View source for William Gibson

{{Short description|American-Canadian speculative fiction novelist (born 1948)}}
{{Other people}}
{{Redirect|Gibsonian|the school of psychology|Gibsonian psychology}}
{{Featured article}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2023}}
{{Infobox writer
| name             = William Gibson
| image            = William Gibson 60th birthday portrait (3x4 cropped).jpg
| imagesize        = 
| caption          = Gibson in 2008
| alt              = Black-and-white head shot of Gibson
| birth_name       = William Ford Gibson
| birth_date       = {{birth date and age|mf=yes|1948|3|17}}<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Thill |first=Scott |date=March 17, 2011 |title=March 17, 1948: William Gibson, Father of Cyberspace |url=https://www.wired.com/2011/03/0317cyberspace-author-william-gibson-born/ |magazine=WIRED |language=en-US |access-date = March 15, 2018 |archive-date=December 21, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181221043355/https://www.wired.com/2011/03/0317cyberspace-author-william-gibson-born/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
| birth_place      = [[Conway, South Carolina]], U.S.
| occupation       = [[Novelist]]
| alma_mater       = [[University of British Columbia]]
| nationality      = American, Canadian<ref name="q423">{{cite web | last=Leith | first=Sam | title=William Gibson: 'I was losing a sense of how weird the real world was' | website=The Guardian | date=2020-01-11 | url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/11/william-gibson-i-was-losing-a-sense-of-how-weird-the-real-world-was | access-date=2025-05-05}}</ref><ref name="i145">{{cite web | last=Fawcett | first=Max | title=Climate change's future is already here | website=Canada's National Observer | date=2025-01-15 | url=https://www.nationalobserver.com/2025/01/17/opinion/climate-change-future-fires-insurance-cost | access-date=2025-05-05}}</ref><ref name="z641">{{cite web | last=Patrick | first=Ryan B. | title=William Gibson's sci-fi novels shaped how we think about future technology | website=[[CBC.ca]] | date=2020-12-17 | url=https://www.cbc.ca/books/william-gibson-s-sci-fi-novels-shaped-how-we-think-about-future-technology-and-he-s-not-done-writing-yet-1.5841715 | access-date=2025-05-05}}</ref>
| period           = 1977–present
| genre            = [[Speculative fiction]], [[science fiction]]
| movement         = [[Cyberpunk]], [[steampunk]], [[postcyberpunk]]
| notableworks     = ''[[Neuromancer]]'' (novel, 1984)
| awards           = [[Nebula Award|Nebula]], [[Hugo Award|Hugo]], [[Philip K. Dick Award|Philip K. Dick]], [[Ditmar Award|Ditmar]], [[Seiun Award|Seiun]] (all 1985); [[Prix Aurora Award|Prix Aurora]] (1995),<ref name=SFAwards/> [[Inkpot Award|Inkpot]] (2016)<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.comic-con.org/awards/inkpot |title=Inkpot Award |date=December 6, 2012 |access-date=October 23, 2020 |archive-date=January 29, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170129155249/http://www.comic-con.org/awards/inkpot |url-status=live }}</ref>
| website          = {{URL|WilliamGibsonbooks.com}}
}}

'''William Ford Gibson''' (born March 17, 1948) is a [[speculative fiction]] writer and essayist widely credited with pioneering the [[science fiction]] subgenre known as [[cyberpunk]]. Beginning his writing career in the late 1970s, his early works were noir, near-future stories that explored the effects of [[technology]], [[cybernetics]], and [[computer network]]s on humans, a "combination of [[Low-life|lowlife]] and [[high tech]]"<ref name="mao2">{{cite book|title=Burning Chrome|title-link=Burning Chrome (short story collection)|last=Gibson|first=William|author2=Bruce Sterling|publisher=Harper Collins|year=1986|isbn=978-0-06-053982-5|location=New York|chapter=Introduction|oclc=51342671|author2-link=Bruce Sterling}}</ref>—and helped to create an [[iconography]] for the [[Information Age]] before the ubiquity of the Internet in the 1990s.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/05/pentagon-define.html|title=26 Years After Gibson, Pentagon Defines 'Cyberspace'|last=Schactman|first=Noah|date=May 23, 2008|magazine=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]]|access-date=September 15, 2008|archive-date=September 14, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080914151043/http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/05/pentagon-define.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Gibson coined the term "[[cyberspace]]" for "widespread, interconnected digital technology" in his short story "[[Burning Chrome]]" (1982), and later popularized the concept in his acclaimed debut novel ''[[Neuromancer]]'' (1984). These early works of Gibson's have been credited with "renovating" science fiction literature in the 1980s.

After expanding on the story in ''Neuromancer'' with two more novels (''[[Count Zero]]'' in 1986 and ''[[Mona Lisa Overdrive]]'' in 1988), thus completing the [[dystopic]] [[Sprawl trilogy|''Sprawl'' trilogy]], Gibson collaborated with [[Bruce Sterling]] on the [[alternate history]] novel ''[[The Difference Engine]]'' (1990), which became an important work of the science fiction subgenre known as ''[[steampunk]]''. In the 1990s, Gibson composed the [[Bridge trilogy|''Bridge'' trilogy]] of novels, which explored the [[sociological]] developments of near-future urban environments, [[postindustrial society]], and [[late capitalism]]. 

Following the turn of the century and the events of [[September 11 attacks|9/11]], Gibson emerged with a string of increasingly [[Literary realism|realist]] novels—''[[Pattern Recognition (novel)|Pattern Recognition]]'' (2003), ''[[Spook Country]]'' (2007), and ''[[Zero History]]'' (2010)—set in a roughly contemporary world. These works saw his name reach mainstream [[Bestseller|bestseller lists]] for the first time. His most recent novels, ''[[The Peripheral]]'' (2014) and [[Agency (novel)|''Agency'']] (2020), returned to a more overt engagement with technology and recognizable science fiction themes.

In 1999, ''[[The Guardian]]'' described Gibson as "probably the most important novelist of the past two decades", while ''[[The Sydney Morning Herald]]'' called him the "noir prophet" of cyberpunk.<ref name="smh2">{{cite web|url=https://www.smh.com.au/news/books/a-reality-stranger-than-fiction/2007/09/06/1188783376158.html|title=A reality stranger than fiction|last=Bennie|first=Angela|date=September 7, 2007|website=[[Sydney Morning Herald]]|publisher=Fairfax Media|access-date=January 21, 2008|archive-date=September 11, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070911031016/http://www.smh.com.au/news/books/a-reality-stranger-than-fiction/2007/09/06/1188783376158.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Throughout his career, Gibson has written more than 20 short stories and 12 critically acclaimed novels (one in collaboration), contributed articles to several major publications, and collaborated extensively with performance artists, filmmakers, and musicians. His work has been cited as influencing a variety of disciplines: academia, design, film, literature, music, [[cyberculture]], and technology.

== Early life ==
[[File:Burroughs1983 cropped.jpg|thumb|upright|right|[[William S. Burroughs]] at his 70th birthday party in 1984. Burroughs, more than any other [[beat generation]] writer, was an important influence on the adolescent Gibson.]]

=== Childhood, itinerance, and adolescence ===
William Ford Gibson was born in the coastal city of [[Conway, South Carolina]], and he spent most of his childhood in [[Wytheville, Virginia]], a small town in the [[Appalachians]] where his parents had been born and raised.<ref name="sourcecode"/><ref name="observer">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/aug/12/sciencefictionfantasyandhorror.features |title=Space to think |access-date=October 26, 2007 |last=Adams |first=Tim |author2=Emily Stokes |author3=James Flint |date=August 12, 2007 |work=The Observer |location=London |archive-date=October 16, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071016221155/http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/sciencefiction/story/0,,2146989,00.html |url-status=live }}</ref> His family moved frequently during Gibson's youth owing to his father's position as manager of a large construction company.<ref name="litencyc"/> In [[Norfolk, Virginia]], Gibson attended Pines Elementary School, where the teachers' lack of encouragement for him to read was a cause of dismay for his parents.<ref name=sale>
{{cite news
|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/passed-failed-william-gibson-novelist-and-scriptwriter-109559.html
|title=Passed/Failed: William Gibson, novelist and scriptwriter
|work=[[The Independent]]
|access-date=May 29, 2025
|date=June 19, 2003
|last=Sale
|first=Jonathan
|publisher=[[Independent News & Media]]
|location=London
}}
</ref> While Gibson was still a young child,{{efn|1=''[[The New York Times Magazine]]''<ref name="nytmag1"/> and Gibson himself<ref name="sourcecode"/> report his age at the time of his father's death to be six years old, while Gibson scholar Tatiani Rapatzikou claims in ''[[The Literary Encyclopedia]]'' that he was eight years old.<ref name="litencyc"/>}} a little over a year into his stay at Pines Elementary,<ref name=sale/> his father choked to death in a restaurant while on a business trip.<ref name="sourcecode"/> His mother, unable to tell William the bad news, had someone else inform him of the death.<ref name="nytmag1">{{cite news
 | last = Solomon
 | first = Deborah
 | title = Questions for William Gibson: Back From the Future
 | page = 13
 | work = [[The New York Times Magazine]]
 | date = August 19, 2007
| url = https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/magazine/19wwln-q4-t.html
 | access-date = October 13, 2007
| archive-date = May 12, 2013
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130512113209/http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/magazine/19wwln-q4-t.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
 | url-status = live
 }}</ref> [[Tom Maddox]] has commented that Gibson "grew up in an America as disturbing and surreal as anything [[J. G. Ballard]] ever dreamed".<ref name="Virus 23">{{cite web
 |url=http://www.dthomasmaddox.com/virus23.html
 |title=Maddox on Gibson
 |access-date=October 26, 2007
|last=Maddox
 |first=Tom
 |author-link=Tom Maddox
 |year=1989
 |quote=This story originally appeared in a Canadian 'zine, Virus '''23''', 1989.
 |url-status=dead
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071013205424/http://dthomasmaddox.com/virus23.html
 |archive-date=October 13, 2007
}}</ref>

{{Quote box|align=left|width=40%|Loss is not without its curious advantages for the artist. Major traumatic breaks are pretty common in the biographies of artists I respect.|salign=right|source=—William Gibson, interview with ''[[The New York Times Magazine]]'', August 19, 2007<ref name="nytmag1"/>}}

A few days after the death of his father, Gibson and his mother moved back from Norfolk to Wytheville.<ref name="observer"/><ref name="nomaps">{{cite AV media |people= [[Mark Neale]] (director), William Gibson (subject) |title=[[No Maps for These Territories]] |location = New York, NY | publisher=Docurama |medium=documentary |date =2000 | time = }}</ref> Gibson later described Wytheville as "a place where [[modernity]] had arrived to some extent but was deeply distrusted" and credits the beginnings of his relationship with science fiction, his "native literary culture",<ref name="nomaps"/> with the subsequent feeling of abrupt exile.<ref name="sourcecode">{{cite web
|last =Gibson
|first =William
|date =November 6, 2002
|url =http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/source/source.asp
|title =Since 1948
|access-date =November 4, 2007
|archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20071120193555/http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/source/source.asp
|archive-date =November 20, 2007
}}</ref> At the age of 12, Gibson "wanted nothing more than to be a science fiction writer".<ref name=newscientist>{{cite journal|journal=[[New Scientist]]|access-date=November 17, 2008|title=Sci-fi special: William Gibson|first=William|last=Gibson|date=November 12, 2008|url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026821.600-scifi-special-william-gibson.html|archive-date=November 21, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081121072258/http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026821.600-scifi-special-william-gibson.html|url-status=live}}</ref> He spent a few unproductive years at basketball-obsessed George Wythe High School, a time spent largely in his room listening to records and reading books.<ref name=sale/> At 13, unbeknownst to his mother, he purchased an anthology of [[Beat generation]] writing, thereby gaining exposure to the writings of [[Allen Ginsberg]], [[Jack Kerouac]], and [[William S. Burroughs]];<ref>{{Cite book |last=Christophe Becker (under the direction of Noëlle Batt) |url=https://hal.science/tel-03777596v1/file/C.%20Becker.%20Th%C3%A8se%20%28pdf%29.pdf |title=L'influence de William S. Burroughs dans l'oeuvre de William Gibson et de Genesis P-Orridge (The influence of William S. Burroughs in the work of William Gibson and Genesis P-Orridge) |year=2010 |type=doctoral thesis |access-date=February 26, 2025}}</ref> the lattermost had a particularly pronounced effect, greatly altering Gibson's notions of the possibilities of science fiction literature.<ref name="god's little toys">{{cite journal|url=https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.07/gibson.html|title=God's Little Toys: Confessions of a cut & paste artist|last=Gibson|first=William|date=July 2005|journal=[[Wired.com]]|access-date=November 4, 2007|archive-date=February 21, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070221101831/http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.07/gibson.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="project cyberpunk interview">{{cite book | last = McCaffery | first = Larry | author-link = Larry McCaffery | title = Storming the Reality Studio: a casebook of cyberpunk and postmodern science fiction | access-date = November 5, 2007 | publisher = [[Duke University Press]] | location = [[Durham, North Carolina]] | isbn = 978-0-8223-1168-3 | oclc = 23384573 | pages = 263–285 | chapter = An Interview with William Gibson | chapter-url = http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/gibson_interview.html | year = 1991 | title-link = science fiction | archive-date = January 25, 2012 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120125090151/http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/gibson_interview.html | url-status = live }}</ref>

A shy, ungainly teenager, Gibson grew up in a monoculture he found "highly problematic",<ref name=newscientist/> consciously rejected religion and took refuge in reading science fiction as well as writers such as Burroughs and [[Henry Miller]].<ref name="nomaps"/><ref name="seattle pi">{{cite news |first=John |last=Marshall |title=William Gibson's new novel asks, is the truth stranger than science fiction today? |url=http://www.seattlepi.com/books/107368_gibson06.shtml |department=Books |work=[[Seattle Post-Intelligencer]] |date=February 6, 2003 |access-date=November 3, 2007 |archive-date=April 19, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210419035408/https://www.seattlepi.com/ae/books/article/William-Gibson-s-new-novel-asks-is-the-truth-1106809.php |url-status=live }}</ref> Becoming frustrated with his poor academic performance, Gibson's mother threatened to send him to a boarding school; to her surprise, he reacted enthusiastically.<ref name=sale/> Unable to afford his preferred choice of Southern California, his then "chronically anxious and [[clinical depression|depressive]]" mother, who had remained in Wytheville since the death of her husband, sent him to Southern Arizona School for Boys in Tucson.<ref name="sourcecode"/><ref name="observer"/><ref name="nomaps"/> He resented the structure of the private boarding school but was in retrospect grateful for its forcing him to engage socially.<ref name=sale/>

=== Draft-dodging, exile, and counterculture ===
[[File:Uncle Gibby.jpg|thumb|upright|Gibson at a 2007 reading of ''[[Spook Country]]'' in [[Victoria, British Columbia]]. Since "[[The Winter Market]]" (1985), commissioned by ''[[Vancouver Magazine]]'' with the stipulation that it be set in the city, Gibson actively avoided using his adopted home as a setting until ''Spook Country''.<ref name="vancouver">{{cite news|first=Joe |last=Wiebe |title=Writing Vancouver |url=http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/arts/story.html?id=99d2236b-c329-4969-b07e-6ffebeff5871 |work=[[The Vancouver Sun]] |date=October 13, 2007 |access-date=March 4, 2017 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121022231428/http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/arts/story.html?id=99d2236b-c329-4969-b07e-6ffebeff5871 |archive-date=October 22, 2012 }}</ref>]]
After his mother's death when he was 18,<ref name=sale/> Gibson left school without graduating and became very isolated for a long time, traveling to California and Europe, and immersing himself in the [[counterculture]].<ref name="observer"/><ref name="nomaps"/><ref name="seattle pi"/> In 1967, he elected to move to Canada in order "to [[Draft dodger#Vietnam War|avoid the Vietnam war draft]]".<ref name=sourcecode/><ref name="nomaps"/> Gibson has observed that he "did not literally evade the draft, as they never bothered drafting me";<ref name=sourcecode /> In the biographical documentary ''[[No Maps for These Territories]]'' (2000), Gibson said that his decision was motivated less by [[conscientious objection]] than by a desire to "sleep with hippie chicks" and indulge in [[hashish]].<ref name="nomaps"/> He elaborated on the topic in a 2008 interview:

