Gibson, William

(US, 1948– )

Born in the United States, though he now lives in Vancouver, Gibson became the leading explorer of the conceptual possibilities of contemporary technology. His first novel, Neuromancer (1984), pre-empted a whole raft of computer and business innovations, and single-handedly coined the concept of ‘cyberspace’—the virtual landscape of computer-aided experience and communication technologies. The novel introduces readers to the Matrix, a world within a world, a graphically represented network of all databases, a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of users including the protagonist, Case, a former hacker coerced into hacking for a conglomerate. Since this book, Gibson's writing has been preoccupied by the implications of technological and cultural trends. He regards the present as ‘a set of overlapping science fiction scenarios’ and science fiction as a necessary naturalism. In Idoru (1996), Gibson looks at the power of media organizations to control our cultural interests. In particular he explores the way celebrity has become solely dependent on management and spin-control to the point that the celebrities themselves need not actually exist.

Bruce Sterling, Neal Stephenson, Rudy Rucker. See SCIENCE FICTION  RP