William Gibson on 'Zero History' with Cory Doctorow for IQ2

http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/william-gibson-on-zero-history for full video.

Whilst in London to promote his new book, Zero History, Intelligence Squared paired author William Gibson with popular blogger and science fiction writer Cory Doctorow in a wide-ranging conversation that gives a fascinating insight into the mind of the man heralded as the "architect of cool".

Kicking off with a summary of Zero History - not in terms of plot and themes, but regarding its genesis and place within 'the Bigend trilogy' - Gibson described the function of these three works (the other two being Pattern Recognition and Spook Country) as a 'pinhole exposure of the first decade of the 21st century.' The interesting thing, he stressed, is that he didn't have to move the camera much - it's the times that change, his lens just remains open. Indeed, Gibson repeatedly underlined the centrality of the present in his work - the title quotation is symptomatic of this - and stressed that good science fiction writing is based on looking at 'all the things around you' and finding 'the ones with the most obvious legs to carry you into the future.'

Gibson reveals to Doctorow his earlier insecurities as a novelist, as although his books looked, were shaped, and provided an experience rather similar to reading a novel, he attributes many of the themes that emerged as only doing so once they had been scrutinised and responded to by his readers. Their conversation brims with enthusiasm for alternative cultures, be it Japanese, Victorian, or Bohemian, and flits from technology to child-rearing, skimming the surface of Gibson's writing process on its way.

The pair discuss the commodification of Bohemia in all its guises, Doctorow suggesting that the only way to avoid having one's subculture seized upon, popularized and, ultimately, inverted, is to be so outrageously offensive that it would never be accepted by the mainstream. Either way, neither speaker was left with much optimism regarding the future possibility of a genuine subculture. Gibson concluded that we are now left with only 'splinters of Bohemia,' the violation of which seems almost complete in a world where 'the way D. H. Lawrence looked is...much more important than what D.H. Lawrence wrote.'

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• william gibson
• cory doctorow
• zero history
• neuromancer