A snappy label and a manifesto would have been two of the very last things on my own career want list. That label enabled mainstream science fiction to safely assimilate our dissident influence, such as it was. Cyberpunk could then be embraced and given prizes and patted on the head, and genre science fiction could continue unchanged.
William GibsonI think the least important thing about science fiction for me is its predictive capacity.
William GibsonOur hardware is likely to turn into something like us a lot faster than we are likely to turn into something like our hardware...I very much doubt that our grandchildren will understand the distinction between that which is a computer and that which isn't.
William GibsonI'm interested in people who become culturally fluent. And when I meet young people I'm often amazed they don't quite seem to have a sense of where they're from. They're like the citizens of the airport.
William GibsonI loved the Limey [movie]! It's so violent! And yet it's so exquisitely romanticized in a sort of Japanese way, it's a samurai film. Coming out of that, I was really deeply conflicted, because a friend who had seen it said, it's beautiful, but it's not about anything. it's one micron thick.
William Gibson