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by bitwize 5361 days ago
I'm of the belief that William Gibson pretty much hates computers which is why he wrote so much about them. He doesn't write SF, he writes anti-SF. An SF author posits scientifically plausibe scenarios and shows his/her work. Gibson's novels about cyberspace and that relied extensively on handwaving, magical thinking, and "unseen, unknown threat" to develop their narratives.

This isn't negative. Gibson probably knows more about computers than you. Hint: Rather than look at technical details, he has always thought about computers from the most critical perspective: at the points where they interact with people.

1 comments

> An SF author posits scientifically plausibe scenarios and shows his/her work.

You probably missed all the "soft science fiction" movement after the sixties... ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_science_fiction ).

What you describe was 30-50s style "hard science fiction" --think Asimov, Clark, etc

I'm aware of what "soft SF" is. What I was getting across is that it is much more a rebellion against SF than a continuation or evolution of it.