{{blockquote|When I started out as a writer I took credit for draft evasion where I shouldn't have. I washed up in Canada with some vague idea of evading the draft but then I was never drafted so I never had to make the call. I don't know what I would have done if I'd really been drafted. I wasn't a tightly wrapped package at that time. If somebody had drafted me I might have wept and gone. I wouldn't have liked it of course.|source=William Gibson, interview with ''[[io9]]'', June 10, 2008<ref>{{cite interview |last=Gibson |first=William |interviewer=[[Annalee Newitz]] |title=William Gibson Talks to io9 About Canada, Draft Dodging, and Godzilla |location=[[San Francisco]] |date=June 10, 2008 |work=[[io9]] |url=http://io9.com/5015137/william-gibson-talks-to-io9-about-canada-draft-dodging-and-godzilla |access-date=June 10, 2008 |archive-date=June 11, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080611081540/http://io9.com/5015137/william-gibson-talks-to-io9-about-canada-draft-dodging-and-godzilla |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

After weeks of nominal homelessness, Gibson was hired as the manager of Toronto's first [[head shop]], a retailer of drug paraphernalia.<ref name=desertisland>{{cite episode |title=William Gibson |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00941v7 |access-date=June 27, 2011 |series=Desert Island Discs |series-link=Desert Island Discs |network=BBC |station=[[BBC Radio 4]] |airdate=November 19, 1999 |time=16:41 |quote="For a couple of weeks I was essentially homeless, although it was such a delightful, floating, pleasant period that it now seems strange to me to think that I was in fact homeless. I was eventually, well, actually in quite short order taken on as the manager of Toronto's first head shop. |archive-date=April 30, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110430113632/http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs/castaway/3ade8915#p00941v7 |url-status=live }}</ref> He found the city's émigré community of American draft dodgers unbearable owing to the prevalence of clinical depression, suicide, and hardcore substance abuse.<ref name="nomaps"/> He appeared, during the [[Summer of Love]] of 1967, in a [[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation|CBC]] newsreel item about hippie [[subculture]] in [[Yorkville, Toronto]],<ref>{{cite AV media|url= https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/1.3202122 |title=Toronto's Yorkville was a hippie haven in 1967 |date =September 4, 1967 |format = 14 min [[Windows Media Video]]; "This is Bill" appears first after 0:45}} {{cite AV media|url= http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-69-1587-10799/life_society/60s/clip11 |title= Rochdale College: Organized anarchy |format = 16 min radio recording [[Windows Media Audio]]; interviews start after 4:11 |publisher=[[CBC.ca]]|location= [[Yorkville, Toronto]] |access-date=February 1, 2008}}</ref> for which he was paid $500—the equivalent of 20 weeks' rent—which financed his later travels.<ref name="cbc yorkville">{{cite web |url=http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_05_01_archive.asp#200226493 |title=That CBC Archival Footage |access-date=November 26, 2007 |last=Gibson |first=William |date=May 1, 2003 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071210172818/http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_05_01_archive.asp#200226493 |archive-date=December 10, 2007 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Gibson spent a "brief, riot-torn spell" in [[Washington, D.C.]], where he completed his high school diploma at the age of 21. He spent the rest of the 1960s in [[Toronto]], where he met Vancouverite Deborah Jean Thompson,<ref name="deb">{{cite news |url= https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/may/03/sciencefictionfantasyandhorror.williamgibson |title= Profile: William Gibson |first= Steven |last= Poole |date= May 3, 2003 |access-date= April 27, 2010 |work= guardian.co.uk |location= London |archive-date= January 25, 2014 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140125042144/http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/may/03/sciencefictionfantasyandhorror.williamgibson |url-status= live }}</ref> with whom he subsequently traveled to Europe.<ref name=sourcecode/> Gibson has recounted that they concentrated their travels on European nations with fascist regimes and favorable exchange rates, including spending time on a Greek archipelago and in [[Istanbul]] in 1970,<ref name="obsession"/> as they "couldn't afford to stay anywhere that had anything remotely like hard currency".<ref name="rogers">{{cite web |url= http://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/William_Gibson/rogers_gibson.interview |title=In Same Universe |access-date=November 6, 2007 |first=Mike |last=Rogers |date=October 1, 1993 |publisher=Lysator Sweden Science Fiction Archive |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070419180411/http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/english016/gibson/gibson2.int |archive-date=April 19, 2007}}</ref>

The couple married and settled in [[Vancouver]], British Columbia, in 1972, with Gibson looking after their first child while they lived off his wife's teaching salary. During the 1970s, Gibson made a substantial part of his living from scouring [[Salvation Army]] thrift stores for underpriced artifacts he would then up-market to specialist dealers.<ref name="obsession">{{cite magazine |url=https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.01/ebay.html |title=My Obsession |last=Gibson |first=William |access-date=December 2, 2007 |magazine=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired.com]] |volume=7 |date=January 1999 |issue=1 |archive-date=May 13, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080513141906/http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.01/ebay.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Realizing that it was easier to sustain high college grades, and thus qualify for generous student financial aid, than to work,<ref name="project cyberpunk interview"/> he enrolled at the [[University of British Columbia]] (UBC), earning "a desultory bachelor's degree in English"<ref name="sourcecode"/> in 1977.<ref>{{cite journal
 |date         = March 4, 2004
|title        = UBC Alumni: The First Cyberpunk
 |journal      = UBC Reports
 |volume       = 50
 |issue        = 3
 |url          = http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/ubcreports/2004/04mar04/gibson.html
 |access-date  = November 2, 2007
|archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20080108011400/http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/ubcreports/2004/04mar04/gibson.html
 |archive-date = January 8, 2008
|url-status   = dead
 |df           = mdy-all
}}</ref> Through studying [[English literature]], he was exposed to a wider range of fiction than he would have read otherwise; something he credits with giving him ideas inaccessible from within the culture of science fiction, including an awareness of [[postmodernity]].<ref name="crier"/> It was at UBC that he attended his first course on science fiction, taught by [[Susan Wood (science fiction)|Susan Wood]], at the end of which he was encouraged to write his first short story, "[[Fragments of a Hologram Rose]]".<ref name="litencyc"/>

=== Early writing and the evolution of cyberpunk ===
After considering pursuing a master's degree on the topic of [[hard science fiction]] novels as [[Fascist (epithet)|fascist]] literature,<ref name="project cyberpunk interview"/> Gibson discontinued writing in the year that followed graduation and, as one critic put it, expanded his collection of punk records.<ref name="calcutt">{{cite book | last = Calcutt | first = Andrew | title = Cult Fiction | publisher = Contemporary Books | location = Chicago | year = 1999 | isbn = 978-0-8092-2506-4 |oclc = 42363052}}</ref> During this period he worked at various jobs, including a three-year stint as teaching assistant on a film history course at his alma mater.<ref name="litencyc"/> Impatient with much of what he saw at a [[science fiction convention]] in Vancouver in 1980 or 1981, Gibson found a kindred spirit in fellow panelist, punk musician and author [[John Shirley]].<ref name="storming">{{cite book | last = McCaffery | first = Larry | title = Storming the Reality Studio: a casebook of cyberpunk and postmodern science fiction | publisher = [[Duke University Press]] | location = [[Durham, North Carolina]] | year = 1991 | isbn = 978-0-8223-1168-3 | oclc = 23384573}}</ref> The two became immediate and lifelong friends. Shirley persuaded Gibson to sell his early short stories and to take writing seriously.<ref name="calcutt"/><ref name="storming"/>

{{Quote box|align=right|width=30%|In 1977, facing first-time parenthood and an absolute lack of enthusiasm for anything like "career," I found myself dusting off my twelve-year-old's interest in science fiction. Simultaneously, weird noises were heard from New York and London. I took Punk to be the detonation of some slow-fused projectile buried deep in society's flank a decade earlier, and I took it to be, somehow, a sign. And I began, then, to write.|salign=right|source=—William Gibson, "Since 1948"<ref name="sourcecode"/>}}

Through Shirley, Gibson came into contact with science fiction authors [[Bruce Sterling]] and [[Lewis Shiner]]; reading Gibson's work, they realized that it was, as Sterling put it, "breakthrough material" and that they needed to "put down our preconceptions and pick up on this guy from Vancouver; this [was] the way forward."<ref name="nomaps"/><ref name="shiner"/> Gibson met Sterling at a science fiction convention in [[Denver]], [[Colorado]], in the autumn of 1981, where he read "[[Burning Chrome]]"&nbsp;– the first cyberspace short story&nbsp;– to an audience of four people, and later stated that Sterling "completely got it".<ref name="nomaps"/>

In October 1982, Gibson traveled to Austin, Texas, for [[ArmadilloCon]], at which he appeared with Shirley, Sterling and Shiner on a panel called "Behind the Mirrorshades: A Look at Punk SF", where Shiner noted "the sense of a movement solidified".<ref name="shiner">{{cite book | last = Shiner | first = Lewis |author-link=Lewis Shiner |author2=George Edgar Slusser |author3=Tom Shippey | title = Fiction 2000:Cyberpunk and the Future of Narrative | publisher = University of Georgia Press | location = Athens | year = 1992 | chapter=Inside the Movement: Past, Present and Future |isbn = 978-0-8203-1425-9 |oclc = 24953403}}</ref> After a weekend discussing rock and roll, MTV, Japan, fashion, drugs and politics, Gibson left the cadre for Vancouver, declaring half-jokingly that "a new axis has been formed."<ref name="shiner"/> Sterling, Shiner, Shirley and Gibson, along with [[Rudy Rucker]], went on to form the core of the radical [[cyberpunk]] literary movement.<ref>{{cite book
 | last = Bould
 | first = Mark
 | editor = David Seed
 | title = A Companion to Science Fiction
 | url = https://archive.org/details/companiontoscien00seed
 | url-access = limited
 | year = 2005
 | publisher = Blackwell Publishing Professional
 | isbn = 978-1-4051-1218-5
 | oclc = 56924865
 | pages = [https://archive.org/details/companiontoscien00seed/page/n234 217]–218
 | chapter = Cyberpunk
 }}</ref>

== Literary career ==
=== Early short fiction ===
{{further|Burning Chrome (short story collection)}}
Gibson's early writings are generally near-future stories about the influences of [[cybernetics]] and [[cyberspace]] (computer-simulated reality) technology on the human species. His themes of hi-tech [[shanty town]]s, recorded or broadcast stimulus (later to be developed into the "sim-stim" package featured so heavily in ''Neuromancer''), and dystopic intermingling of technology and humanity, are already evident in his first published short story, "Fragments of a Hologram Rose", in the Summer 1977 issue of ''[[Science fiction magazine#Defunct|Unearth]]''.<ref name="project cyberpunk interview"/><ref name=isfdb/> The latter thematic obsession was described by his friend and fellow author, Bruce Sterling, in the introduction of Gibson's short story collection ''[[Burning Chrome (short story collection)|Burning Chrome]]'', as "Gibson's classic one-two combination of lowlife and high tech."<ref name=mao>{{cite book |last=Gibson |first=William |author2=Bruce Sterling | chapter= Introduction | title=Burning Chrome |year=1986 |publisher=Harper Collins |location=New York |isbn=978-0-06-053982-5 |oclc = 51342671|title-link=Burning Chrome (short story collection) |author2-link=Bruce Sterling }}</ref>

Beginning in 1981,<ref name=isfdb/> Gibson's stories appeared in ''[[Omni (magazine)|Omni]]'' and ''Universe 11'', wherein his fiction developed a bleak, ''[[film noir]]'' feel. He consciously distanced himself as far as possible from the mainstream of science fiction (towards which he felt "an aesthetic revulsion", expressed in "[[The Gernsback Continuum]]"), to the extent that his highest goal was to become "a minor [[cult following|cult figure]], a sort of lesser [[J. G. Ballard|Ballard]]."<ref name="project cyberpunk interview"/> When Sterling started to distribute the stories, he found that "people were just genuinely baffled ... I mean they literally could not parse the guy's paragraphs ... the imaginative tropes he was inventing were just beyond people's grasp."<ref name="nomaps"/>

While [[Larry McCaffery]] has commented that these early short stories displayed flashes of Gibson's ability, science fiction critic [[Darko Suvin]] has identified them as "undoubtedly [cyberpunk's] best works", constituting the "furthest horizon" of the genre.<ref name="storming"/> The themes which Gibson developed in the stories, the Sprawl setting of "[[Burning Chrome]]" and the character of [[Molly Millions]] from "[[Johnny Mnemonic]]" ultimately culminated in his first novel, ''[[Neuromancer]]''.<ref name="storming"/>

=== ''Neuromancer'' ===
{{Quote box|align=right|width=40%|The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.|salign=right|source=—Opening sentence of ''[[Neuromancer]]'' (1984)}}

''[[Neuromancer]]'' was commissioned by [[Terry Carr]] for the second series of [[Ace Science Fiction Specials]], which was intended to feature [[debut novel]]s exclusively. Given a year to complete the work,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_09_01_archive.asp#1062520986072822474 |title=Neuromancer: The Timeline |access-date=November 26, 2007 |last=Gibson |first=William |date=September 4, 2003 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061230140902/http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_09_01_archive.asp#1062520986072822474 |archive-date=December 30, 2006  }}</ref> Gibson undertook the actual writing out of "blind animal terror" at the obligation to write an entire novel&nbsp;– a feat which he felt he was "four or five years away from".<ref name="project cyberpunk interview"/> After viewing the first 20 minutes of landmark cyberpunk film ''[[Blade Runner]]'' (1982) which was released when Gibson had written a third of the novel, he "figured [''Neuromancer''] was sunk, done for. Everyone would assume I'd copped my visual texture from this astonishingly fine-looking film."<ref name="bladerunner">{{cite web |url=http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_01_01_archive.asp#90199532 |title=Oh Well, While I'm Here: Bladerunner |access-date=January 21, 2008 |last=Gibson |first=William |date=January 17, 2003 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070926221513/http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_01_01_archive.asp#90199532 |archive-date=September 26, 2007 |url-status=dead }}</ref> He re-wrote the first two-thirds of the book twelve times, feared losing the reader's attention and was convinced that he would be "permanently shamed" following its publication; yet what resulted was a major imaginative leap forward for a first-time novelist.<ref name="project cyberpunk interview"/>

''Neuromancer''{{'s}} release was not greeted with fanfare, but it hit a cultural nerve,<ref name="hollinger"/> quickly becoming an underground [[word-of-mouth]] hit.<ref name="storming"/> It became the first winner of one science fiction "triple crown"<ref name="project cyberpunk interview"/> —both the [[Nebula Award]] and the [[Hugo Award]] as the year's best novel and the [[Philip K. Dick Award]] as the best [[paperback original]]<ref name=SFAwards/>— eventually selling more than 6.5&nbsp;million copies worldwide.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://lrc.reviewcanada.ca/index.php?page=71---80 |title=77. Neuromancer (1984) |access-date=September 9, 2007 |last=Cheng |first=Alastair |website=The LRC 100: Canada's Most Important Books |publisher=Literary Review of Canada |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071029044328/http://lrc.reviewcanada.ca/index.php?page=71---80 |archive-date=October 29, 2007  }}</ref>

