Photo by Frederic Poirot (Fred Armitage at Flickr) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
On November 7, Robin brought us into the realms of new Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction and Cyberpunk with her favorite author, William Gibson. She explained how this “Oracle of tech” changed science fiction “in a good way”. His books:
- Present strong female characters
- Read like mystery thrillers
- Imagined virtual reality, cyberspace, artificial intelligence, hackers and more. His ideas put shape to their development a decade or more later.
- Reveal the mixed blessings of how technology changes culture
- Warn of loss/isolation when people prefer living in virtual worlds
- Include art and artists
William Gibson’s books have, in fact, greatly influenced our culture.