The Matrix was built near Radford
I had no idea that William Gibson was originally from western Virginia.
I’ve not been too impressed with anything he’s written since Mona Lisa Overdrive, but Neuromancer still holds up well. If you’ve ever played the Shadowrun RPG, you should certainly read it.
*nod* Surprised the heck out of me just now, too.
I actually thought Count Zero was better than Neuromancer. More balls in the air, with more finesse, in CZ than in Neuro.
It took my favorite English prof at VA Tech (Len Hatfield) to get me to actually read a Gibson book. Still not my favorite stuff, but I see so much more to them since then.
One of the benefits of book clubs and English classes is that they force you to read things that you might have taken a pass on before.
Count Zero’s quite excellent too, and I can see a case for it being better. MLO is the weakest of the three, but still has some nice bits in it.
From my viewpoint, he’s still got his style, but his plotting and characterizations have fallen apart.
Yep! Most of what I read in English class I disliked horribly, but there were a few gems, and my horizons were broadened a bit.
Rising Star had a dealer who would sell you a paper grocery bag for $50, with which you could stuff as many of his paperbacks as you could manage. We got 56 books out of his deal, and I’m happily working through the bag.
Agree totally about MLO. Haven’t read the other trilogy in ages.
Have you read _Pattern Recognition_? People tell me it’s quite good . . . I’ll probably pick it up when it comes out in mass-market paperback.
Hatfield is teh r0x0r. I took a class from him on Ursula Le Guin, and now I actually /like/ her stuff. Quite possibly the best class I’ve ever taken.
If Pattern Recognition is the one I think it is, I did read it. Plenty of style, but exasperating characters who sat helplessly and watched the plot happen around them (something Gibson always has trouble with). OTOH, I may be thinking of Idoru.