William Gibson, A Literary Companion, is a is an interesting look into Gibson’s stories and novels. I came into this book having read just Neuromancer and his short story collection, Burning Chrome. Although lacking in background for the remaining books in the Sprawl setting and his other novels, I really didn’t see this as a hindrance, as Henthorne did a good job in describing these works.
The book is put together like an encyclopedia, with a glossary and discussion questions at the end. One either comes away from this wanting to read more Gibson or stay away from his works. While I’ll probably someday read Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive, I didn’t find his other works much to my personal taste.
The book itself, while handy for Gibson fans, is full of typos and some grammatical errors that I do find annoying. This definitely needed a second set of eyes before going to print.
We learn a lot about Gibson personally in this, not just about his work. As it turns out, he and I don’t have much in common and I think he would be rather a downer at parties. So while we wouldn’t be chums based on his views of politics and religion (he seemingly hates Christians, yet admires Bono of the band U2, who is a believer in God, though not a person who lives a Christian lifestyle), I have enjoyed some of his stories. Whether I’ll be interested in any future works he produces is certainly dependent on the direction he goes. And it doesn’t look promising to my interests.
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