Works of William Gibson

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William Gibson, noir prophet of cyberpunk.^[1]

The works of William Gibson encompass literature, journalism, acting, recitation, and performance art. Primarily renowned as a novelist and short fiction writer in the cyberpunk milieu, Gibson invented the metaphor of cyberspace in "Burning Chrome" (1982) and emerged from obscurity in 1984 with the publication of his debut novel Neuromancer.^[2][3] Gibson's early short fiction is recognized as cyberpunk's finest work,^[4] effectively renovating the science fiction genre which had been hitherto considered widely insignificant.^[5]

At the turn of the 1990s, after the completion of his Sprawl trilogy of novels, Gibson contributed the text to a number of performance art pieces and exhibitions,^[3][6][7] as well as writing lyrics for musicians Yellow Magic Orchestra and Deborah Harry.^[8][9] He wrote the critically acclaimed artist's book Agrippa (A Book of the Dead) in 1992 before co-authoring The Difference Engine, an alternate history novel that would become a central work of the steampunk genre.^[10] He then spent an unfruitful period as a Hollywood screenwriter, with few of his projects seeing the light of day and those that did being critically unsuccessful.^[11]

Although he had largely abandoned short fiction by the mid-1990s, Gibson returned to writing novels, completing his second trilogy, the Bridge trilogy at the close of the millennium. After writing two episodes of the television series The X-Files around this time, Gibson was featured as the subject of a documentary film, No Maps for These Territories, in 2000.^[12] Gibson has been invited to address the National Academy of Sciences (1993) and the Director's Guild of America (2003) and has had a plethora of articles published in outlets such as Wired, Rolling Stone and The New York Times. His latest novels, Pattern Recognition (2003) and Spook Country (2007) have put Gibson's work onto mainstream bestseller lists for the first time.^[13]

[edit] Novels

Skyscape of Chiba City, Tokyo in 2006. The city formed the primary setting of Neuromancer (1984), Gibson's breakthrough debut novel.

• Sprawl trilogy:
  1. Neuromancer (1984)
  2. Count Zero (1986)
  3. Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988)
• The Difference Engine (1990; with Bruce Sterling)
• Bridge trilogy:
  1. Virtual Light (1993)
  2. Idoru (1996)
  3. All Tomorrow's Parties (1999)
• Pattern Recognition (2003)

Gibson discussing Spook Country (2007) on August 8, 2007 while touring in support of the novel.

• Spook Country (2007)

[edit] Short fiction

[edit] Collected

Burning Chrome (1986, Preface by Bruce Sterling):

• "Fragments of a Hologram Rose" (Summer 1977, UnEarth 3)
• "Johnny Mnemonic" (May 1981, Omni)
• "The Gernsback Continuum" (1981, Universe 11)
• "Hinterlands" (October 1981, Omni)
• "New Rose Hotel" (July 1984, Omni)
• "The Belonging Kind", with John Shirley (1981, Shadows 4)
• "Burning Chrome" (July 1982, Omni)
• "Red Star, Winter Orbit", with Bruce Sterling (July 1983, Omni)
• "The Winter Market" (Nov 1985, Vancouver)
• "Dogfight", with Michael Swanwick (July 1985, Omni)

[edit] Uncollected

The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, a fictional squatted version of which formed the setting for Gibson's short story "Skinner's Room" (1990). He would later revisit the setting in his Bridge trilogy of novels.

• —. "Tokyo Collage" in SF Eye, August 1988.
• —. "Tokyo Suite" in Penthouse (Japanese edition) 1988/5-7. Translated by Hisashi Kuroma.
• —. "Hippy Hat Brain Parasite" in Shiner, Lewis, Modern Stories No. 1, April 1983. Republished in Rucker, Rudy (1989). Semiotext[[E]] Sf. Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 109-122. ISBN 0-936756-43-8. 
• —. "The Nazi Lawn Dwarf Murders" (unpublished)^[14]
• —. "Doing Television" in Dorsey, Candas Jane (1990). Tesseracts 3. Victoria: Porcépic, 392-394. ISBN 0-88878-290-X. OCLC 24504625. 
• —. "Darwin" (a slightly longer version of "Doing Television") in The Face, March 1990,^[15] and Spin, April 1990, 21-23.^[16][7]
• —. "Skinner's Room" in Polledri, Paolo (1990). Visionary San Francisco. Munich: Prestal, 153-65. ISBN 3-7913-1060-7.  Republished in Mccaffery, Larry (1995). After Yesterday's Crash. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-024085-3. 
• —. "Academy Leader" in Benedikt, Michael (1991). Cyberspace. Cambridge: MIT Press, 27-29. ISBN 0-262-52177-6. 
• —. "Cyber-Claus" in The Washington Post Book World, 1991-12-01. Republished in Hartwell, David (1992). Christmas Stars. New York: Tor Books. ISBN 0-8125-2286-9. 
• —. "Where the Holograms Go" in Trilling, Roger (1993). Wild Palms Reader. City: St Martins Pr, 122-23. ISBN 0-312-09083-8. 
• —. "Thirteen Views of a Cardboard City" in Garnett, David (1997). New Worlds. Clarkston: White Wolf Pub, 338-349. ISBN 1-56504-190-9.  Republished in Kelly, James (2007). Rewired: the Post-Cyberpunk Anthology. San Francisco: Tachyon Publications. ISBN 978-1-892391-53-7. 

