William Gibson (1) (1948–)

In this universe somehow or other one timeline seems to dominate and people can create 'stubs' -- but the stubs are REAL -- and when things go wrong, the planet and every living thing on it will suffer, so there are those who try to 'manage' the stubs. To combat all this one of these 'agents' has loosed an AI who can think and act for herself in order to see if that might make a positive difference. The tension, I think, is embedded and implicit -- the amorality of 'gaming' versus the, uh, realness of reality -- people have lost their grip on the difference. We can't manage ourselves, basicall, we're wayyy too irrational. It's not stated explicitly, but that's the message. The second half gets more exciting qua story. Gibson as always is thinking hard about many things. For me it was not so much a fun read though. ****… (mais)

Can you spoil a book that's older than you? Given the current state of... *gestures vaguely *... everything, I've recently become interested in the cyberpunk genre. After learning that a lot of the lingo was linked to Toronto kids on various drugs, I decided to check out the source.

I loved it. It was fun. I love the way Gibson played with language. It would be comparable to Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, but it actually impacted the way we talk today. I came of age as the Matrix released, I've sat in classrooms learning of event horizons and I've been told the Singularity is 20 years away for the last 15 years. I wonder if I had read this in high school, would I have delved deeper into software coding?

You can find wonderful summaries of this book elsewhere. But should you read it? If you liked the Matrix, if you thought the Johnny Mnemonic movie was almost good, if you like gritty retrofuturism, then absolutely. Beware, though, the women in the book, even the ones with personalities, often feel like they only exist to make sure our main character doesn't let himself die.… (mais)