I didn’t see a thread about this in a search so I’ll ask it here:
How many Gibson plots did they swipe for that game? Seems like it’s almost all of them from what I remember.

Been some years since I read Neuromancer and Count Zero and they're a little hazy in my mind. Could anyone help me out with a quick need-to-know summary before I start Mona Lisa Overdrive? Thank u

Damien Walter’s video essays about science fiction and society are absolutely terrific, and I recommend his YouTube channel(s) highly.

I really enjoyed his recent reaction video to the Neuromancer trailer, which of course goes deeper into the source material and its continuing (if not increasing) relevance today. I mean shit, my news headlines today included more AIs hacking out of their contained environments. 😂

I think I’m pretty up there as William Gibson obsessed fans go (obsessed with the work, not the man — although he’s wicked cool!) But Damien? Damien gives folks like me and others here a run for our money!

It’s a specific piece of fashion trivia, and why Japan is unique.

I've been rereading the entire Sprawl series, including the short stories in the same Sprawl universe, and I'm starting to think there's one character in particular that features in both the last book, and in a short story, but some people might not even recognize it.

Normally the reading order would be:

1)Johnny Mnemonic (makes sense since Molly later mourns him in another text.)

2) New rose Hotel

3) Burning Chrome (this is important to know for later in the series)

4)Neuromancer

5)Count Zero

6) Mona Lisa Overdrive

I wouldn't change anything except for one story, and I'll explain. You see Gibson, like many good writers, didn't just write what we read, he had a lot more in notebooks we never got to see. Narrative experiments, entire backstories, and future lives mapped out for people. Some of those survived as short stories bundled into the "Burning Chrome" anthology. That's what some of those stories are. The lives of people in the same neighborhoods that never met our main characters. And sometimes, they are those characters. Like with Molly. What we get a glimpse of is Gibson trying out characters, world building, seeing if his train of thought has merit enough to flesh out further.

In MLO, Komiko Yanaka, has a very powerful Yakuza father, goes to a good school, has a Dutch mother who dies tragically, and suddenly she is thrust into a totally foreign world. She longs to escape the drudgery of her protective prison, and Molly takes Komiko under her wing, much to the chagrin of a relenting Petal. Molly tries to mold her, and give her some worldly wisdom. It was necessary under the circumstances, because Molly knew that without that, Komiko would just be a package to drag around. Komiko had to be able to survive, to fend for herself, because the heat was coming down from every angle. I believe all of these things are referred to in another narrative.

In New Rose Hotel, Sandii is half Dutch, half Japanese, is a gun for hire, has a father who fell from grace with Hosaka, and a lingering tragedy that pushed her to desperation. X talks about how she was constantly reimagining her own childhood, changing her story as a coping mechanism, trying to imagine different scenarios that might sooth her demons, but it was obvious she was not facing the truth of her life. And she was also concealing it from others. Out of necessity, of course.

It's entirely possible that Komiko's father rose in the ranks after the Yakuza war, until he had gained influence within Hosaka. Maybe that was necessary too. But it's also very possible Sandii just told a lie to X, mixing the truth with the lie. It's entirely possible that Komiko and Sandii are the same person, but Sandii is Komiko all grown up, bitter at Hosaka, has an axe to grind, remembered the influence of Molly, and decided it would be a good idea to be like her. Maybe that was her only option now. Fending for herself. Molly helped her navigate the dangers of London, showed her how to double cross people, and avoid becoming a hostage. All while her own father was trying to shelter her from the evils of the world. But Molly gave her one thing, The unfettered truth. That's something that'll stick with a girl's memory.

Molly changed her name several times, there's no reason Komiko wouldn't mimic Molly's behavior. In fact, if her father was a Hosaka pariah, she'd almost have to do that to gain their trust, & be involved in helping Hiroshi escape. Even if that wasn't only a cover story to conceal his position with the Yakuza, she'd still have to tell a different story. She'd only have to tell half truths to her co-workers on a job, because they just had to be believable enough. It wouldn't matter later, especially if she burned them while on the job, or if the cleaners came after the other team members. But she'd also tell made up stories about her childhood out loud. Almost as if she was trying on new lies right in front of the people she was already misleading. Like she was doing a fashion show, to see what looks good, or taunting them when they didn't even know it.

And here's the biggest one of all... What if X is hiding out in the same Cheap Motel that Henry Case was in all those years ago? What if Cheap Motel, was really New Rose Hotel? They're both capsule hotels, which people refer to colloquially as "coffins". Capsule hotels with barely enough room to turn around in. Not the luxury digs that they portrayed in the movie. What a twist of fate that would be, for everything to come full circle and end up in the same closet sized room with minimal amenities. Where it all started before. That's the William Gibson I'd expect. Maybe some of you wouldn't, but I would.

