In your last three books, you’ve developed this world where marketing is treated like espionage. There are agents and double agents and intrigue upon intrigue, but it will be in the service of something like a new denim line. Is this approach intended to be satire? Or is it closer to the truth as you see it?

If something really is satire, I don’t enjoy it. It can’t be satire and be that good. What I like is something that’s closer to a useful, anthropological description that has a really, really sharp satirical edge. Satire, traditionally in our culture, pushes the exaggeration past where the edge really hurts, and you sort of just goof on it. But other cultures, like the British, totally get it. Where you want to be with satire is right on the razor’s edge, where it really hurts and you can’t tell whether you’re being put on or not.

One of the easiest illustrations of the differences between their satire and ours would be the two versions of The Office. The British Office had a genuine humanity to it. It could be totally moving. The American take on it is far more buffoonish, and the attempts at humanity in it are maudlin.

Yeah, absolutely. The original Office is heartbreaking, it’s totally heartbreaking. And it’s not that we can’t do it, but that sort of work doesn’t have the prominent foregrounding in American culture that it does in British culture. And it’s something that can often scare Americans the first time they discover it.

Maybe it’s that most people prefer to know what they’re getting beforehand. They don’t like to feel confused about genre or intent.

I think that I am kind of functionally incapable of staying absolutely true to genre or form. Sometimes I feel sorry for somebody in the Atlanta airport who’s just bought one of my books when what they really want is Ludlum or Clancy. They get on the plane to the other side of the world and all they’ve got to read is this screwy shit about designer blue jeans.

Vice: William Gibson

(via Matt Staggs)

Maze of Death by Philip K. Dick.

Inception seems to owe more than a little to Philip K. Dick’s reality-bending sci-fi yarns. In Maze of Death, which takes place in a world in which god seems to be an objectively real entity, several down-and-out misfits are assigned to work on a harsh, mostly uninhabited planet. But after losing radio contact with their employer they find themselves stranded without even knowing what their assignment is.

Japanese author Haruki Murakami is a master of writing surreal, dream-like novels. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World revolves around a “calcutec,” who uses his brain as a type of encrypted storage. Companies hire him to store securely store trade secrets. Until, of course, something goes wrong.

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami

Neuromancer by William Gibson.

I thought of Inception initially as a Dickian film, but my friend Ian pointed out it’s actually more of a Gibsonian film. Neuromancer, Gibson’s first novel, is a heist story taking place in virtual reality. Inception fans should feel right at home.

JG Ballard

Manuel DeLanda

William Gibson

Seven Arts Pictures announced today that Vincenzo Natali (Splice, Cube) has been tapped to direct the upcoming motion picture adaptation of William Gibson’s seminal science fiction novel Neuromancer. Neuromancer is to be produced and financed in Canada by Prodigy Pictures in conjunction with Telefilm Canada. The film is expected to commence pre-production early next year in Toronto and has the full support of Telefilm Canada. The Company will continue to handle all sales of the picture.

Natali’s credits include Splice, starring Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley, as well as the cult psychological thriller Cube. Splice was released in thousands of theaters nationwide by Warner Brothers last Friday following a sensational debut at the Sundance Film Festival.

Marketwatch: Seven Arts Announces Vincenzo Natali to Direct Neuromancer

(via Cat Vincent)

No word whether Sasha Grey (pictured above) will reprise her role as Molly Millions, who she voiced in the New Museum in NYC Neuromancer performance thingy.

William Gibson is an author best known for Neuromancer. He coined the term “cyberspace” and is credited along with authors like John Shirley and Bruce Sterling for kicking off the cyberpunk movement. Gibson is most famous for his science fiction, but his most recently novels have been contemporary fiction.

Recent news

Gibson’s next novel Zero History to be released 9/7/10

Neuromancer Movie to be Directed by Vincenzo Natali of Splice and Cube Fame

Announcement of Neuromancer performance piece starring Sasha Grey as Molly

Official Sites

Official site

William Gibson on Twitter

Unofficial Sites

William Gibson aleph

Wikipedia entry

Documentaries

No Maps for These Territories “Mark Neale directs this prolonged conversation with William Gibson (famed science-fiction novelist and creator of the term “cyberspace”) from the back of Gibson’s limousine as they take a cross-country odyssey over nameless highways going no place in particular.”

