William Gibson (placeholder)

PatRec booksigning in Chicago.

Bill gave a speech at Microsoft following the release of Pattern Recognition. I got him to sign my copy of The Difference Engine and told him how sad I was that I didn’t have my copies of the issues of Asimov’s SFM that serialized Count Zero. He laughed and said, “Ah, the pulps… they would probably be dust by now.”

The first time I met William Gibson was at a Tower Records in Concord, reading from Neuromancer. He signed my 10th anniversary edition (this was 1994), and even signed a copy of 2600!

I was working in the books editorial department at Amazon.com about the time that “All Tomorrow’s Parties” was published. Gibson was in town promoting his book, and a number of folks had the opportunity to go have lunch with him.

The big surprise about William Gibson was his southern accent. It was completely unexpected. And his soft spokeness. And humility.

Someone at the table asked him how he created his vision of the future, and by example he described extending what is now futuristic to its logical extreme. He specifically mentioned reading an article about a smart paint used to combat graffiti, and by extension, what would happen if it were truly “smart” and capable of engaging in combat with a smart graffiti projectile. And then he talked about imagining that combat, and turning it into a piece of the narrative.

Typically, it was a few brief moments at a book signing. (Pattern Recognition, at Powell’s in Portland,OR)

Met him at a book signing for Pattern Recognition. He signed my first copy of “Neuromancer”. Very nice guy.

every book of his changed my point of view in some way. be it the nature of reality/perception or a likely near-future i may live in…...true genious!

His writing creates these places and people that not only are interesting but they have culture behind them. I think that is what makes him such a great writer, is his ability to incorporate everything about a person and a place to make it interesting.

I was in a Book store on Granville St in Vancouver BC walking amongst the isles when standing there was William Gibson! I mentioned how much I liked his first two books. Seems like a pretty down to earth person.