Pynchon-Gibson Connection

[Tom Maddox]

On the Pynchon-Gibson connection:

When I met Bill in the early '80s, he had just sold his first Sprawl 
story--"Johnny Mnemonic"--to _Omni_ and I was just trying to learn how to 
write fiction.  We quickly discovered a mutual love of Pynchon (also Wm. 
Burroughs and John LeCarre, but that's another story).

One rather silly (and not unPynchonian, to coin an Orwellism) bit of 
shtick I remember came at a science fiction convention in Seattle around 
then.  We replaced our convention issued nametags with names from 
Pynchon:  I think Bill was Benny Profane and I was Pig Bodine, but I 
couldn't swear to it.  We then began doing the same with other folks 
until we had quite a nice cadre of Pynchon characters circulating.

So, yeah, there's a Pynchon influence on Gibson.  The exact nature of 
it--as with any other literary influence--is rather up for grabs.  

Tom

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	By such shameless and inept experiments is the mastery of a very 
			difficult language achieved.
				Evelyn Waugh