Transcription

Fiction by Gibson

Complete text of William Gibson’s “The Gernsback Continuum”

Articles and essays by Gibson

Gibson calls for an eBay alternative for obscure used items

God’s Little Toys Gibson on cut-up culture. July 2005.

Disneyland with the death penalty Gibson on Singapore. 1993.

Interviews

Q&A with Gibson and readers at Barnes and Noble web site June 2008

Rolling Stone interview with Gibson 2007

Wes Unruh’s interview with William Gibson 2003

Cory Doctorow interviews William Gibson 1999

Interview with Gibson from the 80s

Above: Gibson on being a hippie, from . Full documentary here

A collection of Gibson interviews

On Gibson

Rudy Rucker reflects on the early days of cyberpunk

Kathy Acker on William Gibson from 21C

Misc

Cyberpunk documentary from 1993

Announcement of Neuromancer performance piece starring Sasha Grey as Molly

A promotion video spot for William Gibson’s book Neuromancer, with commentary by William Gibson and Timothy Leary from the early 90s

21C is back with new material, plus archival material by or about Hakim Bey, William S. Burroughs, Erik Davis, Philip K. Dick, Ashley Crawford, Mark Dery, Verner Vinge, William Gibson, Rudy Rucker, Jack Parsons, Richard Metzger, Genesis P. Orridge, Kath Acker, JG Ballard, John Shirley, Robert Anton Wilson, Iain Sinclair, Terrence McKenna, Buckminster Fuller, R.U. Sirius, Timothy Leary, Bruce Sterling and more.

Sadly, in 1999, the company went bust, somewhat ironic given that 21•C in that form never made it into the Century after which it was named – the 21st. 21•C stalwart Mark Dery and I made some attempt to resuscitate the title early in the new millennium to no avail.

Yet many of the ideas and issues raised in the original magazine continued to arise, and with them perpetual queries as to how to get copies of the original articles, a nigh impossible task. With the prompting of two other 21•C stalwarts, Darren Tofts and Murray McKeich, it was decided to resurrect a core selection of articles in an archival on-line format. With Mick Stylianou’s wizard like help this was fairly painless. It didn’t take long to decide to add new material and it is hoped that new issues will be posted at semi-regular intervals.

This inaugural on-line issue takes as its theme Apocalypse Noir – the trend toward the apocalyptic, or at the least extremely dark – in contemporary writing. If earlier 21•C’s tended toward the darker aspects of cyberpunk, then the newer crop of writers have given up any pretense of a happy ending. Good luck!

21C Magazine

(via Alex Burns)

It’s a play… no it’s a reading… no it’s… hard to tell. But on November 22, from noon to 6 pm, the New Museum in NYC is doing some sort of cool six hour Neuromancer thing that they describe thusly:

“An ambitious new work by Brody Condon, Case is a contemporary adaptation of the classic cyberpunk novel Neuromancer by William Gibson. Combining Gibson’s 1980s dystopian techno-fetishism with early twentieth-century abstraction, faux ‘virtual reality’ scenes will unfold via moving Bauhaus-inspired sculptural props accompanied by the Gamelan ensemble Dharma Swara.”

R.U. Sirius: Neuromancer… with Porn Star Sasha Grey as Molly

So, what made Mondo 2000 so special? It was, in my opinion, the best alternative culture magazine that America ever had. They wrote about smart drugs, brain implants, virtual reality, cyberpunk, Cthulhupunk and cryogenics. They covered Laibach and Lydia Lunch in the same issue. The pantheon of writers was a force to be reckoned with: Bruce Sterling, Robert Anton Wilson, and William Gibson all lent their talents, and there was even a Burroughs vs. Leary interview face-off. Then there was the famous U2-Negativland interview, in which Negativland, disguised as reporters, interviewed U2 into a corner to reveal the band’s hypocrisy over their lawsuit against Negativland over sampling. All in all, the magazine took risks. ‘The good dream for me and Mondo,’ said editor R.U. Sirius in an interview with Purple Prose, ‘is overcoming the limits of biology without necessarily leaving sensuality or sexuality behind.’ Issue after issue, Mondo 2000 threw a sexy dystopian bash and invited the decade’s best thinkers.