[[Lawrence Person]], in his "Notes Toward a Postcyberpunk Manifesto" (1998), identified ''Neuromancer'' as "the archetypal cyberpunk work".<ref name="manifesto">{{cite journal |last=Person |first=Lawrence |date=Winter–Spring 1998 |title=Notes Toward a Postcyberpunk Manifesto |journal=Nova Express |volume=4 |issue=4 |url=http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/10/08/2123255 |access-date=November 6, 2007 |archive-date=April 26, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090426022441/http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99%2F10%2F08%2F2123255 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 2005, as part of the ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923, [[Lev Grossman]] opined of ''Neuromancer'': "There is no way to overstate how radical Gibson's first and best novel was when it first appeared."<ref name="time">{{cite news |url=https://entertainment.time.com/2005/10/16/all-time-100-novels/slide/neuromancer-1984-by-william-gibson/ |title=Neuromancer (1984) |access-date=November 6, 2007 |last=Grossman |first=Lev |work=TIME Magazine All-Time 100 Novels |publisher=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=October 16, 2005 |archive-date=October 22, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111022173819/http://entertainment.time.com/2005/10/16/all-time-100-novels/slide/neuromancer-1984-by-william-gibson/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Literary critic [[Larry McCaffery]] described the concept of the matrix in ''Neuromancer'' as a place where "data dance with human consciousness ... human memory is literalized and mechanized ... multi-national information systems mutate and breed into startling new structures whose beauty and complexity are unimaginable, mystical, and above all nonhuman."<ref name="project cyberpunk interview"/> A 52-year-old Gibson later commented on himself as an author, circa ''Neuromancer'', that "I'd buy him a drink, but I don't know if I'd loan him any money," and referred to the novel as "an [[adolescent]]'s book".<ref name="nomaps"/> The success of ''Neuromancer'' nonetheless led to the 35-year-old Gibson's emergence from obscurity.<ref name="remembering"/>

=== Sprawl trilogy, ''The Difference Engine'', and Bridge trilogy ===
{{main|Sprawl trilogy|The Difference Engine|Bridge trilogy}}
[[File:Bay Bridge 1998.jpg|thumb|left|The [[San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge]], a fictional squatted version of which constitutes the setting for Gibson's [[Bridge trilogy]]]]
Although much of Gibson's reputation has remained rooted in ''Neuromancer'', his work continued to evolve conceptually and stylistically.<ref name="spike"/> He next intended to write an unrelated postmodern [[space opera]], titled ''The Log of the Mustang Sally'', but reneged on the contract with [[Arbor House]] after a falling out over the [[dustjacket]] art of their hardcover of ''Count Zero''.<ref name="mustang">{{cite web |url=http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2005_08_01_archive.asp#112417337358385397 |title=The Log of the Mustang Sally |access-date=January 21, 2008 |last=Gibson |first=William |date=August 15, 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080208235435/http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2005_08_01_archive.asp#112417337358385397 |archive-date=February 8, 2008 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Abandoning ''The Log of the Mustang Sally'', Gibson instead wrote ''[[Mona Lisa Overdrive]]'' (1988), which in the words of Larry McCaffery "turned off the lights" on cyberpunk literature.<ref name="project cyberpunk interview"/><ref name="storming"/> It was a culmination of his previous two novels, set in the same [[fictional universe|universe]] with shared characters, thereby completing the [[Sprawl trilogy]]. The trilogy solidified Gibson's reputation,<ref name="citizenship"/> with both later novels also earning Nebula and Hugo Award and Locus SF Award nominations.<ref name="WWEND=1986">{{cite web |url= http://www.worldswithoutend.com/books_year_index.asp?year=1986 |title= 1986 Award Winners & Nominees |website= Worlds Without End |access-date= April 30, 2009 |archive-date= April 11, 2016 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160411232428/https://www.worldswithoutend.com/books_year_index.asp?year=1986 |url-status= live }}</ref><ref name="WWEND=1987">{{cite web |url= http://www.worldswithoutend.com/books_year_index.asp?year=1987 |title= 1987 Award Winners & Nominees |website= Worlds Without End |access-date= April 30, 2009 |archive-date= February 25, 2012 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120225021751/https://www.worldswithoutend.com/books_year_index.asp?year=1987 |url-status= live }}</ref><ref name="WWEND=1989">{{cite web |url= http://www.worldswithoutend.com/books_year_index.asp?year=1989 |title= 1989 Award Winners & Nominees |website= Worlds Without End |access-date= April 30, 2009 |archive-date= February 20, 2017 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20170220110325/https://www.worldswithoutend.com/books_year_index.asp?year=1989 |url-status= live }}</ref>

The Sprawl trilogy was followed by the 1990 novel ''[[The Difference Engine]]'', an [[alternate history (fiction)|alternative history]] novel Gibson wrote in collaboration with [[Bruce Sterling]]. Set in a technologically advanced [[Victorian era]] Britain, the novel was a departure from the authors' cyberpunk roots. It was nominated for the [[Nebula Award for Best Novel]] in 1991 and the [[John W. Campbell Memorial Award]] in 1992, and its success drew attention to the nascent [[steampunk]] literary genre of which it remains the best-known work.<ref name="steampunkt">{{cite news | first = Peter | last = Bebergal | title = The age of steampunk | url = https://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/26/the_age_of_steampunk/ | work = The Boston Globe | page = 3 | date = August 26, 2007 | access-date = October 14, 2007 | archive-date = September 4, 2007 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070904001109/http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/26/the_age_of_steampunk/ | url-status = live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/jan/07/steampunk-chiang-lake-macleod |work=[[The Guardian]] |title=Steampunk: the future of the past |first=Damien G |last=Walter |date=January 7, 2009 |access-date=January 11, 2009 |location=London |archive-date=April 7, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190407094132/https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/jan/07/steampunk-chiang-lake-macleod |url-status=live }}</ref>

Gibson's second series, the "[[Bridge trilogy]]", is composed of ''[[Virtual Light]]'' (1993), a "darkly comic urban detective story",<ref name="cyberhero"/> ''[[Idoru]]'' (1996), and ''[[All Tomorrow's Parties (novel)|All Tomorrow's Parties]]'' (1999). The first and third books in the trilogy center on San Francisco in the near future; all three explore Gibson's recurring themes of technological, physical, and spiritual transcendence in a more grounded, matter-of-fact style than his first trilogy.<ref name="playboy">{{cite web|url=http://www.playboy.com/arts-entertainment/reviews/books/spook-country/spook-country.html |title=Spook Country |access-date=November 6, 2007 |last=Alexander |first=Scott |date=August 9, 2007 |website=[[Playboy.com]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080705154050/http://www.playboy.com/arts-entertainment/reviews/books/spook-country/spook-country.html |archive-date=July 5, 2008 }}</ref> [[Salon (website)|Salon]]'s [[Andrew Leonard]] notes that in the Bridge trilogy, Gibson's villains change from multinational corporations and [[artificial intelligence]]s of the Sprawl trilogy to the mass media&nbsp;– namely [[Tabloid press|tabloid]] television and the [[cult of celebrity]].<ref name="salonarchy">{{cite web |url=http://www.salon.com/books/feature/1999/07/27/macleod_interview/ |title=An engine of anarchy |last=Leonard |first=Andrew |date=July 27, 1999 |website=[[Salon.com]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080108121005/http://www.salon.com/books/feature/1999/07/27/macleod_interview/ |archive-date=January 8, 2008  }}</ref> ''Virtual Light'' depicts an "end-stage capitalism, in which private enterprise and the profit motive are taken to their logical conclusion", according to one review.<ref name="mail&guardian"/> Leonard's review called ''Idoru'' a "return to form" for Gibson,<ref name="whither cyberpunk">{{cite web |url=http://www.salon.com/1998/09/14/books_26/ |title=Is cyberpunk still breathing? |access-date=November 6, 2007 |last=Leonard |first=Andrew |date=September 14, 1998 |website=[[Salon.com]] |archive-date=July 14, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714202715/http://www.salon.com/1998/09/14/books_26/ |url-status=live }}</ref> while critic [[Steven Poole]] asserted that ''All Tomorrow's Parties'' marked his development from "science-fiction hotshot to wry sociologist of the near future."<ref name="nearing"/>

=== Blue Ant books ===
{{Quote box|align=right|width=30%|I felt that I was trying to describe an unthinkable present and I actually feel that science fiction's best use today is the exploration of contemporary reality rather than any attempt to predict where we are going ... The best thing you can do with science today is use it to explore the present. Earth is the alien planet now.|salign=right|source=—William Gibson in an interview on [[CNN]], August 26, 1997}}

After ''All Tomorrow's Parties'', Gibson began to adopt a more [[realism (arts)|realist]] style of writing, with continuous narratives&nbsp;– "speculative fiction of the very recent past".<ref name="dueben">{{cite web |url=http://calitreview.com/2007/10/02/william-gibson-the-father-of-cyberpunk/ |title=An Interview With William Gibson The Father of Cyberpunk |access-date=October 4, 2007 |last=Dueben |first=Alex |date=October 2, 2007 |website=California Literary Review |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071011224147/http://calitreview.com/2007/10/02/william-gibson-the-father-of-cyberpunk/ |archive-date=October 11, 2007 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Science fiction critic [[John Clute]] has interpreted this approach as Gibson's recognition that traditional science fiction is no longer possible "in a world lacking coherent 'nows' to continue from", characterizing it as "SF for the new century".<ref name="clute">{{cite web |url=http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue305/excess.html |title=The Case of the World |last=Clute |first=John |author-link=John Clute |access-date=October 14, 2007 |website=Excessive Candour |publisher=SciFi.com |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071030090441/http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue305/excess.html |archive-date = October 30, 2007|url-status=dead}}</ref> Gibson's novels ''[[Pattern Recognition (novel)|Pattern Recognition]]'' (2003), ''[[Spook Country]]'' (2007) and ''[[Zero History]]'' (2010) are set in the same contemporary universe — "more or less the same one we live in now"<ref name="spook-country">{{cite journal |url=https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2080922,00.asp |title=Q&A: William Gibson |first=Angela |last=Chang |journal=[[PC Magazine]] |volume=26 |issue=3 |date=January 10, 2007 |page=19 |access-date=September 18, 2017 |archive-date=May 1, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090501223323/http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2080922,00.asp |url-status=live }}</ref> — and put Gibson's work on to mainstream bestseller lists for the first time.<ref>{{cite news |title = Books: Hardbacks|last = Hirst|first = Christopher|date = May 10, 2003|work = [[The Independent]]}}</ref> As well as the setting, the novels share some of the same characters, including [[Hubertus Bigend]] and Pamela Mainwaring, employees of the enigmatic marketing company Blue Ant.

[[File:William Gibson Zero History signing at Forbidden Planet London.jpg|thumb|left|Gibson signing one of his novels in 2010]]

When asked on [[Twitter]] what this series of novels should be called ("The Bigend Trilogy? The Blue Ant Cycle? What?"), Gibson replied "I prefer 'books'. The Bigend books."<ref>{{cite web|last1=Gibson|first1=William|title=23:28 - 7 okt. 2010|url=https://twitter.com/greatdismal/status/26724447356|website=Twitter|access-date=November 26, 2017|archive-date=March 7, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210307213332/https://twitter.com/greatdismal/status/26724447356|url-status=live}}</ref> However, "Blue Ant" rather than "Bigend" has become the standard signifier.<ref>{{cite web|title=Blue Ant Book Series|url=https://www.amazon.com/gp/bookseries/B00CJ2XUKO/|website=Amazon|access-date=November 26, 2017|archive-date=March 8, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308033141/https://www.amazon.com/gp/bookseries/B00CJ2XUKO/|url-status=live}}</ref> At a later date, Gibson stated that he did not name his trilogies, "I wait to see what people call them;"<ref>{{cite web|last1=Gibson|first1=William|title=19:26 - 30 dec. 2012|url=https://twitter.com/GreatDismal/status/285587655192887297|website=Twitter|access-date=November 26, 2017|archive-date=March 7, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210307231356/https://twitter.com/GreatDismal/status/285587655192887297|url-status=live}}</ref> in 2016, he used "the Blue Ant books" in a tweet.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Gibson|first1=William|title=11:46 - 9 juli 2016|url=https://twitter.com/GreatDismal/status/751850008442380288|website=Twitter|access-date=November 26, 2017|archive-date=March 8, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308042121/https://twitter.com/GreatDismal/status/751850008442380288|url-status=live}}</ref>

A phenomenon peculiar to this era was the independent development of [[annotation|annotating]] fansites, ''PR-Otaku'' and ''[[Node Magazine]]'', devoted to ''Pattern Recognition'' and ''Spook Country'' respectively.<ref name="looking glass"/> These websites tracked the references and story elements in the novels through online resources such as [[Google]] and [[Wikipedia]] and collated the results, essentially creating [[hypertext]] versions of the books.<ref name="now romancer">{{cite web |url=http://www.salon.com/books/int/2007/08/11/william_gibson/index.html |title=Now Romancer |access-date=October 30, 2007 |last=Lim |first=Dennis |date=August 11, 2007 |website=[[Salon.com]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080501224918/http://www.salon.com/books/int/2007/08/11/william_gibson/index.html |archive-date=May 1, 2008  }}</ref> Critic [[John Sutherland (author)|John Sutherland]] characterized this phenomenon as threatening "to completely overhaul the way literary criticism is conducted".<ref name="node idea">{{cite news |first=John |last=Sutherland |author-link=John Sutherland (author) |title=Node idea |url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2007/aug/31/highereducation.books |work=[[Guardian Unlimited]] |publisher=Guardian Media Group |date=August 31, 2007 |access-date=November 11, 2007 |location=London |archive-date=September 6, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070906202236/http://books.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2159309,00.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

