Hello SF-fans,

Finished re-reading William Gibsons Sprawl Trilogy and this is the
judgment:

Neuromancer: 5/5
Count Zero: 4/5
Mona Lisa Overdrive: 3/5

I think you can see that Gibson was overwhelmed by the intial success and
eventually got tired of the concept.

After the initial sprawl trilogy, in my opnion, he moves further and
further away from his roots. Good for attracting new readers, but for fans
of his early work, like me, horrible.

But I can understand that. It seems the only authors who choose to stay
within the field of their original success are english detective authors.
;)

I've read some of Gibsons later works, and some of it is ok, but not even
close to the grittiness and darkness of the originals. So caveat emptor,
you computer oriented "punk" readers, stick with the old stuff.

In article <ba31521d-0bcf-dad9-c8d2-9f808dc21363@example.net>,
D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>
>But I can understand that. It seems the only authors who choose to stay
>within the field of their original success are english detective authors.
>;)

Oh, no. There are lots of SFF authors who found their note and stuck
with it. A Ron Goulart from the end of his career is essentially the
same as from the beginning. David "please don't mention the conviction"
Eddings basically wrote the same series over and over.
--
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begin fnord
jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll) writes:

> David "please don't mention the conviction" Eddings basically wrote
> the same series over and over.

And had his characters comment on the fact.

--
Steve Coltrin spcoltri@omcl.org
"A group known as the League of Human Dignity helped arrange for Deuel
to be driven to a local livestock scale, where he could be weighed."
- Associated Press

D <nospam@example.net> writes:

> Finished re-reading William Gibsons Sprawl Trilogy and this is the
> judgment:
>
> Neuromancer: 5/5
> Count Zero: 4/5
> Mona Lisa Overdrive: 3/5
>
> [snip]
>
> I've read some of Gibsons later works, and some of it is ok, but not
> even close to the grittiness and darkness of the originals. So
> caveat emptor, you computer oriented "punk" readers, stick with the
> old stuff.

The Sprawl books are just fine by me.

My songs are of time and distance. The sadness is in you. There
is only the dance.... These things you treasure are shells.

-- William Gibson, _Count Zero_

I love that.

But I think Gibson really got onto the turf he wanted to explore with
the Blue Ant series.

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. -- William Gibson, 1997

Just so. But then this:

It used to be, Gibson had told me, that a defensive membrane
divided his life from his work. He could consider the future as
a professional, without picturing his own life, his kids'
lives. "I never wanted to be the guy thinking about 'Mad Max'
world,' he said. "I had some sort of defense in
place. . . . It's denial, some kind of denial. But denial can
be a lifesaving thing, in certain lives, in certain times. How
on earth did you get through that? Some reliable part of you
just says, It's not happening." The membrane, he went on,
"which I very, very much miss, actually held until the morning
after Trump's election. And I woke up and it was gone, whatever
it was. It was just gone, and it's never come back."

-- William Gibson & Joshua Rothman, Ney Yorker, Dec. 2019

The Jackpot series is some kind of reversion to the Sprawl reference
frame but without some critical element or essence or spark -- too
much a 'Mad Max' world with cyberpunk trim.

I miss the view through the membrane.

--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada

On 5/3/24 3:43 PM, Mike Spencer wrote:

> D <nospam@example.net> writes:
>
>> Finished re-reading William Gibsons Sprawl Trilogy and this is the
>> judgment:
>>
>> Neuromancer: 5/5
>> Count Zero: 4/5
>> Mona Lisa Overdrive: 3/5
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>> I've read some of Gibsons later works, and some of it is ok, but not
>> even close to the grittiness and darkness of the originals. So
>> caveat emptor, you computer oriented "punk" readers, stick with the
>> old stuff.
>
> The Sprawl books are just fine by me.
>
> My songs are of time and distance. The sadness is in you. There
> is only the dance.... These things you treasure are shells.
>
> -- William Gibson, _Count Zero_
>
> I love that.
>
> But I think Gibson really got onto the turf he wanted to explore with
> the Blue Ant series.
>
> 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. -- William Gibson, 1997

I was just about to post that many years ago I read a Gibson novel
(whose name I didn't remember) in which someone, whose profession is to
anticipate trends so that corporate retailers can prepare for them in
advance, tracks down the anonymous maker of a video which is being
released to the internet in random out-of-sequence fragments.

I enjoyed it. But I remember thinking "Why is this science fiction?"
.... and then I thought "Maybe Gibson thinks that so much science fiction
has come true -- that the world has become so "science fiction-y" --
that if you write about *anything* truly contemporary it *is* science
fiction.

I'm happy to discover all these years later that I was basically right.
And I'm happy to find the name of that novel (Pattern Recognition)
without having to do a YASID, and that it was the beginning of a trilogy.

> Just so. But then this:
>
> It used to be, Gibson had told me, that a defensive membrane
> divided his life from his work. He could consider the future as
> a professional, without picturing his own life, his kids'
> lives. "I never wanted to be the guy thinking about 'Mad Max'
> world,' he said. "I had some sort of defense in
> place. . . . It's denial, some kind of denial. But denial can
> be a lifesaving thing, in certain lives, in certain times. How
> on earth did you get through that? Some reliable part of you
> just says, It's not happening." The membrane, he went on,
> "which I very, very much miss, actually held until the morning
> after Trump's election. And I woke up and it was gone, whatever
> it was. It was just gone, and it's never come back."
>
> -- William Gibson & Joshua Rothman, Ney Yorker, Dec. 2019
>
> The Jackpot series is some kind of reversion to the Sprawl reference
> frame but without some critical element or essence or spark -- too
> much a 'Mad Max' world with cyberpunk trim.
>
> I miss the view through the membrane.

--
Dudley Brooks, Artistic Director
Run For Your Life! ... it's a dance company!
San Francisco