William Gibson And The Future Of Contemporary Culture

Download or read book William Gibson and the Future of Contemporary Culture written by Mitch R. Murray and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2021-03-15 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William Gibson is frequently described as one of the most influential writers of the past few decades, yet his body of work has only been studied partially and without full recognition of its implications for literature and culture beyond science fiction. It is high time for a book that explores the significance and wide-ranging impact of Gibson’s fiction. In the 1970s and 80s, Gibson, the “Godfather of Cyberpunk,” rejuvenated science fiction. In groundbreaking works such as Neuromancer, which changed science fiction as we knew it, Gibson provided us with a language and imaginary through which it became possible to make sense of the newly emerging world of globalization and the digital and media age. Ever since, Gibson’s reformulation of science fiction has provided us not just with radically innovative visions of the future but indeed with trenchant analyses of our historical present and of the emergence and exhaustion of possible futures. Contributors: Maria Alberto, Andrew M. Butler, Amy J. Elias, Christian Haines, Kylie Korsnack, Mathias Nilges, Malka Older, Aron Pease, Lisa Swanstrom, Takayuki Tatsumi, Sherryl Vint, Phillip E. Wegner, Roger Whitson, Charles Yu

Download or read book William Gibson and the Future of Contemporary Culture written by Mitch R. Murray and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2021-03-15 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William Gibson is frequently described as one of the most influential writers of the past few decades, yet his body of work has only been studied partially and without full recognition of its implications for literature and culture beyond science fiction. It is high time for a book that explores the significance and wide-ranging impact of Gibson’s fiction. In the 1970s and 80s, Gibson, the “Godfather of Cyberpunk,” rejuvenated science fiction. In groundbreaking works such as Neuromancer, which changed science fiction as we knew it, Gibson provided us with a language and imaginary through which it became possible to make sense of the newly emerging world of globalization and the digital and media age. Ever since, Gibson’s reformulation of science fiction has provided us not just with radically innovative visions of the future but indeed with trenchant analyses of our historical present and of the emergence and exhaustion of possible futures. Contributors: Maria Alberto, Andrew M. Butler, Amy J. Elias, Christian Haines, Kylie Korsnack, Mathias Nilges, Malka Older, Aron Pease, Lisa Swanstrom, Takayuki Tatsumi, Sherryl Vint, Phillip E. Wegner, Roger Whitson, Charles Yu

Download or read book The Peripheral written by William Gibson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-10-28 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestselling author of Neuromancer and Agency presents a fast-paced sci-fi thriller that takes a terrifying look into the future. DON'T MISS THE SERIES—NOW STREAMING EXCLUSIVELY ON PRIME VIDEO! Flynne Fisher lives down a country road, in a rural America where jobs are scarce, unless you count illegal drug manufacture, which she’s trying to avoid. Her brother Burton lives on money from the Veterans Administration, for neurological damage suffered in the Marines’ elite Haptic Recon unit. Flynne earns what she can by assembling product at the local 3D printshop. She made more as a combat scout in an online game, playing for a rich man, but she’s had to let the shooter games go. Wilf Netherton lives in London, seventy-some years later, on the far side of decades of slow-motion apocalypse. Things are pretty good now, for the haves, and there aren’t many have-nots left. Wilf, a high-powered publicist and celebrity-minder, fancies himself a romantic misfit, in a society where reaching into the past is just another hobby. Burton’s been moonlighting online, secretly working security in some game prototype, a virtual world that looks vaguely like London, but a lot weirder. He’s got Flynne taking over shifts, promised her the game’s not a shooter. Still, the crime she witnesses there is plenty bad. Flynne and Wilf are about to meet one another. Her world will be altered utterly, irrevocably, and Wilf’s, for all its decadence and power, will learn that some of these third-world types from the past can be badass.

Download or read book Distrust That Particular Flavor written by William Gibson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-01-03 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of New York Times bestselling author William Gibson’s articles and essays about contemporary culture—a privileged view into the mind of a writer whose thinking has shaped not only a generation of writers but our entire culture... Though best known for his fiction, William Gibson is as much in demand for his cutting-edge observations on the world we live in now. Originally printed in publications as varied as Wired, the New York Times, and the Observer, these articles and essays cover thirty years of thoughtful, observant life, and are reported in the wry, humane voice that lovers of Gibson have come to crave. “Gibson pulls off a dazzling trick. Instead of predicting the future, he finds the future all around him, mashed up with the past, and reveals our own domain to us.”—The New York Times Book Review

Download or read book Pattern Recognition written by William Gibson and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2004-06-24 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Part-detective story, part-cultural snapshot . . . all bound by Gibson's pin-sharp prose' Arena -------------- THE FIRST NOVEL IN THE BLUE ANT TRILIOGY - READ ZERO HISTORY AND SPOOK COUNTRY FOR MORE Cayce Pollard has a new job. She's been offered a special project: track down the makers of an addictive online film that's lighting up the internet. Hunting the source will take her to Tokyo and Moscow and put her in the sights of Japanese hackers and Russian Mafia. She's up against those who want to control the film, to own it - who figure breaking the law is just another business strategy. The kind of people who relish turning the hunter into the hunted . . . A gripping spy thriller by William Gibson, bestselling author of Neuromancer. Part prophesy, part satire, Pattern Recognition skewers the absurdity of modern life with the lightest and most engaging of touches. Readers of Neal Stephenson, Ray Bradbury and Iain M. Banks won't be able to put this book down. -------------- 'Fast, witty and cleverly politicized' Guardian 'A big novel, full of bold ideas . . . races along like an expert thriller' GQ 'Dangerously hip. Its dialogue and characterization will amaze you. A wonderfully detailed, reckless journey of espionage and lies' USA Today 'A compelling, humane story with a sympathetic heroine searching for meaning and consolation in a post-everything world' Daily Telegraph 'Electric, profound. Gibson's descriptions of Tokyo, Russia and London are surreally spot-on' Financial Times

Download or read book Zero History written by William Gibson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-09-07 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hollis Henry never intended to work for global marketing magnate Hubertus Bigend again. But now she’s broke, and Bigend has just the thing to get her back in the game... Milgrim can disappear in almost any setting, and his Russian is perfectly idiomatic—so much so that he spoke it with his therapist in the secret Swiss clinic where Bigend paid for him to be cured of his addiction... Garreth doesn't owe Bigend a thing. But he does have friends from whom he can call in the kinds of favors powerful people need when things go sideways... They all have something Bigend wants as he finds himself outmaneuvered and adrift, after a Department of Defense contract for combat-wear turns out to be the gateway drug for arms dealers so shadowy they can out-Bigend Bigend himself. “Zero History is [Gibson’s] best yet, a triumph of science fiction as social criticism and adventure.”—BoingBoing.net

Download or read book Spook Country written by William Gibson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-08-07 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The “cool and scary”(San Francisco Chronicle) New York Times bestseller from the author of Pattern Recognition and Neuromancer. • spook (spo͞ok) n.: A specter; a ghost. Slang for “intelligence agent.” • country (ˈkən-trē) n.: In the mind or in reality. The World. The United States of America, New Improved Edition. What lies before you. What lies behind. • spook country (spo͞ok ˈkən-trē) n.: The place where we all have landed, few by choice. The place we are learning to live. Hollis Henry is a journalist, on investigative assignment for a magazine called Node, which doesn’t exist yet. Bobby Chombo apparently does exist, as a producer. But in his day job, Bobby is a troubleshooter for military navigation equipment. He refuses to sleep in the same place twice. He meets no one. And Hollis Henry has been told to find him... “A devastatingly precise reflection of the American zeitgeist.”—The Washington Post Book World