[edit] Excerpted

• Mona Lisa Overdrive:
  • "The Silver Walks" in High Times, November 1987^[15]
  • "Kumi in the Smoke" ("Kemuri no naka no kumi") (1988)
• The Difference Engine (with Bruce Sterling)
  • "The Angel of Goliad" in Interzone issue 40, 1990
• Idoru
  • "Lo Rez Skyline" in Rolling Stone issue 735, May 30, 1996.

[edit] Screenplays

A neck barcode tattoo, the sole element of Gibson's Alien³ script which was included in the final cut of the film.^[17]

• Johnny Mnemonic (1995)
• "Kill Switch", "First Person Shooter". The X-Files. (1998, 2000).^[18]

[edit] Unrealized

• Burning Chrome – adaptation of "Burning Chrome" (1982)^[19]
• Neuro-Hotel^[19]
• Alien³ (late 1980s)^[19]

[edit] Screen appearances

[edit] Acting appearances

• Wild Palms. (1993)^[20]
• Mon amour mon parapluie. (2002)^[21]
• "First Person Shooter", X-Files (2000)

[edit] Documentaries

• Yorkville: Hippie haven - Hippie Society: The Youth Rebellion, Yorkville, a hippie haven - 1960s a GoGo (1967)
• Cyberpunk (1990)
• No Maps for These Territories (2000)
• Cyberman (2001)

[edit] Television appearances

• Brave New Worlds: The Science Fiction Phenomenon (1993)
• Making of Johnny Mnemonic (1995)
• The X-Files Movie Special (1998)
• "The Screen Savers", 2003-02-05. (2003)
• Bestseller samtalen (2003)
• Webnation, episode 1.14. (2007)

[edit] Articles

Nightscape of Singapore, which Gibson characterized as "Disneyland with the death penalty" in a Wired article of the same name.

• —. "Alfred Bester, SF and Me", Frontier crossings : A souvenir of the 45th World Science Fiction Convention, Conspiracy '87, Robert Jackson ed., (1987) OCLC 78913436
• —. "Rocket Radio" (1989), Rolling Stone, June 15, 1989
• —. "Disneyland With The Death Penalty" (1993), Wired, 1.04
• —. "Remembering Johnny: Notes on a Process" (1995), Wired, 3.06, June 1995.
• —. "The Net Is a Waste of Time…and That's Exactly What's Right About It" (1996), New York Times Magazine 1996-07-14: 31.
• —. "'Virtual Lit': A Discussion" (1996) Biblion: The Bulletin of The New York Public Library, Fall 1996: 33-51.^[16] ISSN 1064-301X OCLC 26244071
• —. "Jack Womak^[sic] and the Horned Heart of Neuropa" (1997) Science Fiction Eye, Fall 1997. ISSN 1071-3018 OCLC 22440318
• —. "Dead Man Sings" (1998) Forbes ASAP, 30 November 1998 supp.: 177. ISSN 1078-9901 OCLC 173437996
• —. "William Gibson's fiction of cyber-eternity may become a reality." (1999) HQ issue 63 : 122, March 1, 1999. ISSN 1321-9820 OCLC 173343432
• —. "My Obsession" (1999), Wired, 7.01

An unshiny amateur example of dorodango, the subject of Gibson's eponymous "Shiny Balls Of Mud" article for Tate Magazine in 2002.

• —. "William Gibson's Filmless Festival" (1999), Wired, 7.10
• —. "Steely Dan's Return" (2000) Addicted To Noise Issue 6.03, March 1, 2000
• —. "Will We Plug Chips Into Our Brains?" (2000) TIME, June 19, 2000.
• —. "Modern boys and mobile girls", The Japan issue, The Observer, 2001-04-01. Retrieved on 2007-10-28. 
• —. "Metrophagy" (2001) Whole Earth, Summer 2001.
• —. "My Own Private Tokyo" (2001), Wired, 9.09
• —. "Blasted Dreams in Mr. Buk's Window" (2001), National Post, 2001-09-20
• —. "Shiny Balls Of Mud" (2002), Tate Magazine, issue 1, September/October 2002. OCLC 33825791 ISSN 1351-3737
• —. "The Road to Oceania" (2003), The New York Times, 2003-06-25
• —. "Time Machine Cuba" (2004), Infinite Matrix, August 8, 2004
• —. "God's Little Toys" (2005), Wired, 13.7
• —. "U2's City of Blinding Lights" (2005), Wired, 13.8

[edit] Forewords, introductions and afterwords

Transgressive artist Stelarc, the subject of Marquard Smith's Stelarc: The Monograph for which Gibson wrote the foreword. Stelarc shown here performing in Parasite: Event for Invaded and Involuntary Body, at the 1997 Ars Electronica Festival.