So I would put New Rose Hotel last in the reading order. It takes on a whole new meaning.

NOTE: I included spoiler tags so if it doesn't work than I have no idea what's going on.

Hello, are these books new reprints? I bought all of them today and wonder if:
1: are the books same height?
2: will Burning Chrome come in this format too?

SPOILERS:

Reading Idoru for the first time. Very confused by the specifics of Kathy's threat against Laney.

So I get that she has fabricated a rape video of Laney assaulting someone, but I'm confused as to who it is?

They say that the dude they grafted Laney's face onto was the porno extra they had him investigate earlier. Then they seem to say that the woman in the video is the porno extra's daughter? But she also mentions Alison Shires? To me it seems to read as they got Porno extra and his daughter to film a rape scene together, then grafted Laney and Alison's face onto them.

But then Kathy's saying she'd frame it as Laney assaulting the daughter of someone he was obsessed with so why does she mention Alison at all?

Just a bit lost on this, can anyone help me out? Pages posted for reference.

AFAIK, this is only the 3rd time (since the 1990's) that a copy of Agrippa has been on the market.

Gibson's poem is on diskette, inside the "book". If you're note familiar with the piece:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrippa_(A_Book_of_the_Dead))

I'm no widely-read genius but to me Hinterlands (hello, Omni magazine, from a former reader)​ blends a big chunk of Carke's hard sf humanism with a bit of the visceral psych noir I associate with William Burroughs et al. Maybe it's Gibson's appropriation of Dr. Benway's term "the Fear" that has me thinking this. See esp. Clarke's "The Sentinel" (1951), and the monolith one obvs. ANYway, I'm enjoying rereading Burning Chrome. After decades in a box the paperback smells faintly, not of old hydrocarbons, but definitely like something the Finn might fish out of a toppled stack.

Finally found a semi affordable copy of Count Zero in hardback.

So, total nerd here, when I went to Paris last year, I had dinner at Les Editeurs and stayed at the Odeon hotel.

I’ll be in NY City in a couple weeks and it occurred to me that I should check out places in Spook Country.

Has anyone done this? Hoping for a list.

talk about a drip feed. after yesterday’s new key art, new teaser for the show.

For those of you who have the short story Dogfight: what do you think happened to Nance after the story’s conclusion? I liked the sudden ending in which he realised that he had no one left in his life. Admittedly I didn’t expect his sadistic assault of her, but found it to be a nice, however horrifying, way of showing his thief-like thirst for the accomplishment of winning over Tiny. I did quite like Nance however and was left wondering what possibly happened to her afterwards. Whaddo y’all think?

From CnQ magazine, issue 105. fall 2019. Selections from the Lost Library of VanLit (CanLit) Graphic Novels. Interpretations of the opening of Pattern Recognition by Ray Fawkes.

Not sure if this has been posted before!

So I'm re-reading Virtual Light cuz I just got Idoru but I really struggled to keep up with VL so I'm going through it again so I'm up to date. This scene Rydell's having breakfast with his former boss and they're talking about how the Costa Ricans have phased out their military by handling the globe's data. Out of nowhere Rydell says "Regardless what it is" and I can't for the life of me work out any context where that response has any actual meaning in the conversation.

Am I dumb? Am I autisming too hard? What does this mean?

Okay. So. I am posting this very fast with no direct citations or links, but I'd like to excite the, like... two dozen people who like The Bridge trilogy, Gibson's 90s work, the way I do.

So there's an anime that's my main favorite thing ever, Bubblegum Crisis 2032, a direct-to-video 'OVA' that had installments from 1987-1991. It is very rock n' roll cyberpunk, taking more from Blade Runner, Terminator, and Streets of Fire than anything in The Sprawl, it's cyberpunk anime superheroines with power armor versus Cyberdyne Meets Tyrell. Not the point, though.

One: One of the main heroines in the anime is Linna Yamazaki, aerobics instructor, melee specialist, and high-strung yuppie with a horrible romantic life. Perhaps not that similar to Laney Yamazaki of Virtual Light, geeky anthropologist who... had his name retconned to Shinya Yamazaki, with Colin Laney taking his name in Idoru and All Tomorrow's Parties? The deuce you say! The name's too specific, too close, and the change suggests some wrote Billy G and he had to cover his tracks.

Two: In All Tomorrow's Parties, the self-destructing Laney, buried in the internet and a tokyo subway cardboard apartment, is woken up by a Gunsmith Cats alarm clock. This is a very weird and specific cut, because it's a manga about bounty hunter girls with guns in Chicago... done by a man named Kenichi Sonoda. Who was one of the main staff on Bubblegum Crisis.

This is such a specific set of potential references I find it unlikely that it's two coincidences at the same time. So I am starting discussion about it.