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| Viewing Page 1 of 1 (Total Posts: 8) |
| Author | Comment |
dsve
Jun 6, 07 - 1:43 AM |
Impact of William Gibson
Interesting review of "Neuromancer"... When I read the "The Neutronium Alchemist" by Peter F. Hamilton I was really impressed, that he could simply refer to "Gibsonian cyberspace" without any further explanation, simply reusing the concept of "jacking in" to cyberspace and flying around between files and processors and so on... I really liked the Conestoga podcast. Funny how you sound much younger than the impression I get when reading the reviews. How is the Dune review coming along? I have just reread "Dune" to "Children of Dune" and really had the impression it has not stood up too well to the test of time. I read much more impressive world-building since I first read these books... |
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Thomas M. Wagner
Jun 6th, 2007 - 4:13 AM |
Re: Impact of William Gibson
The Dune reviews (going from book one all the way through Sandworms of Dune) will start appearing after review #500 is posted. |
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UberDog
Dec 9th, 2007 - 2:45 AM |
Re: Impact of William Gibson
I read the Halting State review. I think you miss a necessary distinction. Gibson writes literature, Stross does not. It's like bemoaning Haruki Murakami for writing mysteries that don't read like James Patterson. Stross does his clever jargonizing but he's writing like Doctorow, for the IT crowd. Gibson never was. That's why he's a major novelist and Charlie is a nice cult figure. One write literature the other writes sci-fi. I doubt the line is often drawn, but for me it is rather apparent. Read one page of either author's work and you notice the vast gap in talent. |
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Thomas M. Wagner
Dec 9th, 2007 - 1:59 PM |
Re: Impact of William Gibson
I'm not exactly sure what definitions you're applying to "literature" to make this peculiar distinction. 
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Sniffnoy
Dec 9th, 2007 - 4:03 PM |
Re: Impact of William Gibson
"One writes literature, the other sci-fi"? Is this supposed to be some sort of troll? |
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Thomas M. Wagner
Dec 9th, 2007 - 4:11 PM |
Re: Impact of William Gibson
We'll see. But I'd say anyone who thinks it's "rather apparent" that Gibson merits comparison to Haruki Murakami and Stross to James Patterson has an...interesting way of evaluating fiction. |
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Russ Allbery
Dec 16th, 2007 - 2:41 PM |
Re: Impact of William Gibson
He has a point about Stross's overuse of IT jargon, though. I thought that was just a quirk of Accelerando, but I'm now reading Halting State and he's back at it again. *sigh*. One of the things that made Glasshouse so good was that he didn't feel compelled to deluge the reader in technobabble (and however much Stross's is actually reality-based, unlike Star Trek's, the effect is similar). |
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Clarke
Jan 27th, 2008 - 8:08 PM |
Re: Impact of William Gibson
Look, literature (for me, anyway) is a bit of a deceptive category to put a book into. Calling a book literature just means it's so good it gets shelved in the 'Staff Picks' section of our collective Library of Civilization. You could file a very high percentage of literature in the genre sections and I wouldn't bat an eye. Austen goes with the romance, Doyle under mystery, and you're darn right I lay claim to Atwood for science fiction. |
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