Gibson, William (1948-…), is an American author who became one of the most influential writers in modern science fiction. Gibson became famous with his first novel, Neuromancer (1984), in which he is credited with popularizing the then little-known and seldom-used word “cyberspace.” The novel became a cornerstone of the “cyberpunk” movement in science fiction. Cyberpunk stories typically take place in a future time dominated by high technology and facing radical changes or disruption in the social order.
In Neuromancer and most of Gibson’s other novels, the central characters are tough outsiders who are alienated from a dehumanized world dominated by technology and blighted by overcrowding and pollution. Mysterious multinational corporations rather than governments control society. Gibson’s novels are pessimistic, but his characters do try to create decent lives for themselves in spite of their hostile environment.
Gibson wrote Neuromancer as the first book in a “Cyberspace” trilogy that also included Count Zero (1986) and Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988). He wrote a second trilogy that also explores a future world oppressed by technology and evil corporations. The trilogy consists of Virtual Light (1993), Idoru (1996), and All Tomorrow’s Parties (1999). Gibson has also written the novels The Difference Engine (with Bruce Sterling, 1990), Pattern Recognition (2003), Spook Country (2007), and Zero History (2010). In The Peripheral (2015) and its sequel, Agency (2020), people in the future interfere with the timelines of the past.
Several of Gibson’s short stories have been collected in Burning Chrome (1986). They include the cyberpunk classics ”Burning Chrome,” “New Rose Hotel,” and “Johnny Mnemonic.” Gibson wrote the screenplay for Johnny Mnemonic (1995), a motion-picture adaptation of his short story.
William Ford Gibson was born on March 17, 1948, in Conway, South Carolina. He moved to Canada in 1967 and graduated with a B.A. degree from the University of British Columbia in 1977. He began writing science-fiction short stories in the early 1980’s.
See also Science fiction (Science fiction today).
