Comments on: Gibson vs. Stephenson

By: Daniel J. Wilson

Daniel J. Wilson — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Interesting. I suppose Gibson has had plenty of time to reflect on Neuromancer, so if he says P.K. Dick didn’t really influence it, I’m inclined to believe him. Aside from the corporate control and bio-engineering aspects, I guess they don’t have many themes in common.

Speaking of P.K.D., “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” looks like a complete ripoff of a Dick story or novel. Not one in particular, but the whole concept of using memory erasure as a path to artificial happiness. Perhaps I’m letting my dislike of Charlie Kaufman’s other movies influence my view. In any case, it would not suprise me if Kaufman is a Dick fan.

By: UBiK

UBiK — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Kaufman is indeed a confessed Dick fan. He even wrote a script for an adaptation of a Scanner Darkly! (Find it at http://www.beingcharliekaufman.com/scanner.pdf ). I haven’t seen Eternal Sunshine yet but it’s so Dickian, as you mention, that it’s been on my to-see list since I heard about it.

By: Philip

Philip — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

“the influence he had on the cyberpunk genre made him appear, at least to me, less original”

I just wanted to point out that this statement makes ABSOLUTELY no sense because his work was the original that made the OTHERS appear sterotypical, not the other way around. His influence is what the OTHER writers used and made stereotypical. You have your “timing” all wrong for blame and praise purposes.

By: UBiK

UBiK — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Philip:
I don’t dispute the fact that Gibson’s influence made him the original one (compared to Stephenson at least) in an objective context. The whole point of my rant, though, was that I thought that Stephenson made a greater subjective impact on me than Gibson and therefore I subjectively considered Stephenson as a better writer for me. Maybe I didn’t make this last point clear enough. I have updated the post to clarify this issue.

Thanks for the input!

By: Phil

Phil — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Pipe down, Philip. He qualified his statement with the fact that it’s how it appeared to him. If you read the post carefully you’d see that he fully realizes that Gibson was the first, the innovative one. He just read out of chronological order.

By: Membranophonist's Ramblings

Membranophonist's Ramblings — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Gibson vs. Stephenson, contd.
UBiK and I are debating the merits of William Gibson vs. Neal Stephenson.