Full Story: Coilhouse. And be sure to read Joshua Ellis‘s comment!

See also: My 2002 interview with R.U. Sirius.

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Wes interviews cyberpunk author William Gibson about his novel Pattern Recognition, advertising, and storytelling; deranged gibbering follows. See: “Infojunkies Under The Bridge,” “Syphilis and Ollie.”

Duration :: 00:20:24
Download :: MP3 (23.349MB)

Hosts :: Brenden Simpson, Wu.

Transcription.

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Personally, I’m evenly split between the sort of cosmic all-at-onceness Rucker espouses (even though I’ve never done LSD) and Kurzweil’s chomping-at-the-bit transhumanism. Like Rucker, I’m a little wary of “The Singularity Is Near.” Not because I fear I won’t enjoy it (I thought highly “The Age of Spiritual Machines”) but because I fear Kurzweil’s consummate punditry. It’s great fun to wonder what the postsingular future holds in store, but Kurzweil (and many others of the same general outlook) seem to have overlooked William Gibson’s observation that the future’s arrival is seldom evenly distributed.

Full Story: Posthuman Blues.

From R.U.’s blog:

The dark age forces continue their triumphant march, or their spirited crawl, or whatever. It is interesting and peculiar how anti-evolutionary religious reactionary are using the concept of ?Intelligent Design? to force their anti-scientific, 15th Century agenda on American children. Darwinian evolution, of course, is the broadly scientifically validated fact (certainly details are arguable) and ?Intelligent Design? is a belief or theory. If there is intelligent design, Darwinian evolution is a manifestation of it.

I happen to be transcribing an interview I did recently for NeoFiles with Howard Bloom about his book ?Global Brain”. Bloom?s book makes a convincing argument that all of life is a single intelligent system (Intelligent? not random) that operates according to a particular set of rules. It has been iterating and gaining complexity since the big bang. Intuitively, this seems almost obvious to me.

There obviously is a Third Way (there are an infinite number of ways) besided Darwinian chance and creationist nonsense. We should maybe try to keep the religious reactionaries from monopolizing the idea of ?intelligent design.?

Glad to see someone else thinking along these lines. Everything is true.

Over at his place, William Gibson recalls the *real* reason that conservatives reject evolution.

BTW, do religious Jews hate Darwin too?

There was a time when the name R.U. Sirius was synonymous with cyberculture. His seminal magazine Mondo 2000 predated Wired, and was even more enthusiastic in its wow-gosh sexification of the new geek order. Articles predicting a slick future of nanotech parties and smart drugs were mixed in with batches of fearful predictions of terrorism, economic collapse, draconian copyright enforcement, increased surveillance and invasive advertising. But Sirius didn’t stop there: After the collapse of Mondo, he went on to write for magazines like 21C, Salon and Disinformation, and edited Getting It. He created the Revolution Party, a non-ideological anti-authoritarian political organization (“If even the alternative parties like Libertarian and Green seem a bit rigid to you, consider joining us”), and campaigned for Presidency of the United States. His latest project, The Thresher, is a political magazine.

But The Thresher is a print magazine. Sirius hardly goes online anymore, except for research. The truth is, the Godfather of GeekChic has moved on.
Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a great sub-site from a Borges site with analysis of Borges’s influence on numorous writers, including: Grant Morrison, William Gibson, Joyce Carol Oates, Neil Gaimon, Harlan Ellison, Umberto Eco, and others.

Morrison: I had a dream where I was on a train going through a horrible bone-like station. The name on the platform said “Orqwith,” so I’d thought I’d use it. Also, part of this dream was that this fictitious world was infiltrating parts of itself into our world. But like you say, it’s got a lot to do with stealing work of a blind Argentinian writer.

AH: I’m afraid I stopped reading after “The Garden of Forking Paths.”

Morrison: So you haven’t finished Labyrinths?

AH: I did read ‘”Tl?n, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” and the one about Don Quixote.

Morrison: I think he’s wonderful. I just have baths in this sort of thing. That was one of the things I wanted to Introduce in Doom Patrol. All those strange paradoxes and philosophical curios.

Link (via the Barbelith Underground).

William Gibson has written a bit on the the Gaurdian about London, Japan, and Vancouver. An interesting read.