About 100 pages into writing ''Pattern Recognition'', Gibson felt impelled to re-write the main character's backstory, which had been suddenly rendered implausible by the [[September 11 attacks|September 11, 2001, attacks]]; he described this as "the strangest experience I've ever had with a piece of fiction".<ref>{{cite news |first=Dennis |last=Lim |title=Think Different |url=https://www.villagevoice.com/2003/02/11/think-different/ |work=[[The Village Voice]] |publisher=[[Village Voice Media]] |date=February 18, 2003 |access-date=May 30, 2019 |archive-date=May 30, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190530124400/https://www.villagevoice.com/2003/02/11/think-different/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> He saw the attacks as a nodal point in history, "an experience out of culture",<ref name="nodal point">{{cite web |url=http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/books/2003/02/13/gibson/index.html |title=Nodal point |access-date=November 6, 2007 |last=Leonard |first=Andrew |date=February 13, 2003 |website=Salon.com |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071116072741/http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/books/2003/02/13/gibson/index.html |archive-date=November 16, 2007  }}</ref> and "in some ways ... the true beginning of the 21st century".<ref name="smh">{{cite web |url=https://www.smh.com.au/news/books/a-reality-stranger-than-fiction/2007/09/06/1188783376158.html |title=A reality stranger than fiction |access-date=January 21, 2008 |last=Bennie |first=Angela |date=September 7, 2007 |website=[[Sydney Morning Herald]] |publisher=Fairfax Media |archive-date=September 11, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070911031016/http://www.smh.com.au/news/books/a-reality-stranger-than-fiction/2007/09/06/1188783376158.html |url-status=live }}</ref> He is noted as one of the first novelists to use the attacks to inform his writing.<ref name="vancouver"/> Examination of cultural changes in post-September 11 America, including a resurgent [[tribalism]] and the "[[infantilization]] of society",<ref>{{cite web |url=https://thetyee.ca/Books/2007/10/18/WillGibson/ |title=William Gibson Hates Futurists |access-date=October 26, 2007 |website=TheTyee.ca |date=October 18, 2007 |archive-date=October 26, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071026022040/http://thetyee.ca/Books/2007/10/18/WillGibson/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=actusf/> became a prominent theme of Gibson's work,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.cbc.ca/bc/bookclub/williamgibson2.html |title=William Gibson with Spook Country |access-date=October 26, 2007 |work=Studio One Bookclub | publisher=CBC British Columbia| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071013220206/http://www.cbc.ca/bc/bookclub/williamgibson2.html| archive-date = October 13, 2007}}</ref> while his focus nevertheless remained "at the intersection of paranoia and technology".<ref name="projo">{{cite web|url=http://www.projo.com/books/content/BOOK-GIBSON_09-16-07_376TE7P.53f53f.html |title=Gibson still scares up a spooky atmosphere |access-date=October 26, 2007 |website=[[Providence Journal]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080116112214/http://www.projo.com/books/content/BOOK-GIBSON_09-16-07_376TE7P.53f53f.html |archive-date=January 16, 2008 }}</ref>

===The Jackpot trilogy and graphic novels===
''[[The Peripheral]]'', the first in a new series of novels by William Gibson, was released on October 28, 2014.<ref>{{cite news |first=Robin |last=Sloan |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |title=William Gibson's 'The Peripheral' stars a plucky female gamer with 3D printing skills |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/william-gibsons-the-peripheral-stars-a-plucky-female-gamer-with-3d-printing-skills/2014/10/27/0dcf3eee-54b1-11e4-892e-602188e70e9c_story.html |date=October 27, 2014 |access-date=October 28, 2014 |archive-date=October 28, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141028120055/http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/william-gibsons-the-peripheral-stars-a-plucky-female-gamer-with-3d-printing-skills/2014/10/27/0dcf3eee-54b1-11e4-892e-602188e70e9c_story.html |url-status=live }}</ref> He described the story briefly in an appearance he made at the New York Public Library on April 19, 2013, and read an excerpt from the first chapter of the book entitled "The Gone Haptics".<ref>{{cite web |last=Fenlon |first=Wesley |url=http://www.tested.com/art/makers/455051-william-gibson-talks-sci-fi-and-his-next-novel-new-york-public-library/ |title=William Gibson Talks Sci-Fi and His Next Novel at New York Public Library |publisher=Tested |date=April 24, 2013 |access-date=April 8, 2014 |archive-date=December 20, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131220181941/http://www.tested.com/art/makers/455051-william-gibson-talks-sci-fi-and-his-next-novel-new-york-public-library/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The story takes place in two eras, one about thirty years into the future and the other further in the future.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://io9.com/watch-william-gibson-read-from-his-brand-new-science-fi-484885010 |title=Watch William Gibson read from his brand new science fiction novel |publisher=[[io9]] |date=April 29, 2013 |access-date=April 8, 2014 |archive-date=October 22, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151022150351/http://io9.com/watch-william-gibson-read-from-his-brand-new-science-fi-484885010 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 2017, Gibson's comic/graphic novel ''[[Archangel (Gibson comic)|Archangel]]'' was published. Both ''Archangel'' and ''The Peripheral'' contain time travel (of sorts), but Gibson has clarified that the works are not related: "They're not 'same universe'. The Splitter and trans-continual virtuality are different mechanisms (different plot mechanisms too)."<ref>{{cite web|last1=Gibson|first1=William|title=To readers of both The Peripheral and Archangel|url=https://twitter.com/GreatDismal/status/930113645840707585|website=Twitter|access-date=November 18, 2017|archive-date=March 8, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308042137/https://twitter.com/GreatDismal/status/930113645840707585|url-status=live}}</ref> The next year, [[Dark Horse Comics]] began releasing Johnnie Christmas' adaptation of Gibson's ''Alien 3'' script in five parts,<ref>{{cite web |last1=Terror |first1=Jude |title=Johnnie Christmas to Adapt William Gibson's Unpublished Aliens 3 Script as a Comic Book |url=https://bleedingcool.com/comics/johnnie-christmas-adapt-william-gibson-aliens-3-script-comic-book/ |website=Bleeding Cool |date=July 12, 2018 |access-date=September 6, 2020 |archive-date=November 9, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201109015424/https://bleedingcool.com/comics/johnnie-christmas-adapt-william-gibson-aliens-3-script-comic-book/ |url-status=live }}</ref> resulting in a hardcover collection being published in 2019.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Conner |first1=Shawn |title=Join William Gibson and Johnnie Christmas for a special launch of their book Alien 3! |url=https://www.insidevancouver.ca/2019/08/13/william-gibson-johnnie-christmas-special-launch-alien-3/ |website=Inside Vancouver |date=August 13, 2019 |access-date=September 6, 2020 |archive-date=August 3, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200803212109/https://www.insidevancouver.ca/2019/08/13/william-gibson-johnnie-christmas-special-launch-alien-3/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

''The Peripheral''{{'}}s continuation, ''[[Agency (novel)|Agency]]'', was released on January 21, 2020, after being delayed from an initial announced release date of December 2018.<ref>Compare https://www.amazon.com/Agency-William-Gibson/dp/110198693X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=agency+william+gibson&qid=1554137189&s=gateway&sr=8-1 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210419035408/https://www.amazon.com/Agency-William-Gibson/dp/110198693X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=agency+william+gibson&qid=1554137189&s=gateway&sr=8-1 |date=April 19, 2021 }} with https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/530536/agency-by-william-gibson/9781101986936/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181018201703/https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/530536/agency-by-william-gibson/9781101986936/ |date=October 18, 2018 }}.</ref> Gibson said in a ''New Yorker'' magazine article that both the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President and the [[Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal|controversy over Cambridge Analytica]] had caused him to rethink and revise the text.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/16/how-william-gibson-keeps-his-science-fiction-real|title=How William Gibson Keeps His Science Fiction Real|last=Rothman|first=Joshua|magazine=The New Yorker|date=December 9, 2019|access-date=December 16, 2019|language=en|issn=0028-792X|archive-date=December 16, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191216061628/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/16/how-william-gibson-keeps-his-science-fiction-real|url-status=live}}</ref> The working title for the third novel in the series was ''Jackpot'',<ref>{{cite web |last1=Gibson |first1=William |title=Third/final volume's working title: Jackpot |url=https://twitter.com/GreatDismal/status/1284226125804138497 |website=Twitter |access-date=September 6, 2020 |archive-date=August 14, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200814142213/https://twitter.com/GreatDismal/status/1284226125804138497 |url-status=live }}</ref> about which Gibson had a change of heart in January 2021: "I don't think I'm going to call Agency's sequel Jackpot after all. Not because of [''Jackpot'' by Michael Mechanic], which I look forward to reading, but because Agency was originally called Tulpagotchi. Which I still like, but would've been a different book."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Gibson |first1=William |title=I don't think I'm going to call Agency's sequel Jackpot after all |url=https://twitter.com/GreatDismal/status/1352852569593286657 |website=Twitter |access-date=February 19, 2021 |archive-date=January 23, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210123053618/https://twitter.com/GreatDismal/status/1352852569593286657 |url-status=live }}</ref>

== Collaborations, adaptations, and miscellanea ==
[[File:Bruce Sterling sn-ed.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Bruce Sterling]], co-author with Gibson of the short story "[[Red Star, Winter Orbit]]" (1983) and the 1990 steampunk novel ''[[The Difference Engine]]'']]

=== Literary collaborations ===
Three of the stories that later appeared in ''[[Burning Chrome (short story collection)|Burning Chrome]]'' were written in collaboration with other authors: "[[The Belonging Kind]]" (1981) with [[John Shirley]], "[[Red Star, Winter Orbit]]" (1983) with Sterling,<ref name="looking glass">{{cite news |first=Joel |last=Garreau |title=Through the Looking Glass |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/05/AR2007090502582_pf.html |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=September 6, 2007 |access-date=October 30, 2007 |archive-date=August 5, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160805223007/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/05/AR2007090502582_pf.html |url-status=live }}</ref> and "[[Dogfight (short story)|Dogfight]]" (1985) with [[Michael Swanwick]]. Gibson had previously written the foreword to Shirley's 1980 novel ''City Come A-walkin{{'}}''<ref name="ftccaw">{{cite web|url=http://www.darkecho.com/JohnShirley/gibson.html|title=Foreword to ''City Come a-walkin{{'}}''|date=March 31, 1996|access-date=May 1, 2007|first=William|last=Gibson|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070626031709/http://www.darkecho.com/JohnShirley/gibson.html|archive-date=June 26, 2007|url-status=dead}}</ref> and the pair's collaboration continued when Gibson wrote the introduction to Shirley's short story collection ''Heatseeker'' (1989).<ref name="locusmag">{{cite web |url = http://www.locusmag.com/index/s296.html |title = Stories, Listed by Author |access-date = October 29, 2007 |last = Brown |first = Charles N. |author-link = Charles N. Brown |author2=William G. Contento |date = July 10, 2004 |website = The Locus Index to Science Fiction (1984–1998) |publisher= [[Locus (magazine)|Locus]] |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070304205021/http://www.locusmag.com/index/s296.html |archive-date=March 4, 2007}}</ref> Shirley convinced Gibson to write a story for the television series ''[[Max Headroom (TV series)|Max Headroom]]'' for which Shirley had written several scripts, but the network canceled the series.<ref name="salza"/>

Gibson and Sterling collaborated again on the short story "The Angel of Goliad" in 1990,<ref name="locusmag"/> which they soon expanded into the novel-length alternate history story ''[[The Difference Engine]]'' (1990). The two were later "invited to dream in public" (Gibson) in a joint address to the U.S. [[United States National Academy of Sciences|National Academy of Sciences]] Convocation on Technology and Education in 1993 ("the [[Al Gore]] people"<ref name="salza"/>), in which they argued against the [[digital divide]]<ref>{{cite web |url = http://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/William_Gibson/sterling_gibson_nas.speeches |title = Speeches by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling at the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. |access-date = October 29, 2007 |last = Sterling |first = Bruce |author-link = Bruce Sterling |author2 = William Gibson |date = May 10, 1993 |publisher = The [[WELL (virtual community)|WELL]] |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20081027165055/http://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/William_Gibson/sterling_gibson_nas.speeches |archive-date = October 27, 2008 |df = mdy-all }}</ref> and "appalled everyone" by proposing that all schools be put online, with education taking place over the Internet.<ref name="josefsson"/> In a 2007 interview, Gibson revealed that Sterling had an idea for "a second [[recursive science novel]] that was just a wonderful idea", but that Gibson was unable to pursue the collaboration because he was not creatively free at the time.<ref name="dueben"/>

In 1993, Gibson contributed lyrics and featured as a guest vocalist on [[Yellow Magic Orchestra]]'s ''[[Technodon]]'' album,<ref name="skier"/><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.discogs.com/release/432896 |title=Yellow Magic Orchestra – Technodon |access-date=January 10, 2008 |website=[[Discogs]] |date=May 26, 1993 |archive-date=February 25, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225162911/http://www.discogs.com/release/432896 |url-status=live }}</ref> and wrote lyrics to the track "Dog Star Girl" for Deborah Harry's ''[[Debravation]]''.<ref name="debravation">{{cite news |first=Degen |last=Pener |title=EGOS & IDS; Deborah Harry Is Low-Key – And Unblond |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE6DC1239F931A1575BC0A965958260&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/H/Harry,%20Debbie |work=The New York Times |date=August 22, 1993 |access-date=November 7, 2007 |archive-date=April 19, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210419035408/https://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/22/style/egos-ids-deborah-harry-is-low-key-and-unblond.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Film adaptations, screenplays, and appearances ===
Gibson was first solicited to work as a screenwriter after a film producer discovered a waterlogged copy of ''Neuromancer'' on a beach at a [[Thailand|Thai]] resort.<ref>{{cite journal |journal=[[Details (magazine)|Details]] |url=http://www.textfiles.com/sf/cyberlit.txt |title=Cyber Lit |date=June 1992 |first=Gavin |last=Edwards |issue=134 |access-date=September 29, 2008 |archive-date=September 24, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080924005406/http://www.textfiles.com/sf/cyberlit.txt |url-status=live }}</ref> His early efforts to write film scripts failed to manifest themselves as finished product; "Burning Chrome" (which was to be directed by [[Kathryn Bigelow]]) and "Neuro-Hotel" were two attempts by the author at film adaptations that were never made.<ref name="salza">{{cite interview |last=Gibson |first=William |title=William Gibson Interviewed by Giuseppe Salza |location=Cannes |date=May 1994 |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/235 |access-date=October 28, 2007 |archive-date=October 11, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111011104756/http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/235 |url-status=live }}</ref> In the late 1980s he wrote an early version of ''[[Alien 3]]'' (which he later characterized as "[[Andrei Tarkovsky|Tarkovskian]]"), few elements of which survived in the final version.<ref name="salza"/> In 2018-19, [[Dark Horse Comics]] released a five-part adaptation of Gibson's ''Alien 3'' script, illustrated and adapted by Johnnie Christmas. In 2019, [[Audible (store)|Audible]] released an [[Alien 3 (podcast)|audio drama version]] of Gibson's script, adapted by [[Dirk Maggs]] and with [[Michael Biehn]] and [[Lance Henriksen]] reprising their roles.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://soundcloud.com/audible/alien-3-teaser |title=Alien III Teaser |access-date=April 29, 2019 |archive-date=May 1, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190501141659/https://soundcloud.com/audible/alien-3-teaser |url-status=live }}</ref>

