As part of my new resolution to take in more of the opportunities here in Ottawa, I bought tickets to see William Gibson at the Mayfair Theatre. It was part of the 2010 Ottawa Writers Festival.
I brought my camera and sat in the four row; the first two rows were reserved. The format was an interview and then an audience Q&A. The interview was conducted by Kate Heartfield from the Ottawa Citizen newspaper.
It’s hard to believe that it’s been 26 years since Neuromancer was published. I re-read it about a year ago and it’s still a remarkable piece of not just science-fiction but of literature.
William Gibson mentioned that Neuromancer was actually a commissioned work, which I did not previously know.
He talked about how people growing up in a world where they have always had instant communications to anyone else is profoundly different from the rest of human experience. Will we have to educate future readers than in previous eras when a character leaves the immediate vicinity of another that in fact it means that they have lost all communications between them?
He mentioned how airports are a part of a stateless system. I am reminded of Mehran Karimi Nasseri who was stuck in Charles De Gaulle Airport for 18 years. Gibson was thinking more along the lines of business people who meet in airports and airport hotels in a third country.
It was a pleasure to have the chance to see William Gibson. I must do this more often…
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