One thing I read somewhere -- and it might have been an interview with Gibson or with someone else talking about his work -- is how much William Gibson despises derivatives of cyberpunk in the books, videogames and movies that followed. Specifically, he dislikes the focus on the aesthetic, neon lights, mirror shades, etc. I think Gibson really dislikes Cyberpunk 2077, for example. Gibson argued they are missing the p…
Gibson said he came up with Neuromancer by imagining what would happen if Reagan became president for life.
The Sprawl trilogy and its fashion/world is formed a lot by politics. Gibson himself says that Neuromancer is an exaggerated critique of Reaganomics and the problems it exasperated (or, at the very least, failed to address). The rampant drug abuse, sovereign corporations, the ever increasing gap of poverty and technology -- I think a lot of derivative media adopts these elements to look cool (without actually underst…
> Gibson himself says that Neuromancer is an exaggerated critique of Reaganomics
The (now-)standard Cyberpunk settings strikes me as, in part, asking "what would it really look like if David Friedman's ridiculous capitalism fan-fic happened?"
His The Machinery of Freedom was published in '73, and was a big part of the Reagan/80s zeitgeist.
One thing I read somewhere -- and it might have been an interview with Gibson or with someone else talking about his work -- is how much William Gibson despises derivatives of cyberpunk in the books, videogames and movies that followed. Specifically, he dislikes the focus on the aesthetic, neon lights, mirror shades, etc. I think Gibson really dislikes Cyberpunk 2077, for example. Gibson argued they are missing the p…
I liked Paolo Bagciaglupi's "The Calorie Man" (which I read in "Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology") as an example of this kind of "if we project today's state of affairs 30 years into the future, what is the dystopia it produces?" line of reasoning. The story is about megacorporations greedily controlling the supply of food via patents on GMO crops in a post-peak-oil society. There's no artificial general intelli…
Oh, I'm well acquainted with Bacigalupi's work and I think he is not writing mere derivatives, but actually updating the concerns and doing something interesting with them. The aesthetic is completely different as well.
I've no idea if Gibson has read Bacigalupi or what he thinks of his work, but I am definitely a fan!
One thing I read somewhere -- and it might have been an interview with Gibson or with someone else talking about his work -- is how much William Gibson despises derivatives of cyberpunk in the books, videogames and movies that followed. Specifically, he dislikes the focus on the aesthetic, neon lights, mirror shades, etc. I think Gibson really dislikes Cyberpunk 2077, for example. Gibson argued they are missing the p…
Capitalism's greatest superpower is absorbing all critique and selling it back to consumers as a luxury good.
I think to focus on Neuromancer's use of Japanese culture is to stay at the surface level. The background of Neuromancer is one of income inequality, human destruction, and almost-absent government and community (partly caused by a ubiquitous global information network that seems to have broken everything.) We don't have brain-computer interfaces today and Chiba City isn't the center of the tech world (maybe that's S…
"Ironically, reading Neuromancer in my older age, the main observation I have is how optimistic it is. The seas aren't rising and the climate seems to be doing just fine." Gibson has gone on record multiple times in saying that he doesn't write about the future nor does he try to predict the future, but sees himself as always writing about the present.
He writes about the present in the same way that a winemaker deals in grape juice.
Also true of Lord of the Rings, or watching Star Wars etc if you didn't read/watch it early on (either when it first came out to the world, or early on in your life when you were new to the genre). I won't speculate on why this is the case, but some people claim its because the innovations are copied so quickly the original becomes just another copy of itself.
Re: Lord of the Rings, while the language itself is a bit outdated and it can be quite tedious in a lot of places, it still set a benchmark that - at least as far as I'm aware - hasn't been met yet in other books in the wider fantasy genre. I've read a few, some of the serialized form, but they often feel awkward and derivative; often full of male power fantasies, coming-of-age hero's journey tropes, worldbuilding th…
Check out Stephen Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever.
It's about a leper from the modern day who finds himself in a fantasy world he doesn't believe in, and rejects the power he has. That's pretty original.
One thing I read somewhere -- and it might have been an interview with Gibson or with someone else talking about his work -- is how much William Gibson despises derivatives of cyberpunk in the books, videogames and movies that followed. Specifically, he dislikes the focus on the aesthetic, neon lights, mirror shades, etc. I think Gibson really dislikes Cyberpunk 2077, for example. Gibson argued they are missing the p…
Cyberpunk 2077 is very much a disappointment in every sense other than the scope of the project. Every single aspect of it is a cheap, shallow rip-off. It adds nothing of value to anything, though enjoyable in the way Mortal Combat is. Still, Mortal Combat was far more ground-breaking and original - that about sums up how much of a "derivative work" Cyberpunk 2077 is.
What? It was a fantastic game that spent a lot of time ruminating on topics like transhumanism, sex, and corporate power. It let players explore heterosexual and homosexual romantic relationships in first person and uncensored. Character writing is for the most part top-notch. The universe is unfailingly coherent and incredibly fleshed out. Few games have moved me to the point of tears in the credits, but this one did.
If you're one of those folks inexplicably bitter about prerelease trailers then maybe I can understand your stance. But dismissing the monumental amount of effort that it has taken to deliver what some of us perceive as one of the highest works of art in the genre, is ridiculous.
I was honestly underwhelmed by Neuromancer. Maybe because so many people raved about it or that I read it many years after it was written. I honestly don't know. It was... OK. But amazing? I don't see it. I love science fiction. One thing you have to realize about science ficiton is that it is a product of the time it was written. It may share many of the aesthetics, themes, philosophies and politics of that time. Li…
> I was honestly underwhelmed by Neuromancer.
Same. No doubt it was an influential book. But I didn't find it well written or that interesting to be honest. I've read neuromancer once. I've read Dune maybe a dozen times. Also, other two books in the trilogy were even worse.
Maybe the hype was so great that nothing could live up to such expectations. I remember being so excited to finally read neuromancer only to be let down.
Right, and I wouldn't want to generalize too much from that example, as I think parent commenter does. One dimension of Cyberpunk as envisioned by William Gibson genuinely was explicitly aesthetic, in the way in which it was meant to be understood and experienced. So derivatives focusing on that aren't necessarily missing the point. However, it's still certainly possible to reproduce those aesthetics in bad ways, or…
> "as I think parent commenter does" Point of correction: I'm trying to convey what Gibson said . If there's a generalization, it's not mine but his. The guy invented cyberpunk, so I think he has a right to holding very strong opinions about it. I do tend to agree with Gibson, but I also like the aesthetic and I'm content reading and looking at cyberpunk, as long as it's not too lazy.
And my point was, and is, that I don't think he's making the point you seem to think he is making. And sure, he's got every right to be opinionated, but you're not quoting or citing anything (although I understand you're referencing a tweet of his re: Cyberpunk 2077 and are referencing an interview), so what we are working with here are extrapolations that you and I are attributing to him.