Gibson's early involvement with the film industry extended far beyond the confines of the Hollywood blockbuster system. At one point, he collaborated on a script with Kazakh director [[Rashid Nugmanov]] after an American producer had expressed an interest in a Soviet-American collaboration to star Soviet rock musician [[Viktor Tsoi]].<ref name="victor tsoi">{{cite web |url=http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_03_01_archive.asp#90416069 |title=Victor Tsoi |access-date=December 3, 2007 |last=Gibson |first=William |date=March 6, 2003 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071210172807/http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_03_01_archive.asp#90416069 |archive-date=December 10, 2007 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Despite being occupied with writing a novel, Gibson was reluctant to abandon the "wonderfully odd project" which involved "ritualistic gang-warfare in some sort of sideways-future [[Leningrad]]" and sent [[Jack Womack]] to Russia in his stead. Rather than producing a motion picture, a prospect that ended with Tsoi's death in a car crash, Womack's experiences in Russia ultimately culminated in his novel ''[[Let's Put the Future Behind Us]]'' and informed much of the Russian content of Gibson's ''[[Pattern Recognition (novel)|Pattern Recognition]]''.<ref name="victor tsoi"/> A similar fate befell Gibson's collaboration with Japanese filmmaker [[Sogo Ishii]] in 1991,<ref name="storming"/> a film they planned on shooting in the [[Walled City of Kowloon]] until the city was demolished in 1993.<ref name="sogo">{{cite web |url=http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2006_07_01_archive.asp#115354123358489417 |title=Burst City Trailer |first=William |last=Gibson |date=July 21, 2006 |access-date=November 26, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071121223044/http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2006_07_01_archive.asp#115354123358489417 |archive-date=November 21, 2007 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
[[File:The Neuromancer.jpg|thumb|left|Aside from his short stories and novels, Gibson has written several film screenplays and [[television episode]]s.]]
Adaptations of Gibson's fiction have frequently been optioned and proposed, to limited success. Two of the author's short stories, both set in the [[Sprawl trilogy]] universe, have been loosely adapted as films: ''[[Johnny Mnemonic (film)|Johnny Mnemonic]]'' (1995) with screenplay by Gibson and starring Keanu Reeves, Dolph Lundgren and [[Takeshi Kitano]], and ''[[New Rose Hotel (film)|New Rose Hotel]]'' (1998), starring Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe, and Asia Argento. The former was the first time in history that a book was launched simultaneously as a film and a [[CD-ROM]] interactive video game.<ref name="mail&guardian">{{cite web |url=http://mg.co.za/article/1996-09-03-blade-runner-on-electrosteroids |title=Blade Runner on electro-steroids |access-date=November 11, 2007 |last=Walker |first=Martin |date=September 3, 1996 |website=[[Mail & Guardian#The Mail & Guardian Online|Mail & Guardian Online]] |publisher=M&G Media |archive-date=July 14, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714214100/http://mg.co.za/article/1996-09-03-blade-runner-on-electrosteroids |url-status=live }}</ref> {{as of|2013}}, [[Vincenzo Natali]] still hoped to bring ''Neuromancer'' to the screen, after some years in [[development hell]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=39171 |title=Vincenzo Natali Still Hopeful For Neuromancer |date=October 28, 2013 |access-date=February 25, 2014 |website=Empire |author=Williams, Owen |archive-date=December 12, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131212232316/http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=39171 |url-status=live }}</ref> ''[[Count Zero]]'' was at one point being developed as ''The Zen Differential'' with director [[Michael Mann (film director)|Michael Mann]] attached, and the third novel in the Sprawl trilogy, ''[[Mona Lisa Overdrive]]'', has also been optioned and bought.<ref name="mtv"/> An [[anime]] adaptation of ''[[Idoru]]'' was announced as in development in 2006,<ref>{{cite web |url= http://cyberpunkreview.com/movie/upcoming-movies/william-gibsons-idoru-coming-to-anime |date= April 21, 2006 |title= William Gibson's Idoru Coming to Anime |publisher= cyberpunkreview.com |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070914195904/http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/movie/upcoming-movies/william-gibsons-idoru-coming-to-anime/ |archive-date= September 14, 2007 |df= mdy-all }}</ref> and ''Pattern Recognition'' was in the process of development by director [[Peter Weir]], although according to Gibson the latter is no longer attached to the project.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2007_05_01_archive.asp#2514436070772070825 |title=I've Forgotten More Neuromancer Film Deals Than You've Ever Heard Of |access-date=November 4, 2007 |last=Gibson |first=William |date=May 1, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070523100703/http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2007_05_01_archive.asp#2514436070772070825 |archive-date=May 23, 2007 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Announced at [[International Film Festival Rotterdam]] in 2015 is an adaptation of Gibson's short story ''Dogfight'' by [[BAFTA]] award-winning writer and director [[Simon Pummell]]. Written by Gibson and [[Michael Swanwick]] and first published in [[Omni (magazine)|Omni]] in July 1985, the film is being developed by British producer [[Janine Marmot]] at Hot Property Films.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.screendaily.com/news/pummell-preps-william-gibson-adaptation/5082271.article |title=Simon Pummell preps William Gibson adaptation Dogfight |access-date=January 27, 2015 |last=Macnab |first=Geoffrey |date=January 27, 2015 |archive-date=February 2, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150202001518/http://www.screendaily.com/news/pummell-preps-william-gibson-adaptation/5082271.article |url-status=live }}</ref>

Television is another arena in which Gibson has collaborated; with friend [[Tom Maddox]], he co-wrote ''[[The X-Files]]'' episodes "[[Kill Switch (The X-Files)|Kill Switch]]" and "[[First Person Shooter (The X-Files)|First Person Shooter]]", broadcast in 1998 and 2000.<ref name="spike"/><ref name=newsbytes>{{cite news |title="X-Files" Writer Fights For Online Privacy |last=Fridman |first=Sherman |date=February 24, 2000 |work=News Briefs |publisher=Newsbytes PM}}</ref> In 1998 he contributed the introduction to the spin-off publication ''Art of the X-Files''. Gibson made a cameo appearance in the television miniseries ''[[Wild Palms]]'' at the behest of creator [[Bruce Wagner]].<ref name="holograms">{{cite web |url=http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2006_07_01_archive.asp#115361118165031237 |title=Where The Holograms Go |first=William |last=Gibson |date=July 22, 2006 |access-date=November 26, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071121223044/http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2006_07_01_archive.asp#115361118165031237 |archive-date=November 21, 2007 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Director [[Oliver Stone]] had borrowed heavily from Gibson's novels to make the series,<ref name="cyberhero">{{cite news |first=Adam |last=Platt |title=Cyberhero |url=https://www.newyorker.com/archive/1993/08/16/1993_08_16_024_TNY_CARDS_000364256 |work=The Talk of the Town |publisher=[[The New Yorker]] |date=September 16, 1993 |page=24 |access-date=November 6, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19990223224043/http://multiweb.evolution.com/clients/mindvox/newyorker.html |archive-date=February 23, 1999 }}</ref> and in the aftermath of its cancellation Gibson contributed an article, "Where The Holograms Go", to the ''Wild Palms Reader''.<ref name="holograms"/> He accepted another acting role in 2002, appearing alongside [[Douglas Coupland]] in the short film ''[[Mon Amour Mon Parapluie]]'' in which the pair played philosophers.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://64.207.169.13/mamp/cast/cast.htm |title=Cast |access-date=October 26, 2007 |website=Mon Amour Mon Parapluie |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20040621004844/http://64.207.169.13/mamp/cast/cast.htm |archive-date = June 21, 2004|url-status=dead}}</ref> Appearances in fiction aside, Gibson was the focus of a biographical documentary by Mark Neale in 2000 called ''[[No Maps for These Territories]]''. The film follows Gibson over the course of a drive across North America discussing various aspects of his life, literary career and cultural interpretations. It features interviews with Jack Womack and Bruce Sterling, as well as recitations from ''Neuromancer'' by [[Bono]] and [[The Edge]].<ref name="nomaps"/>

[[Amazon (company)|Amazon]] released ''[[The Peripheral (TV series)|The Peripheral]]'', a TV series from the producers of ''[[Westworld (TV series)|Westworld]]'' based on Gibson's novel of the same name, in October 2022.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Young |first=Liz |date=2022-09-24 |title=Amazon's The Peripheral: Plot, Cast, Release Date, and Everything Else We Know |url=https://movieweb.com/amazon-the-peripheral-everything-we-know/ |access-date=2025-06-26 |website=MovieWeb |language=en}}</ref>

=== Exhibitions, poetry, and performance art ===
[[File:La Fura Dels Baus Dreams In Flight.jpg|thumb|upright|Gibson has often collaborated with [[performance art]]ists such as theatre group [[La Fura dels Baus]], here performing at the [[Singapore Arts Festival]] in May 2007.]]

Gibson has contributed text to be integrated into a number of [[performance art]] pieces. In October 1989, Gibson wrote text for such a collaboration with acclaimed sculptor and future ''[[Johnny Mnemonic (film)|Johnny Mnemonic]]'' director [[Robert Longo]]<ref name="remembering">{{cite magazine |url=https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.06/gibson.html |title=Remembering Johnny |access-date=January 10, 2008 |last=van Bakel |first=Rogier |magazine=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]] |volume=3 |date=June 1995 |issue=6 |archive-date=May 16, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516013720/http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.06/gibson.html |url-status=live }}</ref> titled ''Dream Jumbo: Working the Absolutes'', which was displayed in Royce Hall, University of California Los Angeles. Three years later, Gibson contributed original text to "Memory Palace", a performance show featuring the theater group [[La Fura dels Baus]] at Art Futura '92, Barcelona, which featured images by [[Karl Sims]], [[Rebecca Allen (artist)|Rebecca Allen]], [[Mark Pellington]] with music by [[Peter Gabriel]] and others.<ref name="skier"/> It was at Art Futura '92 that Gibson met Charlie Athanas, who would later act as dramaturg and "cyberprops" designer on Steve Pickering and Charley Sherman's adaptation of "Burning Chrome" for the Chicago stage. Gibson's latest contribution was in 1997, a collaboration with critically acclaimed Vancouver-based contemporary dance company [[Holy Body Tattoo]] and Gibson's friend and future webmaster Christopher Halcrow.<ref name="holybody">{{cite web |url=http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_05_01_archive.asp#200367789 |title=Holy Body Tattoo |last=Gibson |first=William |date=May 31, 2003 |access-date=November 11, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071210172818/http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_05_01_archive.asp#200367789 |archive-date=December 10, 2007 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In 1990, Gibson contributed to "Visionary San Francisco", an exhibition at the [[San Francisco Museum of Modern Art]] shown from June 14 to August 26.<ref>{{cite book | last = Polledri | first = Paolo | title = Visionary San Francisco | publisher = Prestal | location = Munich | year = 1990 | oclc = 22115872 | isbn = 978-3-7913-1060-2 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/visionarysanfran0000poll }}</ref> He wrote a short story, "[[Skinner's Room]]", set in a decaying San Francisco in which the [[San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge]] was closed and taken over by the homeless – a setting Gibson then detailed in the [[Bridge trilogy]]. The story inspired a contribution to the exhibition by architects Ming Fung and Craig Hodgetts that envisioned a San Francisco in which the rich live in high-tech, solar-powered towers, above the decrepit city and its crumbling bridge.<ref name="architecture"/> The architects exhibit featured Gibson on a monitor discussing the future and reading from "Skinner's Room".<ref name=skier>{{cite web |url= http://www.skierpage.com/gibson/biblio.htm |title= William Gibson Bibliography / Mediagraphy |access-date= February 9, 2008 |author= S. Page |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20071015154602/http://skierpage.com/gibson/biblio.htm |archive-date= October 15, 2007 |url-status= dead |df= mdy-all }}</ref> ''The New York Times'' hailed the exhibition as "one of the most ambitious, and admirable, efforts to address the realm of architecture and cities that any museum in the country has mounted in the last decade", despite calling Ming and Hodgetts's reaction to Gibson's contribution "a powerful, but sad and not a little cynical, work".<ref name="architecture">{{cite news |first=Paul |last=Goldberger |title=In San Francisco, A Good Idea Falls With a Thud |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE1DB103CF931A2575BC0A966958260 |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=August 12, 1990 |access-date=November 6, 2007 |archive-date=October 13, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071013214418/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE1DB103CF931A2575BC0A966958260 |url-status=live }}</ref> A slightly different version of the short story was featured a year later in ''[[Omni (magazine)|Omni]]''.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Gibson |first=William |date=November 1991 |title=Skinner's Room |journal=[[Omni (magazine)|Omni]] |title-link=Skinner's Room }}</ref>

=== Cryptography ===
A particularly well-received work by Gibson was ''[[Agrippa (a book of the dead)]]'' (1992), a 300-line semi-autobiographical electronic poem that was his contribution to a collaborative project with artist [[Dennis Ashbaugh]] and publisher Kevin Begos, Jr.<ref>{{cite book
| last = Liu
| first = Alan
| title = The laws of cool : knowledge work and the culture of information
| url = https://archive.org/details/lawscoolknowledg00liua
| url-access = limited
| date = June 30, 2004
| publisher = [[University of Chicago Press]]
| location = Chicago
| isbn = 978-0-226-48698-7
| oclc = 53823956
| pages = [https://archive.org/details/lawscoolknowledg00liua/page/n351 339]–48
}}</ref> Gibson's text focused on the ethereal nature of memories (the title refers to a photo album) and was originally published on a 3.5" [[floppy disk]] embedded in the back of an [[artist's book]] containing etchings by Ashbaugh (intended to fade from view once the book was opened and exposed to light — they never did, however). Gibson commented that Ashbaugh's design "eventually included a supposedly self-devouring floppy-disk intended to display the text only once, then eat itself."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/source/source.asp |title=Introduction to Agrippa: A Book of the Dead |last=Gibson |first=William |year=1992 |access-date=November 11, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071120193555/http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/source/source.asp |archive-date=November 20, 2007 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Contrary to numerous colorful reports, the diskettes were never actually "[[Hacker (computer security)|hacked]]"; instead the poem was manually transcribed from a surreptitious videotape of a public showing in Manhattan in December 1992, and released on the [[MindVox]] bulletin board the next day; this is the text that circulated widely on the Internet.<ref>{{cite book
| last = Kirschenbaum
| first = Matthew G.
| title = Mechanisms : new media and the forensic imagination
| edition = 2
| publisher = [[MIT Press]]
| location = [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]]
| isbn = 978-0-262-11311-3
| oclc = 79256819
| access-date = November 11, 2007
| chapter = Hacking 'Agrippa': The Source of the Online Text.
| chapter-url = http://agrippa.english.ucsb.edu/kirschenbaum-matthew-g-hacking-agrippa-the-source-of-the-online-text/
| year = 2008
| archive-date = November 15, 2007
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071115202350/http://agrippa.english.ucsb.edu/kirschenbaum-matthew-g-hacking-agrippa-the-source-of-the-online-text/
| url-status = live
}}</ref>

Since its debut in 1992, the mystery of ''Agrippa'' remained hidden for 20 years. Although many had tried to hack the code and decrypt the program, the uncompiled source code was lost long ago. [[Alan Y. Liu|Alan Liu]] and his team at "The Agrippa Files"<ref>{{cite web |url=http://agrippa.english.ucsb.edu/ |title=The Agrippa Files |website=Agrippa.english.ucsb.edu |access-date=December 9, 2015 |archive-date=October 17, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111017135609/http://agrippa.english.ucsb.edu/ |url-status=live }}</ref> created an extensive website with tools and resources to crack the Agrippa Code. They collaborated with Matthew Kirschenbaum at the [[Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities]] and the Digital Forensics Lab, and Quinn DuPont, a PhD student of cryptography from the University of Toronto, in calling for the aid of cryptographers to figure out how the program works by creating "Cracking the Agrippa Code: The Challenge",<ref name=CAG>{{cite web |url=http://www.crackingagrippa.net/ |title=Cracking the Agrippa Code |website=Crackingagrippa.net |date=March 25, 1992 |access-date=December 9, 2015 |archive-date=September 15, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150915184148/http://www.crackingagrippa.net/ |url-status=live }}</ref> which enlisted participants to solve the intentional scrambling of the poem in exchange for prizes.<ref>{{cite web | last = Goodin | first = Dan | title = Solve 20-year-old mystery in William Gibson's "Agrippa"; win prizes | url = https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/07/william-gibsons-agrippa-mystery-challenge/ | website = Ars Technica | date = July 11, 2012 | access-date = July 24, 2012 | archive-date = July 26, 2012 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120726224544/http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/07/william-gibsons-agrippa-mystery-challenge/ | url-status = live }}</ref> The code was successfully cracked by Robert Xiao in late July 2012.<ref name=CAG />

=== Essays and short-form nonfiction ===
Gibson is a sporadic contributor of non-fiction articles to newspapers and journals. He has occasionally contributed longer-form articles to ''[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]]'' and of [[op-ed]]s to ''[[The New York Times]]'', and has written for ''[[The Observer]]'', ''[[Addicted to Noise]]'', ''[[New York Times Magazine]]'', ''[[Rolling Stone]]'', and ''[[Details Magazine]]''. His first major piece of nonfiction, the article "[[Disneyland with the Death Penalty]]", concerning the city-state of [[Singapore]], resulted in ''Wired'' being banned from the country and attracted a spirited critical response.<ref name=source>{{cite magazine |title=Disneyland with the Death Penalty |url=https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.04/gibson.html |last=Gibson |first=William |issue=4 |date=September–October 1993 |magazine=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]] |volume=1 |access-date=September 23, 2008 |archive-date=October 1, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081001084957/http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.04/gibson.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=b&>{{cite news |title=Multimedia Animal Wired Visionary Nicholas Negroponte is MIT's Loud Voice of the Future |date=March 1, 1995 |first=David |last=Mehegan |work=[[Boston Globe]] |publisher=[[The New York Times Company]] |url=https://secure.pqarchiver.com/boston/doc/290733867.html |access-date=September 23, 2008 |archive-date=April 2, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402131744/https://secure.pqarchiver.com/boston/doc/290733867.html |url-status=live }}</ref> He commenced writing a blog in January 2003, providing voyeuristic insights into his reaction to ''[[Pattern Recognition (novel)|Pattern Recognition]]'', but abated in September of the same year owing to concerns that it might negatively affect his creative process.<ref name="orlowski">{{cite news |first=Andrew |last=Orlowski |title=William Gibson 'gives up blogging' |url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/04/25/william_gibson_gives_up_blogging/ |work=Music and Media |publisher=The Register |date=April 25, 2003 |access-date=November 3, 2007 |archive-date=August 14, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070814104508/http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/04/25/william_gibson_gives_up_blogging/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web
 |last         = Gibson
 |first        = William
 |url          = http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_09_01_archive.asp#1062520986072822474
 |publisher    = WilliamGibsonBooks.com
 |title        = Endgame
 |date         = September 12, 2003
|access-date  = November 26, 2007
|url-status   = dead
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20061230140902/http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_09_01_archive.asp#1062520986072822474
 |archive-date = December 30, 2006
|df           = mdy-all
}}</ref>

[[File:Hacking the Gibson in Wagamamas.jpg|thumb|right|William Gibson in Bloomsbury, London in September 2007. His fiction is hailed by critics for its characterization of [[late capitalism]], [[postindustrial society]] and the portents of the [[information age]].]]

