William Gibson, greatest of the sci fi writers?

[Parson]

******' heretic

One person's heretic, is another person's saint. (Martin Luther --- I rest my case.)

By the way, some time ago I wondered on a thread why there is almost no discussion of my 2 favorite SF authors: David Weber and CJ Cheeryth. I don't believe I ever got an answer on Weber, but Cheeryth was believed to be too deep and too dense for the ave. SF reader. I don't want to parse what that says for the ave. SF reader!

I also love the classics: Robert Hielien, Asimov, Orson Scott Card, Fredrich Pohl, etc.

 

[iansales]

Cherryh's heyday was the 1980s. She's no longer published in the UK- and hasn't been since Foreigner. I continue to buy and read her books, however.

 

[Gav]

Gibson best SF author of all time? No way.

Good author and worth checking out? Certainly.

 

[JonCG]

Also, the legacy of his early novels remains influential. The first Matrix film ransacked Gibson's ideas wholesale as Hollywood caught up with what everyone else had been doing for years. And much as I love the Sprawl trilogy, and much as they rode punk and the West's rising obsession with Japan, consumerism and technology, I think his later books are better. (Although I still get a much stronger adrenaline kick from reading Count Zero or Mona Lisa Overdrive than Pattern Recognition.)

 

[lin robinson]

Gibson best SF author of all time? No way.

Your nomination?

 

[lin robinson]

Regarding the comments earlier on Heinlein... the idea that greatness lies in how many books published doesn't sit very well with me. Or even cult worship.

It starts meaning that L. Ron Hubbard is the greatest Golden Age SF writer.
Or that Donald Lance Goines is great because there were so many of those Iceberg Slim pimp novels around.

I'm talking about literary quality.

 

[Gav]

Your nomination?

To name any one writer would probably be very difficult if not impossible.

However in the name of being difficult I would be more inclined to go with one of ... oh... Wells, Clarke, Verne, Wyndham, Lewis, Stapledon etc...

Depends on how you define great? Vision, style, characterisation, plot, foresight etc.

Whilst I agree that Gibson is a great writer I would not say he is the greatest.

The concept of greatness is a topic that's certainly been discussed here several times since I signed up and is part of any literary discussion group I've joined.

 

[Bikewer]

I have always had a hard time with folks trying to quantify artistic expression.
Who's the best guitar player, painter, composer, whatever.....

There are no set standards, and it always comes down to some sort of statement as to what you like.

Nothing wrong with that; I've always thought a better question would be "who's your favorite..." rather than "who's the best."

 

[McMurphy]

I would venture that Gibson is one of the greats of the science fiction genre largely due to his evident influence on huge science fiction films, such as the Matrix series. In fact, only when the Brothers strayed from their blantant Gibson influence with the second and third film did they go astray in quality storytelling.

Gibson's style of writing does take a bit in getting used to, but he is worth at least a single read. He is one of the pillars of modern science fiction ideas in film...even if the film industry is more than a few decades too late.

 

[Parson]

Cherryh's heyday was the 1980s. She's no longer published in the UK- and hasn't been since Foreigner. I continue to buy and read her books, however.

Off thread, but oh well..... Does this mean the series Foreigner began, or the Foreigner series itself. I have seen nothing new from Cherryh in the past few years, the last being a part of that series whose name escapes me.

I didn't run into her until the 90's so I've read some of her omnibus works and found them very satisfying.

 

[Connavar]

I've always thought a better question would be "who's your favorite..." rather than "who's the best."

Exactly thats more important question than who is the best.


You think your fav is the best anyway whether your favorit is Asimov or someone that is lesser known.

Thats why i dont care when people say this writer is the best ever, I rather see them saying why a writer is thier favorit. Instead of trying to him prove he is the best.

 

[gil]

I continue to think of Gibson as an sf writer, despite the fact that his two recent novels are both set in the largely unscientific present.

What turns me on with a book or story are the 'cool' concepts in it. I like to feel - "Wow! That's an original idea!" or "I never thought of it like that". This is why I am not drawn to mainstream fiction as much as sf, though I have to confess that Martin Amis and William Boyd and David Mitchell (though he's borderline sf) and others keep me interested.

In this regard, I think William Gibson hits the jackpot every time for me. OK, he has a four year interval between books, but it shows in the quality.

Greatest of all time? I don't know, but he is important.

 

[Fried Egg]

I've only read Neuromancer but I must admit that I didn't enjoy it. It pretty much encapsulates everything about the science fiction genre I don't like (overly technocratic, too much psycobabble, etc). I found his writing style a huge barrier to accessing the story and relating to the characters.

As a result, I have little inclination to read any of his other works. Probably I shouldn't judge an author on one book but when there's so much stuff out there I have yet to read, time is precious and I would need convincing that any of his other work didn't have the same writing style in order to give him another try.

 

[gil]

Well, Fried Egg, if you didn't like Neuromancer, you probably won't like most of the others, but you might give Pattern Recognition a try. I have to say, though, that his writing remains very ... dense, I suppose. Big vocabulary, verb-light.

 

[vurtomatic]

I've been looking forward to every new Gibson book since reading Neuromancer about two decades ago! He's probably the only author from that time that I still look forward to. The writing has changed a lot over the years, as have the ideas, but he remains a very stylistic writer whose work not only refects current day lingo and ideas but projects the future. While I enjoyed Pattern Recognition, I'm having some difficulty going through Spook Country at the moment.

 

[MG1962]

I've been looking forward to every new Gibson book since reading Neuromancer about two decades ago! He's probably the only author from that time that I still look forward to. The writing has changed a lot over the years, as have the ideas, but he remains a very stylistic writer whose work not only refects current day lingo and ideas but projects the future. While I enjoyed Pattern Recognition, I'm having some difficulty going through Spook Country at the moment.

Has the flow of his prose changed much through his career?

I read Neuromancer, and the next book he released, and recalled how tough it was to read. Great ideas and concepts, but I just could not get into the characters he was populating his books with. I have never been back since.

 

[K. Riehl]

While I liked Neuromancer I had a hard time with it due to all the people telling me how new, edgy, and forward thinking it was. I read it and saw ideas that were brought up by PK Dick, Cordwainer Smith, Jeff Noon and others.

That doesn't mean he didn't have original ideas, he did, it means he put them together in a good to great story and happened to be in the right place at the right time to catch the wave.

I think he is good but I still would rather read Vurt, Pollen, Snow Crash, Farewell Horizontal, Perdido Street Station, Metrophage, Pastel City and others for my fix of CyberPunk/New Ideas/edgy reading.

 

[Fried Egg]

Yeah, Jeff Noon is a great author...

 

[Tillane]

And anyone who doubts it should read Nymphomation. Terrific book...

 

[lin robinson]

Specific ideas and such don't have much to do with Gibson's writing. The thing is, he's not just a SF writer. He's a really find creator of contemporary literature. There is little point in comparing him to Dick. He's an wonderful stylist--he's about using language. He's also a social prophet at the personal, not technologica level.

I never understood the term "cyberpunk" being applied to him. What the hell is punk about this stuff?