If a normal William Gibson book is a steak, this is something rather like a Turkey Twizzler. It's made up of thin slices of his assorted non-fiction glued together, and while it looks a sizable book, it's heavily padded with spacer pages and widely spaced lines. However, I can't but help enjoy it.
Reading this book has reminded me that my thoughts on the subject of sci-fi are basically stolen directly from Gibson. It also brings across how much his work is a reinterpretation of spatial travel as time travel - his futures are revamped Tokyos, Londons and obscure third world markets, seen through his transformative gaze. It makes me want to travel!
It also talks of the authors that have influenced him. Of Borges, Burroughs and Ballard. It makes me want to read more widely!
Finally, each article has an end note where he puts his writing in context and discusses what he felt about it. Whether it's too long, or whether he didn't really know what he was talking about at the time, or whether he felt it did stand the test of time, or whatever, it breaks the works out of being simple time capsules into something that gives better insight into his creative process.
He wrote it, I like it.
Posted 2012-06-08.