on several websites, anticipating the 2006 Lonelygirl15 internet phenomenon. However, Gibson refuted the notion that he predicted Lonelygirl15 or YouTube stating: "Wow, the legend grows and grows! You could probably make a case that I predicted Lonelygirl in Pattern Recognition. But I don't think the people who did were thinking, 'This sounds like a riff from a William Gibson novel!'"August 14 2006 edition of the free daily Metro International, interview by Amy Benfer (amybenfer (at) metro.us)

Gibson has never had a special relationship with computers. Neuromancer was in fact written on a manual typewriter (he eventually upgraded to a Macintosh SE/30). In 2007 he said:

Bibliography Novels Voyager trade paperbacks of the Sprawl trilogy with covers by Gary Marsh.



Short fiction Collected Burning Chrome (1986, Preface by Bruce Sterling) which includes: Uncollected

Articles {{Quote box| width= 25em; |align= right|quote= Emergent technology is, by its very nature, out of control, and leads to unpredictable outcomes.|source= Gibson's address at the Directors Guild of America Digital Day, Los Angeles, May 17, 2003 -->

, released in 1992

Miscellaneous other work

Further reading

Footnotes I. Several track names on Hamm's Kings of Sleep album ("Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics", "Count Zero", "The Winter Market") reference Gibson's work.II. See, for example, Idol's Cyberpunk (album) album.III. Transverse City was inspired by Gibson.

References External links

References

Notable fan sites

Interviews Chronological order of publication (oldest first)

{{Persondata] author, cyberpunk pioneer], [1948, [South Carolina

William Gibson from FOLDOC
William Gibson < person > Author of cyberpunk novels such as Neuromancer (1984), Count Zero (1986), Mona Lisa Overdrive, and Virtual Light (1993). Neuromancer, a novel about a ...

William Gibson
I identify fully with Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster ! [Thanks to Paul McCauley for the photograph.]

Amazon.co.uk: Burning Chrome: William Gibson: Books
Amazon.co.uk: Burning Chrome: William Gibson: Books ... Synopsis The author's first collection of short stories set in the Sprawl, the landscape of "Neuromancer".

William Gibson - Official Website

William Gibson from FOLDOC
Gibson, William ==> William Gibson < person > Author of cyberpunk novels such as Neuromancer (1984), Count Zero (1986), Mona Lisa Overdrive, and Virtual Light (1993).

William Gibson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William Ford Gibson (born 17 March 1948) is an American-Canadian [16] writer who has been called the "noir prophet" of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction. [17] In 1982 ...

William Gibson Burning Chrome

Salon: William Gibson, Webmaster
Cyberspace's father spends some time with his progeny

William Gibson ‘gives up blogging’ • The Register
The second-greatest living American writer [*] with a weblog, William Gibson, is departing the "blogosphere". This we learn from journalist Karlin Lillington, who interviewed him ...

Amazon.co.uk: Spook Country: William Gibson: Books
Amazon.co.uk: Spook Country: William Gibson: Books ... This item is not eligible for Amazon Prime, but millions of other items are.

 

William Gibson



 
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