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comment by blackbootz
blackbootz  ·  3211 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: A love letter to William Gibson

I read it per an earlier recommendation from kb. It's really as the author of this article puts it, electrifyingly imaginative and cool. I'm thinking about delving into more Gibson.

He has a command of language, evokes huge picture machinations but does not skimp on the gritty details, that thrill kind of endlessly. I read Neuromancer and immediately gave my copy away to a friend and insisted they read it. Here's a quote that sends chills for me. Spoiler ahead possibly, redacted names:

      There were cigarettes in the gift shop, but he didn't relish talking with [redacted] or [redacted].  He left the lobby and located a vending console in a narrow alcove, at the end of a rank of pay phones.  He fumbled through a pocketful of lirasi, slotting the small dull alloy coins one after another, vaguely amused by the anachronism of the process.  The phone nearest him rang.  Automatically, he picked it up.  `Yeah?'

      Faint harmonics, tiny inaudible voices rattling across some orbital link, and then a sound like wind.

      `Hello, Case.'

      A fifty-lirasi coin fell from his hand, bounced, and rolled out of sight across Hilton carpeting.

      `[Hello], Case.  It's time we talk.'

      It was a chip voice.

      `Don't you want to talk, Case?'

      He hung up.

      On his way back to the lobby, his cigarettes forgotten, he had to walk the length of the ranked phones. Each rang in turn, but only once, as he passed.




user-inactivated  ·  2079 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Old comment, but I've read Spook Country and Zero History as well as Nueromancer and found them worth a read. More grounded in reality than Nueromancer but still a solid read.