{"id":9385,"date":"2013-08-01T05:00:01","date_gmt":"2013-08-01T09:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/?p=9385"},"modified":"2013-07-28T10:25:52","modified_gmt":"2013-07-28T14:25:52","slug":"william-gibson-on-science-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/9385","title":{"rendered":"William Gibson on Science Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_9389\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9389\" style=\"width: 328px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/WilliamGibson.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-9389 \" alt=\"William Gibson (Source: Wikimedia Commons).\" src=\"http:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/WilliamGibson.jpg\" width=\"328\" height=\"420\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9389\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">William Gibson (Source: Wikimedia Commons).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<blockquote><p>Q:\u00a0What\u2019s wrong with cyberpunk?<\/p>\n<p>A:\u00a0A snappy label and a manifesto would have been two of the very last things on my own career want list. That label enabled mainstream science fiction to safely assimilate our dissident influence, such as it was. Cyberpunk could then be embraced and given prizes and patted on the head, and genre science fiction could continue unchanged.<\/p>\n<p>Q:\u00a0What was that dissident influence? What were you trying to do?<\/p>\n<p>A:\u00a0I didn&#8217;t have a manifesto. I had some discontent. It seemed to me that midcentury mainstream American science fiction had often been triumphalist and militaristic, a sort of folk propaganda for American exceptionalism. I was tired of America-as-the-future, the world as a white monoculture, the protagonist as a good guy from the middle class or above. I wanted there to be more elbow room. I wanted to make room for antiheroes.<\/p>\n<p>I also wanted science fiction to be more naturalistic. There had been a poverty of description in much of it. The technology depicted was so slick and clean that it was practically invisible. What would any given SF favorite look like if we could crank up the resolution? As it was then, much of it was like video games before the invention of fractal dirt. I wanted to see dirt in the corners.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>From a fascinating <em>Paris Review<\/em> <a title=\"Interview with William Gibson\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/interviews\/6089\/the-art-of-fiction-no-211-william-gibson\" target=\"_blank\">interview <\/a>with William Gibson, author of the hugely influential and award-winning 1985 novel <a title=\"Neuromancer\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Neuromancer-William-Gibson\/dp\/0441012035\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Neuromancer<\/em><\/a>, and the man who coined the term &#8220;cyberspace.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Here is an excellent <a title=\"Study Guide for Neuromancer (1984)\" href=\"https:\/\/public.wsu.edu\/~brians\/science_fiction\/neuromancer.html\" target=\"_blank\">study guide<\/a> for\u00a0<em>Neuromancer<\/em>. Gibson&#8217;s <a title=\"@GreatDismal\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GreatDismal\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter feed<\/a> is also one of the most interesting out there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Q:\u00a0What\u2019s wrong with cyberpunk? A:\u00a0A snappy label and a manifesto would have been two of the very last things on my own career want list.&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/9385\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">William Gibson on Science Fiction<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1gPg8-2rn","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9385"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9388,"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9385\/revisions\/9388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}