William Gibson's opinion of Shadowrun, ...ouch... Options

[Userlimit]

I'm not the biggest fan of Gibson (and i love shadowrun) but dolphin hackers (even those that are smack addicted and live in an abandoned theme park) are much more likely to happen than elves. I would give hacking dolphins at least a 1/10000 odds of appearing in the next 100 years. :cyber:

[hobgoblin]

its just matter of training it to go up to the sub, trigger some cyber he have installed and wait for stimuli. as for that smack bit, i think that was to make him easyer to control. as for abandoned theme park, nice place to hide, and big place to ;) (ok so its far of but hell knows what the militarys around the world have under wraps?)

[Kagetenshi]

Whereas the Elves are going to show up in 2011. Dolphins late again…

~J

[Dax]

[Austere Emancipa...]

How about that...

[I Eat Time]

You know, Austere, frankly I wish I wasn't right on that one.

[Black Isis]

Xirces, I didn't mean to say that Gibson or Dick or anyone else was irrelevant merely because their stories sounded dated -- I was just saying that they do come from a time when the general perception of the world was considerably different from the present day, and you have to take that into account while reading it. I really enjoy reading science fiction from the golden years mostly because so much of it was better written and less schlocky than most of the stuff published today (which is so overmarketed and formulaic that it is hard even for well-written examples to stand out).

[Xirces]

Black Isis - I had to go back and read what I'd written. Alcohol does that to the brain.

I can't remember what prompted me to write (other than the general gist of the thread), but having re-read my post I get the impression I was trying to agree with you in what you said against ACL...

(I have this annoying habit of agreeing with people by effectively criticising a small part of their argument whilst barely mentioning the rest. Needless to say, IRL I don't have many friends and my wife hates it :) Personally I blame my education thus passing my biggest flaw onto the state and effectively removing all blame from myself for my anti-social behaviour.)

All my previous points stand, especially the last one!

The problem with modern sci-fi is that it has to be post-modern to get any interest. Pretty much everything has been done to death and it becomes difficult to commentate on society by drawing parallels to "future" fictional events. That's part of the reason IMO that "fantasy" has become more popular again and tends to be darker than traditional "knights of the round-table" style stuff. Generally the best sci-fi/fantasy is satire in an unrealistic setting...

[Aesir]

I think this tread took a wrong turn somewere. Why is it everyone is discussing how bad Gibbson is? I think the interesting thing is that someone who pioneered one of the genres that Shadowrun comes from hates it´s guts. It makes sence that he does as many have pointed out, but in a discussion of the matter I would have liked to see people pointing out what´s so good about Shadowrun instead of what´s so bad about Gibbson.

I havn´t read his books. In fact I mostly don´t like science-fiction at all. Too sterile. I read a lot though. A little fantasy, but mostly other stuff. A thing i like to see in fiction is when mythical or/and fantastical themes and elements are used in a different context. Like in Rushdies "The Satanical Verses" or in DC Vertigo comics. To me this is what Shadowrun does too. When fantasy is taken into a modern setting, it may become political, serious and meaningfull. I guess it´s not a rule, but I think there are lots of examples of it.

[Kagetenshi]

But we all already know what's good about Shadowrun. We're sitting around discussing it on this forum all day.

Not to mention that it's more satisfying to sit around and complain than sit around and praise.

~J

[Phaeton]

[Snow_Fox]

[hobgoblin]

hmm, a airborne variant of aids, now there is an idea...

[Panzergeist]

Yeah, Shadowrun isn't realistic. It was never supposed to be. And in case Gibson hasn't noticed, cyberpunk stopped being a plausible vision of the future 15 years ago.

[Glyph]

Science fiction purports to be about the future, but it is really a mirror of the period in time that produced it, with that time's attitudes, prejudices, fears, and hopes. That is why Gibson's fiction has things like an ascendant Japan. Heck, look at the Klingons in Star Trek, how they started out looking like greasers, then started looking like Russians, etc.

Cyberpunk broke some preconceived notions (like technology filtering down to everybody, instead of having technocrat scientists in their ivory towers), and envisioned some future developments with a degree of accuracy (although Gibson wouldn't have been able to envision the Matrix, if Al Gore hadn't invented the Internet first :P ). Still, it is dated. In a way, that makes some of it more fascinating to me. It is a look back at the attitudes and values of the 80's (as well as the backlash against some of those attitudes and values).

[CircuitBoyBlue]

I'm not entirely familiar with Star Trek, but are you saying Russians have those weird ridges up their foreheads? I guess I can believe that, considering how many times vodka has caused me to accidentally (or deliberately) bash my head into something.

And as much as I hate Al Gore, he never claimed to have invented the internet. He was trying to take credit (which he actually deserved) for pushing for funding for development of the internet, and the right took him out of context and attacked him for it because a) they were hurt and confused that funding could actually help something other than the military and b) Gore, while being an extremely intelligent man, was also a flaming idiot and set himself up for attacks like that by being too grandiose in his description of the matter.

[mfb]

yeah. i always feel vaguely sorry for gore--great guy, great ideas, great talent for swallowing his own feet.

[Bob the Ninja]

[Centurion]

[Panzergeist]

Science fiction isn't always just a reflection of the present. Ever read Jules Verne? He invented science fiction, so naturally he was the best at it. he accurately predicted stuff more than a century into the future, stuff that no one in his time would really have expected. he also predicted some stuff that hasn't happened yet, but which actual scientists expect to happen in the twentyfirst century.

[Kagetenshi]

And he also predicted some stuff that will never happen. Still, he did pretty well.

~J

[Arethusa]

You don't seriously think being the first makes him the best at it, do you?

[Glyph]

He may not be the best writer (although I think he's pretty good), but he is most famous for being nearly dead-on right about things like the moon landing. He was way, way ahead of his time. Here are some of his predictions (if you scroll down, you will also see some things that people think he predicted, that he really didn't). I don't think any writer since has come close to that kind of precognitive ability.


By the way, the Al Gore/Internet reference was tongue-in-cheek. I know the real story, and how it got blown out of proportion.

[Shadow]

[Arethusa]

Klingons were used as an allegory for the cold war era Russians in the original series, as I recall.