Gibson recommenced blogging in October 2004, and during the process of writing ''[[Spook Country]]'' – and to a lesser extent ''[[Zero History]]'' – frequently posted short nonsequential excerpts from the novel to the blog.<ref>{{cite web
|last=Gibson
|first=William
|url=http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2006_06_01_archive.asp#114922706834176317
|title=Moor
|date=June 1, 2006
|access-date=November 4, 2007
|publisher=WilliamGibsonBooks.com
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071011075515/http://williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2006_06_01_archive.asp#114922706834176317
|archive-date=October 11, 2007
|url-status=dead
}}
* {{cite web
|last=Gibson
|first=William
|url=http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2006_09_01_archive.asp#115904809056329148
|title=Johnson Bros
|date=September 23, 2006
|access-date=November 4, 2007
|publisher=WilliamGibsonBooks.com
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071021032401/http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2006_09_01_archive.asp#115904809056329148
|archive-date=October 21, 2007
|url-status=dead
}}
* {{cite web
|last=Gibson
|first=William
|url=http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2006_10_01_archive.asp#115993710391679489
|title=Their Different Drummer
|date=October 3, 2006
|access-date=November 4, 2007
|publisher=WilliamGibsonBooks.com
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071021032407/http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2006_10_01_archive.asp#115993710391679489
|archive-date=October 21, 2007
|url-status=dead
}}</ref> The blog was largely discontinued by July 2009, after the writer had undertaken prolific microblogging on Twitter under the ''nom de plume'' "GreatDismal".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://blog.williamgibsonbooks.com/2009/07/30/my-poor-old-blogs-just-sitting-here/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101220145833/http://blog.williamgibsonbooks.com/2009/07/30/my-poor-old-blogs-just-sitting-here/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=December 20, 2010 |title=My poor old blog's just sitting there |last=Gibson |first=William |date=July 30, 2009 |access-date=September 1, 2010 |publisher=WilliamGibsonBooks.com }}</ref> In 2012, Gibson released a collection of his non-fiction works entitled ''[[Distrust That Particular Flavor]]''.<ref name="Kennedy">{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/books/review/distrust-that-particular-flavor-by-william-gibson-book-review.html | title=William Gibson's Future Is Now | work=New York Times Book Review | date=January 13, 2012 | agency=New York Times | access-date=January 22, 2012 | author=Kennedy, Pagan | location=New York, NY | archive-date=January 21, 2012 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120121184100/http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/books/review/distrust-that-particular-flavor-by-william-gibson-book-review.html?pagewanted=all | url-status=live }}</ref>

== Influence and recognition ==
{{see also|List of awards and nominations received by William Gibson}}

Gibson's prose has been analyzed by numerous scholars, including in a dedicated 2011 book, ''[[William Gibson: A Literary Companion]]''.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Frelik|first=Paweł|date=2012|title=Review of William Gibson: A Literary Companion|journal=Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts|volume=23|issue=3 (86)|pages=506–508|issn=0897-0521|jstor=24353095}}</ref> Hailed by [[Steven Poole]] of ''The Guardian'' in 1999 as "probably the most important novelist of the past two decades" in terms of influence,<ref name="nearing">{{cite news |first=Steven |last=Poole |title=Nearing the nodal |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/1999/oct/30/sciencefictionfantasyandhorror.williamgibson |work=Books by genre |publisher=The Guardian |date=October 30, 1999 |access-date=November 3, 2007 |location=London |archive-date=January 8, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080108060537/http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/sciencefiction/0,6121,98588,00.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Gibson first achieved critical recognition with his [[debut novel]], ''[[Neuromancer]]''. The novel won three major science fiction awards (the [[Nebula Award]], the [[Philip K. Dick Award]], and the [[Hugo Award]]), an unprecedented achievement described by the ''[[Mail & Guardian]]'' as "the sci-fi writer's version of winning the [[Prix Goncourt|Goncourt]], [[Booker Prize|Booker]] and [[Pulitzer Prize|Pulitzer]] prizes in the same year".<ref name="mail&guardian"/> ''Neuromancer'' gained unprecedented critical and popular attention outside science fiction,<ref name="project cyberpunk interview"/> as an "evocation of life in the late 1980s",<ref name="fitting">{{cite book |last = Fitting |first = Peter |editor = Penley, C. |editor2=Ross, A. |title = Technoculture |publisher = [[University of Minnesota Press]]
| location = [[Minneapolis]] |isbn =978-0-8166-1930-6 |oclc =22859126 |pages = [https://archive.org/details/technoculture00penl/page/295 295–315] |chapter = The Lessons of Cyberpunk |quote = [Gibson's work] has attracted an audience from outside, people who read it as a poetic evocation of life in the late eighties rather than as science fiction. |date=July 1991|title-link = Technoculture }}</ref> although ''[[The Observer]]'' noted that "it took ''[[The New York Times]]'' 10 years" to mention the novel.<ref name="observer"/>

Gibson's work has received international attention<ref name="litencyc"/> from an audience that was not limited to science fiction aficionados as, in the words of Laura Miller, "readers found startlingly prophetic reflections of contemporary life in [its] fantastic and often outright paranoid scenarios."<ref name="miller">{{cite book | last = Miller | first = Laura | title = The Salon. Com Reader's Guide to Contemporary Authors | publisher = Penguin Books | location = New York | year = 2000 | isbn = 978-0-14-028088-3 | oclc = 43384794 | chapter = Introduction | chapter-url = http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2000/08/11/guide_intro/index.html | df = mdy-all | url = https://archive.org/details/saloncomreadersg00mill }}</ref> It is often situated by critics within the context of [[postindustrialism]] as, according to academic David Brande, a construction of "a mirror of existing large-scale techno-social relations",<ref name="brande">{{cite journal | last = Brande | first = David | year = 1994 | title = The Business of Cyberpunk: Symbolic Economy and Ideology in William Gibson | journal = Configurations | volume = 2 | issue = 3 | pages = 509–536 | url = http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/configurations/v002/2.3brande.html | access-date = August 27, 2007 | doi = 10.1353/con.1994.0040 | s2cid = 144829170 | archive-date = February 11, 2009 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090211053122/http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=%2Fjournals%2Fconfigurations%2Fv002%2F2.3brande.html | url-status = live | url-access = subscription }}</ref> and as a narrative version of postmodern [[consumer culture]].<ref name="sponsler">{{cite journal | last = Sponsler | first = Claire | date =Winter 1992 | title = Cyberpunk and the Dilemmas of Postmodern Narrative: The Example of William Gibson | journal = Contemporary Literature | volume = 33 | issue = 4 | pages = 625–644 | doi = 10.2307/1208645 | jstor = 1208645 | s2cid = 163362863 }}</ref> It is praised by critics for its depictions of [[late capitalism]]<ref name="brande"/> and its "rewriting of subjectivity, human consciousness and behaviour made newly problematic by technology."<ref name="sponsler"/> Tatiani Rapatzikou, writing in ''[[The Literary Encyclopedia]]'', identifies Gibson as "one of North America's most highly acclaimed science fiction writers".<ref name="litencyc">{{cite web | last =Rapatzikou | first =Tatiani | title =William Gibson | website =[[The Literary Encyclopedia]] | publisher =The Literary Dictionary Company | date =June 17, 2003 | url =http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5198 | access-date =August 27, 2007|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071010051539/http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5198 |archive-date = October 10, 2007|url-status=dead}}</ref>

=== Cultural significance ===
{{Quote box|align=right|width=30%|William Gibson – the man who made us cool.|salign=right|source=—Cyberpunk author [[Richard Morgan (author)|Richard K Morgan]]<ref name="morgan"/>}}

In his early short fiction, Gibson is credited by Rapatzikou in ''The Literary Encyclopedia'' with effectively "renovating" science fiction, a genre at that time considered widely "insignificant",<ref name="litencyc"/> influencing by means of the postmodern aesthetic of his writing the development of new perspectives in [[science fiction studies]].<ref name="hollinger">{{cite journal |last=Hollinger |first=Veronica |date=July 1999 |title=Contemporary Trends in Science Fiction Criticism, 1980–1999 |journal=Science Fiction Studies |volume=26 |issue=78 |pages=232–262 |doi=10.1525/sfs.26.2.0232 |url=http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/78/hollinger78art.htm |access-date=November 6, 2007 |archive-date=October 22, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071022154814/http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/78/hollinger78art.htm |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref> In the words of filmmaker Marianne Trench, Gibson's visions "struck sparks in the real world" and "determined the way people thought and talked" to an extent unprecedented in science fiction literature.<ref name="mystic">Trench, Marianne and Peter von Brandenburg, producers. 1992. ''Cyberpunk. Mystic Fire Video'': Intercon Productions.</ref> The publication of ''Neuromancer'' (1984) hit a cultural nerve,<ref name="hollinger"/> causing [[Larry McCaffery]] to credit Gibson with virtually launching the [[cyberpunk]] movement,<ref name="project cyberpunk interview"/> as "the one major writer who is original and gifted to make the whole movement seem original and gifted."<ref name="storming"/>{{efn|name=1962 Internet}} Aside from their central importance to cyberpunk and [[steampunk]] fiction, Gibson's fictional works have been hailed by space historian [[Dwayne A. Day]] as some of the best examples of [[outer space|space-based]] science fiction (or "solar sci-fi"), and "probably the only ones that rise above mere escapism to be truly thought-provoking".<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1108/1
|title=Miles to go before the Moon
|website=[[The Space Review]]
|date=April 21, 2008
|access-date=April 21, 2008
|last=Day
|first=Dwayne A.
|author-link=Dwayne A. Day
|archive-date=May 14, 2008
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080514130444/http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1108/1
|url-status=live
}}</ref>
[[File:William Gibson and Cory Doctorow.jpg|thumb|left|Gibson (left) influenced [[cyberpunk]]<ref name="morgan">{{cite web |url=http://www.richardkmorgan.com/articles/recommended-reading-list/ |title=Recommended Reading List |access-date=July 4, 2010 |last=Morgan |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Morgan (author) |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100411060446/http://www.richardkmorgan.com/articles/recommended-reading-list/ |archive-date=April 11, 2010  }}</ref> and [[postcyberpunk]] writers such as [[Cory Doctorow]] (right),<ref name="doctorow">{{cite web |last= Dyer-Bennet |first= Cynthia |url= http://www.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/95/Cory-Doctorow-Talks-About-Nearly-page02.html#post43 |title= Cory Doctorow Talks About Nearly Everything |access-date= August 30, 2007 |website= Inkwell: Authors and Artists |publisher= [[WELL (virtual community)|The Well]] |archive-date= September 27, 2007 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070927195836/http://www.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/95/Cory-Doctorow-Talks-About-Nearly-page02.html#post43 |url-status= live }}</ref> whom he also consulted for technical advice while writing ''[[Spook Country]]''.<ref name="amazon3">{{cite web |url=https://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK2T9UDN3CBLZNP |title=Writing Fiction in the Age of Google: William Gibson Q&A, Part 3 |access-date=November 4, 2007 |date=June 24, 2007 |website=Amazon Bookstore's Blog |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071120142029/http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK2T9UDN3CBLZNP <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date = November 20, 2007}}</ref>]]
Gibson's early novels were, according to ''The Observer'', "seized upon by the emerging [[slacker]] and [[Hacker culture|hacker]] generation as a kind of road map".<ref name="observer"/>
Through his novels, such terms as ''[[cyberspace]]'', ''[[netsurfing]]'', ''[[Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics|ICE]]'', ''jacking in'', and ''[[neural implant]]s'' entered popular usage, as did concepts such as net consciousness, virtual interaction and "the matrix".<ref name="mcluhan">{{cite journal |last=Doherty | first=Michael E. Jr. |date=September 1995 |title=Marshall McLuhan Meets William Gibson in "Cyberspace" |journal=CMC Magazine |url=http://www.ibiblio.org/cmc/mag/1995/sep/doherty.html |access-date=October 28, 2007 |page=4 |archive-date=October 20, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071020031637/http://www.ibiblio.org/cmc/mag/1995/sep/doherty.html |url-status=live }}</ref> In "[[Burning Chrome]]" (1982), he coined the term ''cyberspace'',{{efn|1=Gibson later successfully resisted attempts by [[Autodesk]] to copyright the word for their abortive foray into [[virtual reality]].<ref name="citizenship"/>}}<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Branch|first=Jordan|date=2020|title=What's in a Name? Metaphors and Cybersecurity|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/whats-in-a-name-metaphors-and-cybersecurity/563998100A2FAF1E5DFDB5C52EC68569|journal=International Organization|volume=75|language=en|pages=39–70|doi=10.1017/S002081832000051X|s2cid=224886794|issn=0020-8183|access-date=September 26, 2020|archive-date=September 27, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200927143522/https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/whats-in-a-name-metaphors-and-cybersecurity/563998100A2FAF1E5DFDB5C52EC68569|url-status=live|url-access=subscription}}</ref> referring to the "mass consensual [[hallucination]]" of [[computer network]]s.<ref>{{cite book |last=Prucher |first=Jeff |title=[[Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction]] |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-19-530567-8 |page=31 |chapter=cyberspace |oclc=76074298 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/bravenewwordsoxf00pruc/page/31}}</ref> Through its use in ''Neuromancer'', the term gained such recognition that it became the ''de facto'' term for the [[World Wide Web]] during the 1990s.<ref name="irvine">{{cite web | url=http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/technoculture/pomosf.html | title=Postmodern Science Fiction and Cyberpunk | first=Martin | last=Irvine | date=January 12, 1997 | access-date=November 23, 2006|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20061205024912/http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/technoculture/pomosf.html |archive-date = December 5, 2006|url-status=dead}}</ref> Artist [[Dike Blair]] has commented that Gibson's "terse descriptive phrases capture the moods which surround technologies, rather than their engineering."<ref name="liquid">"Liquid Science Fiction: Interview with William Gibson by Bernard Joisten and Ken Lum", ''Purple Prose'', (Paris), N°9, été, pp.10–16</ref>

