Copper Robot. Skype for Interviews - A How-To Video. William Gibson talks with Chris Lydon. William Gibson, Mr. Cyberspace, dropped into the house yesterday morning for coffee and an hour’s gab. He seems light-hearted and handsome for a hard-core geek-intellectual; friendly and digressive for a cult celebrity on a book tour. William Gibson by Michael O’Shea We talk here about: First, the disappearance of the virtual, of cyberspace itself, because it’s not “there” anymore, viewed from “here.”
In 1981 there was very little cyberspace around. Click to listen to Part I of our William Gibson conversation (10.7 MB MP3) And carry on, please, with Part II. Spook Country is William Gibson’s first comic novel, an acidly satirical broadside against the “war on terror.” The “chase” that threads the story turns on rival gangsters and gamesmen — “non-state actors,” in the current parlance, but mostly of the US persuasion — all trying to track a single land-and-sea shipping container.
And it was the political apercus in the book that I was interested in chasing down in conversation. Maneki Neko. Online magazine: How Phil K Dick took over the world. By David Hambling [ opinion - august 06 ] You don't expect eerily accurate prophecy from science fiction. It's especially weird when the work in question comes from the pen of Philip K Dick, a writer with no particular interest in science or the future.
But somehow his 1965 novel The Zap Gun anticipates the modern world in a way that nobody else did. Although people who never read it sometimes assume that it's trying to foretell the future, science fiction is rarely about predictions. More often it gives writers the chance to experimenting with ideas, writing in a realm that gives free rein to the imagination. In any case, imagined futures invariably look ridiculous long before their due date. Phil K Dick is beginning to be well-known because of film adaptations of his works. He was an extremely prolific writer, churning out some 44 books in a frantic attempt to stay solvent. Non-lethal weapons are a vital part of Dick's imagined future warfare.
"Converted," Febbs said, "into a rug. "