• —. Shirley, John (1989). Heatseeker. Santa Cruz: Scream/Press. ISBN 0-91048-926-2. 
• —. Datlow, Ellen (1990). Alien Sex. New York: Dutton. ISBN 0-525-24863-3. 
• —. Delany, Samuel (1996). Dhalgren. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 0-8195-6299-8. 
• —. Shirley, John (1996). City Come a-Walkin'. City: Eyeball Books. ISBN 0-9642505-1-9. ^[22]
• —. Kuipers, Dean (2000). Ray Gun: out of Control. London: Booth-Clibborn Editions. ISBN 1-861540-40-X. 
• —. Sterling, Bruce (1997). The Artificial Kid. Hardwired. ISBN 1-888869-16-X. 
• —. Davidson, Avram (1998). The Avram Davidson Treasury. New York: Tor. ISBN 0-312-86729-8. 
• —. Carter, Chris (1998). The Art of the X Files. New York: HarperPrism. ISBN 0-06-105037-7. 
• —. Wachowski, Larry (2000). The Art of the Matrix. Titan Books. ISBN 1-84023-173-4. 
• —. Packer, Randall (2001). Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality. New York: Norton. ISBN 0-393-04979-5. 
• —. Wachowski, Larry (2002). The Matrix: the Shooting Script. New York: Newmarket Press. ISBN 1-55704-490-2. 
• —. Turner, Michael (2004). American Whiskey Bar. Arsenal Pulp Press. ISBN 1-55152-159-8. 
• —. Gunn, Eileen (2004). Stable Strategies and Others. San Francisco: Tachyon Publications. ISBN 1-892391-18-X. 
• —. Smith, Marquard (2005). Stelarc: The Monograph. Cambridge: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-19518-6. 
• —. Borges, Jorge (2007). Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings. New York: New Directions. ISBN 978-0-8112-1699-9. 
• —. Girard, Greg (2007). Phantom Shanghai. Magenta Foundation. ISBN 978-0-9739739-1-4. 

[edit] Miscellaneous

• Count Zero shortened and bowdlerised^[23] serialization illustrated by J. K. Potter, Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, January, February, March 1986 issues
• "Robert Longo" (1992), ArtRandom No. 71, ISBN 4-7636-8531-7. OCLC 25843406
• Agrippa (A Book of the Dead) (1992)—an artist's book. OCLC 79137074
• Lyrics, vocals. Technodon, Yellow Magic Orchestra. (1993)^[8]
• Lyrics. "Dog Star Girl", Debravation. Deborah Harry. (1993)^[9]
• "Speeches on Networking and the Future", joint address with Bruce Sterling to the United States National Academy of Sciences Convocation on Technology and Education on May 10, 1993.
• Narration of Neuromancer for Time Warner Audio Books on 4 audio cassettes (1994)
• Johnny Mnemonic: the Screenplay and the Story. New York: Ace Books. ISBN 0-441-00234-X.  (1995)
• "Up the Line", address to the Directors Guild of America's Digital Day, Los Angeles, May 17, 2003.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Works by or about William Gibson in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• William Gibson at the Internet Movie Database
• William Gibson at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Project Cyberpunk's biography and links
• Resources on William Gibson from the Monroe Library, Loyola University
• William Gibson Aleph An extensive fan site

v • d • e The works of William Gibson The Sprawl trilogy: Neuromancer · Count Zero · Mona Lisa Overdrive The Bridge trilogy: Virtual Light · Idoru · All Tomorrow's Parties Other novels: The Difference Engine (with Bruce Sterling) · Pattern Recognition · Spook Country Burning Chrome collection Johnny Mnemonic · The Gernsback Continuum · Fragments of a Hologram Rose · The Belonging Kind · Hinterlands · Red Star, Winter Orbit · New Rose Hotel · The Winter Market · Burning Chrome · Dogfight Other short stories: Skinner's Room Miscellanea: Neuromancer video game · Agrippa (A Book of the Dead) · Johnny Mnemonic film · New Rose Hotel film · No Maps for These Territories · Node Magazine · The X-Files episodes Story elements: Molly Millions · Cyberspace · Megacorporation · Tessier-Ashpool · Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics · The Sprawl · Raygun Gothic · Gender-bait · Hubertus Bigend