Gibson and Pynchon

[Stuart A. Moulthrop]

Gibson gave Burroughs and Pynchon as his gurus in a similar interview
with _Bloomsbury Review_ about 4 years ago.  I cited it in my
"Strobe's Stimulus" piece in PNotes, I think.  (Sorry, too lazy to
run down the hall and look it up.)

Like all good ephebes, Gibson's been systematically extending and
reworking his precursors' opera.  To me anyway, the Neuromancer
books read like realization of a distinctly Pynchonian set of
possibilities.  _Difference Engine_ is something else again --
Gibson in his own (remarkable) voice.  Or maybe it's the collaboration
with Sterling.

Some points of contact between the Pynchon and Gibson universes.
(1) Ref in "Gernsback Continuum" to the rockets that fell on London
"screaming."  This already a strong re-working of the precursor
text, since Gibson relocates the Rocket (cannily) on the cover of
the 30's pulps.  Keen stuff in that story too about how the
Back To The Future delusion (i.e. Reagan) works.  See _Vineland_,
which is of course Pynchon rewriting Gibson.

(2) Ref in "Burning Chrome" to "black ice," the Word that tears
apart the mind, a.k.a. the Dark Dream, a.k.a. The Strobing Tactic.
Or so I claim.

(3) Molly the razorgirl's sealed bubbleshade eyes (cf. Oedipa in
Mexico).  Oedipa's glasses fill up and she sees the world through
her tears.  Molly has her tear ducts re-routed so she can just
spit 'em out.  Yeah.

(4) Maas Biolabs, of course.

(5) The way ALL of cyberpunk links back to "HEART-TO-HEART, MAN-TO-MAN"
(and maybe also "NEW DOPE") in GR.  "You had to come back... into a
dying hunk of smelly MEAT..."  This road runs into Burroughs country
too.

Stuart Moulthrop