Gibson's work has influenced several popular musicians: references to his fiction appear in the music of [[Stuart Hamm]],{{efn|1=Several track names on Hamm's ''[[Kings of Sleep]]'' album ("[[Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics|Black Ice]]", "[[Count Zero]]", "[[The Winter Market|Kings of Sleep]]") reference Gibson's work.<ref name="hamm">{{cite AV media notes |title=Kings of Sleep |title-link=Kings of Sleep |author=[[Stuart Hamm]] |year=1989 |type=CD liner |publisher=[[Relativity Records]] }}</ref>}} [[Billy Idol]],{{efn|1=Idol released an album in 1993 titled ''[[Cyberpunk (album)|Cyberpunk]]'', which featured a track named ''Neuromancer''.<ref name="citizenship"/> [[Robert Christgau]] excoriated Idol's treatment of [[cyberpunk]],<ref name="christgau">{{cite news |url=http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/rock/cyberpun-93.php |title=Virtual Hep |access-date=November 11, 2007 |last=Christgau |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Christgau |date=August 10, 1993 |newspaper=[[Village Voice]] |archive-date=June 16, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120616075859/http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/rock/cyberpun-93.php |url-status=live }}</ref> and Gibson later stated that Idol had "turned it into something very silly."<ref name="salza"/>}} [[Warren Zevon]],{{efn|1=Zevon's 1989 album ''[[Transverse City]]'' was inspired by Gibson's fiction.<ref name="zevon">{{cite magazine |url=http://www.flakmag.com/opinion/zevon.html |title=Requiem for a Rock Satirist |access-date=November 11, 2007 |last=Cook |first=Bob |date=February 10, 2002 |magazine=[[Flak Magazine]] |archive-date=October 15, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071015202211/http://flakmag.com/opinion/zevon.html |url-status=live }}</ref>}} [[Deltron 3030]], [[Straylight Run]] (whose name is derived from a sequence in ''[[Neuromancer]]'')<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/straylight_run/artist.jhtml#bio |title=Straylight Run |access-date=September 9, 2007 |website=MTV.com |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071001103652/http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/straylight_run/artist.jhtml#bio |archive-date=October 1, 2007  }}</ref> and [[Sonic Youth]]. [[U2]]'s ''[[Zooropa]]'' album was heavily influenced by ''Neuromancer'',<ref name="citizenship">{{cite journal|title=William Gibson interview|first=J. Stephen|last=Bolhafner|journal=[[Starlog]]|issue=200|date=March 1994|url=http://bolhafner.com/stevesreads/igib2.html|access-date=July 14, 2009|page=72|archive-date=July 8, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110708082111/http://bolhafner.com/stevesreads/igib2.html|url-status=live}}</ref> and the band at one point planned to scroll the text of ''Neuromancer'' above them on a concert tour, although this did not end up happening. Members of the band did, however, provide background music for the audiobook version of ''Neuromancer'' as well as appearing in ''No Maps for These Territories'', a biographical documentary of Gibson.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.greylodge.org/gpc/?p=119 |title=GPod Audio Books: Neuromancer by William Gibson |access-date=April 9, 2007 |publisher=GreyLodge Podcast Publishing company |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060515133747/http://greylodge.org/gpc/?p=119 |archive-date=May 15, 2006 }}</ref> He returned the favour by writing an article about the band's [[Vertigo Tour]] for ''[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]]'' in August 2005.<ref>{{cite magazine | author = Gibson William | year = 2005 | title = U2's City of Blinding Lights | url = https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/u2.html | magazine = [[Wired (magazine)|Wired]] | volume = 13 | issue = 8 | access-date = March 12, 2017 | archive-date = October 24, 2012 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121024081431/http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/u2.html | url-status = live }}</ref> The band [[Zeromancer]] take their name from ''Neuromancer''.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.mk-magazine.com/interviews/archives/000132.php
|title=Interviews: Zeromancer
|website=[[MK Magazine]]
|date=November 1, 2003
|access-date=September 2, 2008
|archive-date=July 4, 2008
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080704054932/http://www.mk-magazine.com/interviews/archives/000132.php
|url-status=usurped
}}</ref>

The film ''[[The Matrix]]'' (1999) drew inspiration for its title, characters and story elements from the [[Sprawl trilogy]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Hepfer |first=Karl |year=2001 |title=The Matrix Problem I: The Matrix, Mind and Knowledge |journal=Erfurt Electronic Studies in English |url=http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/edoc/ia/eese/artic21/hepfer/3_2001.html |access-date=August 27, 2007 |issn=1430-6905 |archive-date=July 5, 2004 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040705155710/http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/edoc/ia/eese/artic21/hepfer/3_2001.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The characters of [[Neo (The Matrix)|Neo]] and [[Trinity (The Matrix)|Trinity]] in ''The Matrix'' are similar to Bobby Newmark (''[[Count Zero]]'') and [[Molly Millions|Molly]] ("[[Johnny Mnemonic]]", ''[[Neuromancer]]'').<ref name="mtv">{{cite web |url=http://www.mtv.com/bands/m/movie_house/gibson_loder_030808/index.jhtml |title=The Matrix Preloaded |access-date=November 7, 2007 |website=MTV's Movie House |publisher=[[Mtv.com]] |last=Loder |first=Kurt |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070913111428/http://www.mtv.com/bands/m/movie_house/gibson_loder_030808/index.jhtml |archive-date = September 13, 2007|url-status=dead}}</ref> Like Turner, protagonist of Gibson's ''Count Zero'', characters in ''The Matrix'' download instructions (to fly a helicopter and to "know kung fu", respectively) directly into their heads, and both ''Neuromancer'' and ''The Matrix'' feature [[artificial intelligence]]s which strive to free themselves from human control.<ref name="mtv"/> Critics have identified marked similarities between ''Neuromancer'' and the film's cinematography and tone.<ref name="blackford">{{cite journal |last=Blackford |first=Russell |date=July 2004 |title=Reading the Ruined Cities |journal=Science Fiction Studies |volume=31 |issue=93 |pages=264–270 |doi=10.1525/sfs.31.2.0264 |url=http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/review_essays/blackford93.htm |access-date=December 2, 2007 |archive-date=November 24, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071124085516/http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/review_essays/blackford93.htm |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref> In spite of his initial reticence about seeing the film on its release,<ref name="nomaps"/> Gibson later described it as "arguably the ultimate 'cyberpunk' artifact."<ref name=SFinfluences>{{cite web|url=http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_01_01_archive.asp#90244012|title=The Matrix: Fair Cop|first=William|last=Gibson|date=January 28, 2003|access-date=November 4, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070926221513/http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_01_01_archive.asp#90244012|archive-date=September 26, 2007|url-status=dead}}</ref> In 2008 he received honorary doctorates from [[Simon Fraser University]] and [[Coastal Carolina University]].<ref>{{cite news
|url=http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=91460
|title='Cyberspace' coiner returns to native SC for honorary degree
|agency=Associated Press
|work=Reading Eagle
|date=May 10, 2008
|access-date=June 8, 2008
|archive-date=July 14, 2014
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714215441/http://www2.readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=91460
|url-status=dead
}}</ref> He was inducted by [[Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame|Science Fiction Hall of Fame]] that same year,<ref name=sfhof2008/> presented by his close friend and collaborator Jack Womack.

=== Visionary influence and prescience ===
{{Quote box|align=right|width=30%|"The future is already here&nbsp;– it's just not evenly distributed."|salign=right|source=—William Gibson<ref>{{cite news
 | title = Virtual Reality Check Digital Daydreams, Cyberspace Nightmares
 | work = San Francisco Examiner
 | date = 1992-04-19 | page = C1
 | first = Scott | last = Rosenberg}}
</ref><ref>{{cite web | url = https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/01/24/future-has-arrived/ | title = The Future Has Arrived — It's Just Not Evenly Distributed Yet | work = Quote Investigator | first = Garson | last = O'Toole | date = January 24, 2012 | access-date = January 28, 2021 | archive-date = June 30, 2013 | archive-url = https://archive.today/20130630045341/http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/01/24/future-has-arrived/ | url-status = live }}</ref>}} 
In ''Neuromancer'', Gibson first used the term "[[wikt:matrix|matrix]]" to refer to the visualized Internet, two years after the nascent modern Internet was formed in the early 1980s from the computer networks of the 1970s.<ref>{{cite IETF |rfc=801 |last=Postel |first=J. |date=November 1981 |title=NCP/TCP Transition Plan}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|author=Zakon, Robert H|title=Hobbes' Internet Timeline v8.2|url=http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/|publisher=Zakon Group LLC|date=November 1, 2006|access-date=October 31, 2007|archive-date=May 5, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090505235502/http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.netlingo.com/lookup.cfm?term=matrix |title=Matrix |access-date=September 9, 2007 |website=Netlingo |archive-date=September 27, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927175507/http://www.netlingo.com/lookup.cfm?term=matrix |url-status=live }}</ref> Gibson thereby imagined a worldwide [[Telecommunications network|communications network]] years before the origin of the [[World Wide Web]],<ref name="spike">{{cite journal
 | last = Johnston
 | first = Antony
 | date = August 1999
 | title = William Gibson : All Tomorrow's Parties : Waiting For The Man
 | journal = [[Spike Magazine]]
 | url = http://www.spikemagazine.com/0899williamgibson.php
 | access-date = October 14, 2007
| archive-date = June 8, 2007
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070608133252/http://www.spikemagazine.com/0899williamgibson.php
 | url-status = live
 }}</ref> although related notions had previously been imagined by others, including science fiction writers.{{efn|1=Both the Internet with its dramatic social effects and the [[cyberpunk]] genre itself were also anticipated in [[John Brunner (novelist)|John Brunner]]'s 1975 novel ''[[The Shockwave Rider]]''.<ref name="FutureTrace">{{cite web |url=http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/NotesAntiUtopia.html |title=A 'Future Trace' on Dataveillance: The Anti-Utopian and Cyberpunk Literary Genres |author=Roger Clarke |year=1993 |access-date=September 17, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080814085852/http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/NotesAntiUtopia.html |archive-date=August 14, 2008  }}</ref><ref name="Edging">{{cite book |title=Edging Into the Future |last=Hollinger |first=Veronica |author2=Joan Gordon |year=2002 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-1804-6 |page=35 }}</ref>}}{{efn|name=1962 Internet|1=The idea of a globally interconnected set of computers through which everyone could quickly access data and programs from any site was first described in 1962 in a series of memos on the "Galactic Computer Network" by [[J. C. R. Licklider]] of [[DARPA]].<ref>{{Cite web |author=Barry M. Leiner |author2=[[Vinton G. Cerf]] |author3=[[David D. Clark]] |author4=[[Robert E. Kahn]] |author5=[[Leonard Kleinrock]] |author6=Daniel C. Lynch |author7=[[Jon Postel]] |author8=[[Lawrence Roberts (scientist)|Larry G. Roberts]] |author9=Stephen Wolff |title=A Brief History of the Internet |version=3.32 |publisher=[[Internet Society]] |page=1011 |date=December 10, 2003 |url=http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml |access-date=November 3, 2007 |arxiv=cs/9901011 |bibcode=1999cs........1011L |archive-date=December 22, 2001 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20011222202333/http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml |url-status=live }}</ref>}} At the time he wrote "[[Burning Chrome]]", Gibson "had a hunch that [the Internet] would change things, in the same way that the ubiquity of the automobile changed things."<ref name="nomaps"/> In 1995, he identified the advent, evolution and growth of the Internet as "one of the most fascinating and unprecedented human achievements of the century", a new kind of civilization that is&nbsp;– in terms of significance – on a par with the birth of cities,<ref name="josefsson">{{cite interview |last=Gibson |first=William |interviewer=Dan Josefsson |title=I Don't Even Have A Modem |publisher=[[SVT2|TV2]] |location=Stockholm |date=November 3, 1994 |url=http://www.josefsson.net/gibson/ |work=[[Rapport (news programme)|Rapport]] |access-date=November 5, 2007 |archive-date=October 11, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071011022230/http://josefsson.net/gibson/ |url-status=live }}</ref> and in 2000 predicted it would lead to the death of the [[nation state]].<ref name="nomaps"/>

[[File:Scylla- a book of the dead.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Gibson is renowned for his visionary influence on—and predictive attunement to—technology, design, urban sociology and [[cyberculture]]. Image captured in the Scylla bookstore of Paris, France, on March 14, 2008.]]

Observers contend that Gibson's influence on the development of the Web reached beyond prediction; he is widely credited with creating an [[iconography]] for the [[Information Age]], long before the embrace of the Internet by the mainstream.<ref name="riding shotgun">{{cite news |last=Leonard |first=Andrew |date=February 2001 |title=Riding shotgun with William Gibson |work=[[Salon.com]] |url=http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/02/07/gibson_doc/index.html |access-date=November 6, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071007141619/http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/02/07/gibson_doc/index.html |archive-date=October 7, 2007  }}</ref> Gibson introduced, in ''[[Neuromancer]]'', the notion of the "[[meatpuppet]]", and is credited with inventing—conceptually rather than participatorally—the phenomenon of [[virtual sex]].<ref>{{cite news |first=Jayne M. |last=Blanchard |title=Sci-Fi Author Gibson Is 'Cyber'-Crowd's Guru |work=[[St. Paul Pioneer Press]] |publisher=[[Digital First Media|MediaNews Group]] |date=September 12, 1993 |quote=Although author William Gibson came up with the concept of virtual sex, he does not want any parts of it, thank you very much. Not that he's a prude, mind you. Rather, like most things, the reality does not approach the perfection of the fantasy. }}</ref> His influence on early pioneers of [[desktop environment]] digital art has been acknowledged,<ref name="desktop">{{cite magazine |url=https://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/news/2002/11/56318 |title=Early Desktop Pic Ahead of Time |access-date=January 10, 2008 |last=Kahney |first=Leander |date=November 14, 2002 |magazine=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]] |archive-date=December 27, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081227134425/http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/news/2002/11/56318 |url-status=live }}</ref> and he holds an honorary doctorate from [[Parsons The New School for Design]].<ref>
{{cite web
 |url          = http://www.mediacastermagazine.com/issues/ISArticle.asp?id=82442&issue=04032008
 |archive-url  = https://archive.today/20130128161229/http://www.mediacastermagazine.com/issues/ISArticle.asp?id=82442&issue=04032008
 |url-status   = usurped
 |archive-date = January 28, 2013
|title        = Sci-Fi Writer, High-Tech Marketer on Awards Jury
 |website      = Mediacaster
 |access-date  = April 21, 2008
|date         = April 3, 2008
}}
</ref> [[Steven Poole]] suggests that in writing the Sprawl trilogy Gibson laid the "conceptual foundations for the explosive real-world growth of virtual environments in video games and the Web".<ref name="nearing"/> In his afterword to the 2000 re-issue of ''Neuromancer'', fellow author [[Jack Womack]] suggests that Gibson's vision of cyberspace may have inspired the way in which the Internet (and the Web particularly) developed, following the publication of ''Neuromancer'' in 1984, asking "what if the act of writing it down, in fact, ''brought it about''?"<ref name="neuromancer20th">{{cite book | last = Gibson | first = William |author2=Jack Womack | title = Neuromancer | publisher = Ace Books | location = New York | year = 2004 | isbn = 978-0-441-01203-9 |oclc = 55745255 |page=269}}</ref>

