Pynchon-Gibson Connection

[J.D. P. Lafrance]

I agree a lot with what Greg Montalbano and others said about Gibson, I think
Neuromancer was his Gravity's Rainbow...

>greg writes:
>Gibson doesn't seem to have been able to sustain or build on his early success;

>THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE was a travesty, MONA LISA OVERDRIVE started out well, but
>degenerated into an action-movie parody of his first two "Sprawl" novels, and
>VIRTUAL LIGHT, while fun, showed Gibson repeating himself from his earlier
works

I agree a 100% - I don't think Gibson's subsequent work has been as good, if not
derivative of his Cyberpunk trilogy... Pynchon, on the other hand I think has
managed to escape this pitfall and I think we can expect (I hope) weird and
wonderful things in the future... as of Gibson.. I hope he can recover from
being hailed as this century's technoprophet and produce another startlingly
distinctive work like Neuromancer...

As far as what Hartwin Alfred Gebhardt said:

>TRP's subject matter is primarily 'real' life and 'real' people, refracted
>through all kinds of interesting prisms - while Gibson's subject matter is
>primarily other people's work, which he gives an interesting re-working.

I would argue that Gibson's subject matter is not really futuristic but rather
contemporary. Many of things in Neuromancer are almost becoming a reality or in
some limited form, are well on their way... now, obviously he buries much of
this under the guise of SF but I think Gibson really has his pulse on
contemporary society to use a cliche... Like Pynchon, he seems to be a big fan
of pulp/pop culture - I loved the reference to Return of the Jedi and surf music
in Vineland for instance...

bfn,
JDL