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Scifi
William Gibson was born on March 17, 1948 in Conway, South Carolina. He graduated from the University of British Columbia in 1977 with a Bachelor's degree in English. He still lives in Vancouver with his wife and two children.
¶ Gibson burst upon the science fiction scene in 1984 with the publication of his first novel, Neuromancer. The novel helped to solidify the cyberpunk sub-genre, and continued to popularize the term cyberspace (a term whose creation is accredited to Gibson in his short story, "Burning Chrome"). Despite the prominent place that technology plays in the novel, Gibson composed it on a typewriter as he still did not own a computer.
¶ Gibson also re-wrote his short story "Johnny Mnemonic" for the big screen. It was turned into a movie in 1995 starring Keanu Reeves as the courier who holds the cure for a worldwide epidemic stored in his head. Reeves also appeared in The Matrix: a movie that clearly borrowed its title from Neuromancer's name for cyberspace ("shared, consensual hallucination" sound familiar?).
¶ William Gibson is still writing today. His status in the pantheon of great 20th Century science fiction authors is assured.
—Paul Kaminsky, November 2001 |