Gibson scholar Tatiani G. Rapatzikou commented, in ''Gothic Motifs in the Fiction of William Gibson'', on the origin of the notion of cyberspace:

{{blockquote|Gibson's vision, generated by the monopolising appearance of the terminal image and presented in his creation of the cyberspace matrix, came to him when he saw teenagers playing in [[video arcade]]s. The physical intensity of their postures, and the realistic interpretation of the terminal spaces projected by these games&nbsp;– as if there were a real space behind the screen – made apparent the manipulation of [[the Real|the real]] by its own representation.<ref name="rapatzikou">{{cite book | last = Rapatzikou | first = Tatiani | title = Gothic Motifs in the Fiction of William Gibson | publisher = Rodopi | location = Amsterdam | year = 2004 | isbn = 978-90-420-1761-0 |oclc = 55807961}}</ref>}}

In his [[Sprawl trilogy|Sprawl]] and [[Bridge trilogy|Bridge]] trilogies, Gibson is credited with being one of the few observers to explore the portents of the Information Age for notions of the sociospatial structuring of cities.<ref name="posturbanism">{{cite journal |last=Dear |first=Michael |author2=Steven Flusty |date=March 1998 |title=Postmodern Urbanism |journal=Annals of the Association of American Geographers |volume=88 |issue=1 |pages=50–72 |doi=10.1111/1467-8306.00084|bibcode=1998AAAG...88...50D |s2cid=195792324 }}</ref> Not all responses to Gibson's visions have been positive, however; virtual reality pioneer [[Mark Pesce]], though acknowledging their heavy influence on him and that "no other writer had so eloquently and emotionally affected the direction of the hacker community,"<ref>{{cite web |url=http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/papers/pesce.html |title=Magic Mirror: The Novel as a Software Development Platform |access-date=December 2, 2007 |last=Pesce |first=Mark |website=MIT Communications Forum |publisher=[[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] |archive-date=June 11, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080611015758/http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/papers/pesce.html |url-status=live }}</ref> dismissed them as "adolescent fantasies of violence and disembodiment."<ref name="pesce">{{cite news |url=http://www.salon.com/1998/06/13/feature947640934/ |title=3-D epiphany |access-date=November 6, 2007 |last=Pesce |first=Mark |author-link=Mark Pesce |date=July 13, 1998 |work=[[Salon.com]] |archive-date=July 14, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714182045/http://www.salon.com/1998/06/13/feature947640934/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In ''[[Pattern Recognition (novel)|Pattern Recognition]]'', the plot revolves around snippets of film footage posted anonymously to various locations on the Internet. Characters in the novel speculate about the filmmaker's identity, motives, methods and inspirations on several websites, anticipating the 2006 [[lonelygirl15]] Internet phenomenon. However, Gibson later disputed the notion that the creators of lonelygirl15 drew influence from him.<ref>edition of August 14, 2006, of the free daily ''[[Metro International]]'', interview by Amy Benfer</ref> Another phenomenon anticipated by Gibson is the rise of [[reality television]],<ref name="crier">{{cite journal |last=Parker |first=T. Virgil |date=Summer 2007 |title=William Gibson: Sci-Fi Icon Becomes Prophet of the Present |journal=College Crier |volume=6 |issue=2 |url=http://www.collegecrier.com/interviews/int-0040.asp |access-date= October 14, 2007|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071009042217/http://www.collegecrier.com/interviews/int-0040.asp |archive-date = October 9, 2007|url-status=dead}}</ref> for example in ''[[Virtual Light]]'', which featured a satirical extrapolated version of ''[[Cops (TV series)|COPS]]''.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_09_01_archive.asp#106252098607282247 |title=Humility and Prescience |access-date=November 26, 2007 |last=Gibson |first=William |date=September 3, 2003 |work=Salon.com |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061230140902/http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_09_01_archive.asp#106252098607282247 |archive-date=December 30, 2006  }}</ref>
{{Quote box|align=right|width=35%|Visionary writer is OK. Prophet is just not true. One of the things that made me like Bruce Sterling immediately when first I met him, back in 1991.{{sic}} We shook hands and he said "We've got a great job! We got to be charlatans and we're paid for it. We make this shit up and people believe it."|salign=right|source=—Gibson in interview with ''ActuSf'', March 2008<ref name=actusf>{{cite interview |last=Gibson |first=William |interviewer=Eric Holstein |interviewer2=Raoul Abdaloff |title=Interview de William Gibson VO |url=http://www.actusf.com/spip/article-5710.html |type=transcription |work=ActuSF |location=Paris |date=March 2008 |access-date=April 6, 2008 |archive-date=April 5, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080405080902/http://www.actusf.com/spip/article-5710.html |url-status=live }}</ref>}}
When an interviewer in 1988 asked about the [[Bulletin Board System]] jargon in his writing, Gibson answered "I'd never so much as touched a PC when I wrote ''Neuromancer''"; he was familiar, he said, with the science-fiction community, which overlapped with the BBS community. Gibson similarly did not play computer games despite appearing in his stories.<ref name="gibson198809">{{cite magazine | title=An Interview with William Gibson | url=http://www.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php?year=1988&pub=2&id=51 | magazine=Computer Gaming World | date=September 1988 | access-date=November 3, 2013 | page=30 | archive-date=October 2, 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191002203041/http://www.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php?year=1988&pub=2&id=51 | url-status=live }}</ref> He wrote ''Neuromancer'' on a 1927 olive-green Hermes portable [[typewriter]], which Gibson described as "the kind of thing [[Ernest Hemingway|Hemingway]] would have used in the field".<ref name="mail&guardian"/>{{r|gibson198809}}{{efn|1=Gibson wrote the following in the "Author's Afterword" of ''Mona Lisa Overdrive'', dated July 16, 1992.

{{blockquote|''Neuromancer'' was written on a "clockwork typewriter," the very one you may recall glimpsing in Julie Deane's office in Chiba City. This machine, a Hermes 2000 manual portable, dates from somewhere in the 1930s. It's a very tough and elegant piece of work, from the factory of E. PAILLARD & Cie S.A. YVERDON (SUISSE). Cased, it weighs slightly less than the [[Macintosh SE/30]] I now write on, and is finished in a curious green- and-black "crackle" paint-job, perhaps meant to suggest the covers of an accountant's ledger. Its keys are green as well, of celluloid, and the letters and symbols on them are canary yellow. (I once happened to brush the shift-key with the tip of a lit cigarette, dramatically confirming the extreme flammability of this early plastic.) In its day, the Hermes 2000 was one of the best portable writing-machines in the world, and one of the most expensive. This one belonged to my wife's step-grandfather, who had been a journalist of sorts and had used it to compose laudatory essays on the poetry of Robert Burns. I used it first to write undergraduate Eng. lit. papers, then my early attempts at short stories, then Neuromancer, all without so much as ever having touched an actual computer.}}}} By 1988 he used an [[Apple IIc]] and [[AppleWorks]] to write, with a modem ("I don't really use it for anything"),{{r|gibson198809}} but until 1996 Gibson did not have an email address, a lack he explained at the time to have been motivated by a desire to avoid correspondence that would distract him from writing.<ref name="josefsson"/> His first exposure to a website came while writing ''[[Idoru]]'' when a web developer built one for Gibson.<ref name="salon interview">{{cite web |url=http://www.salon.com/weekly/gibson961014.html |title=William Gibson Webmaster |access-date=November 6, 2007 |last=Rosenberg |first=Scott |website=The Salon Interview |publisher=[[Salon.com]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070907144823/http://www.salon.com/weekly/gibson961014.html <!--Added by H3llBot--> |archive-date=September 7, 2007 }}</ref> In 2007 he said, "I have a 2005 [[PowerBook G4]], a [[gigabyte|gig]] of memory, [[wireless router]]. That's it. I'm anything but an early adopter, generally. In fact, I've never really been very interested in computers themselves. I don't watch them; I watch [[sociology of the Internet|how people behave around them]]. That's becoming more difficult to do because everything is 'around them'."<ref name="spook-country"/>

== Selected works==
{{main|List of works by William Gibson}}
{{col-begin|width=auto}}{{col-break}}

'''Novels'''
* [[Sprawl trilogy]]:
** ''[[Neuromancer]]'' (1984)
** ''[[Count Zero]]'' (1986)
** ''[[Mona Lisa Overdrive]]'' (1988)
* ''[[The Difference Engine]]'' (1990; with [[Bruce Sterling]])
* [[Bridge trilogy]]:
** ''[[Virtual Light]]'' (1993)
** ''[[Idoru]]'' (1996)
** ''[[All Tomorrow's Parties (novel)|All Tomorrow's Parties]]'' (1999)
* Blue Ant trilogy ([[Hubertus Bigend]]):
** ''[[Pattern Recognition (novel)|Pattern Recognition]]'' (2003)
** ''[[Spook Country]]'' (2007)
** ''[[Zero History]]'' (2010)
* Jackpot trilogy
** ''[[The Peripheral]]'' (2014)
** ''[[Agency (novel)|Agency]]'' (2020)
** ''Jackpot'' (TBD)

'''Adapted screenplays'''
* ''[[Archangel (Gibson comic)|Archangel]]'' (2016–2017) <small>([[graphic novel]])</small>
* ''[[Alien 3#Other media|Alien 3]]'' (2018–2019) <small>(graphic novel)</small>
* ''[[Alien 3#Other media|Alien III]]'' (2019) <small>([[audio drama]])</small>
* ''Alien<sup>3</sup>: The Unproduced First-Draft Screenplay by William Gibson'' (2021) <small>(novel by [[Pat Cadigan]])</small>
{{col-break}}

'''Short stories'''
* ''[[Burning Chrome (short story collection)|Burning Chrome]]'' (1986, preface by Bruce Sterling), collects Gibson's early short fiction, listed by original publication date:
** "[[Fragments of a Hologram Rose]]" (1977, ''UnEarth 3'')
** "[[Johnny Mnemonic]]" (1981, ''[[Omni (magazine)|Omni]]'')
** "[[The Gernsback Continuum]]" (1981, ''Universe 11'')
** "[[Hinterlands (short story)|Hinterlands]]" (1981, ''Omni'')
** "[[The Belonging Kind]]", with [[John Shirley]] (1981, ''Shadows 4'')
** "[[Burning Chrome]]" (1982, ''Omni'')
** "[[Red Star, Winter Orbit]]", with [[Bruce Sterling]] (1983, ''Omni'')
** "[[New Rose Hotel]]" (1984, ''Omni'')
** "[[The Winter Market]]" (Nov. 1985, ''Vancouver'')
** "[[Dogfight (short story)|Dogfight]]", with [[Michael Swanwick]] (1985, ''Omni'')
* "[[Skinner's Room]]" (Nov. 1991, ''Omni'')

'''Nonfiction'''
* ''[[Agrippa (A Book of the Dead)]]'' (1992) – a poem and [[artist's book]]
* ''[[No Maps for These Territories]]'' (2000) – an independent documentary film 
* ''[[Distrust That Particular Flavor]]'' (2012) – essays written over a period of more than twenty years
* "[[Disneyland with the Death Penalty]]" – a 1993 ''[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]]'' article about Singapore
{{col-end}}

==Media appearances==
* ''No Maps for These Territories'' (2000)<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0269629/ |title=No Maps for These Territories |website=[[IMDb]] |access-date=October 14, 2020 |archive-date=November 11, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111235238/http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0269629/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
* Making of {{'}}''Johnny Mnemonic''{{'}} (1995)<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0824760/ |title=Making of 'Johnny Mnemonic' |website=[[IMDb]] |access-date=May 12, 2020 |archive-date=October 29, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201029062535/https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0824760/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
* ''Cyberpunk'' (1990)<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0398910/ |title=Cyberpunk |website=[[IMDb]] |access-date=May 12, 2020 |archive-date=August 14, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200814175438/https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0398910/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
* ''[[Wild Palms]]'' (1993)
* ''[[Upload (TV series)|Upload]]'' (2023)

== Explanatory notes ==
{{notelist}}

== References ==
{{Reflist|refs=
<ref name=isfdb>
{{ISFDB name |172}} (ISFDB). Retrieved April 13, 2013.</ref>
<!-- some awards refs -->
<ref name=SFAwards>
[http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/NomLit52.html#1945 "Gibson, William"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101207010245/http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/NomLit52.html |date=December 7, 2010 }}. ''The Locus Index to SF Awards: Index of Literary Nominees''. [[Locus Publications]]. Retrieved April 12, 2013.</ref>
<ref name=sfhof2008>
{{cite web|url=http://www.empsfm.org/press/index.asp?articleID=1259 |title=2008 Science Fiction Hall of Fame Ceremony Tickets On Sale May 15 |access-date=March 21, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080510121729/http://www.empsfm.org/press/index.asp?articleID=1259 |archive-date=May 10, 2008 }}. Press release April/May 2008. Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame (''empsfm.org''). Archived May 10, 2008. Retrieved March 19, 2013.</ref>
}}

== Further reading ==
* {{cite book | last = Olsen | first = Lance | title = William Gibson | publisher = Borgo Press | location = San Bernardino | year = 1992 | isbn = 978-1-55742-198-2 | oclc = 27254726}}
* {{cite book | last = Tatsumi | first = Takayuki | author-link=Takayuki Tatsumi |title = Full Metal Apache: Transactions between Cyberpunk Japan and Avant-Pop America | url = https://archive.org/details/fullmetalapachet0000tats | url-access = registration | publisher = Duke University Press | location = Durham | year = 2006 | isbn = 978-0-8223-3774-4 | oclc = 63125607}}
* {{cite book |editor-last=Yoke |editor-first=Carl B. | editor2 = Robinson, Carol | title = The Cultural Influences of William Gibson, the "Father" of Cyberpunk Science Fiction | publisher = Edwin Mellen Pr | location = [[Lewiston, New York]] | year = 2007 | isbn = 978-0-7734-5467-5 |oclc=173809083}}

== External links ==
{{sister project links|wikt=no|n=no|b=no|s=no|v=no|author=yes|d=Q188987|species=no|m=no|mw=no|voy=no}}
* {{official website}}
* [http://canadian-writers.athabascau.ca/english/writers/wgibson/biblio_by.php Bibliography] from the Centre for Language and Literature, [[Athabasca University]]
* {{iMDb name|0317218|William Gibson}}
* {{ISFDB name|172}} (including bibliography of selected interviews)
* [http://www.antonraubenweiss.com/gibson/ William Gibson aleph] – an extensive site dedicated to the author and his works (last updated Nov 2010)
* {{cite journal| url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6089/the-art-of-fiction-no-211-william-gibson| title=William Gibson, The Art of Fiction No. 211| author=David Wallace-Wells| date=Summer 2011| journal=The Paris Review | volume=Summer 2011| issue=197}}
* {{sfhof |1282 |William Gibson}}
* [https://www.everand.com/author/708270922/William-Gibson William Gibson] –– Short Biography, Audiobooks & Ebooks. (2024)

{{William Gibson|state=expanded}}{{Nebula Award Best Novel}}{{Philip K. Dick Award}}{{Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Awards}}
{{Inkpot Award 2010s}}
{{Portal bar|Speculative fiction}}
{{Authority control}}

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