Gibson's prose is denser and more detailed, as if he really, really wants you to know that he sees that world in his head.
I guess that's the whole thing. Density of information is one of the great cyberpunk ideals. And it also happens to overlap with my understanding of literary prose. The density means there's more there. It's richer and more allusive. It's more evocative. All that means "better" to me. Whereas I think prose can be so user friendly as to be lacking in substance. That's not how I'd describe Stephenson, but on my spectrum Gibson being over on the dense side is a positive.
Besides it's not like reading
Finnegan's Wake.
Like the infamous line in Neuromancer about the sky being like a dead TV channel (meaning gray and staticky) and the world quickly shooting by that with widespread cable use so that the association would be with a blank blue screen instead.
I love this, because the passage of time and technology has landed us with a completely different yet more plausible visualisation of that line.
Although I do seem to recall having seen the husky staticky "no signal" screen again recently.
Yeah, I think about this fairly frequently. With our current setup, when the tv comes on, it is static.
Like the infamous line in Neuromancer about the sky being like a dead TV channel (meaning gray and staticky) and the world quickly shooting by that with widespread cable use so that the association would be with a blank blue screen instead.
Okay, what's the book that referenced this explicitly by having the sky be like a dead TV channel, meaning it was a perfectly clear blue day? Was it another Gibson novel? This is going to drive me crazy now...
It's at the beginning of Neuromancer, Jess.
eta:
Oh, you're asking something else.
Cool thing: Difference Engine made out of Legos.
No,
Neuromancer
was the original -- dead TV = gray. Neil Gaiman repurposed the line (dead TV = blue) for the beginning of Neverwhere. (Thank you, Google!)
[eta - here's his blog entry about it (scroll down to the first email):
[link]
Here's the original book pitch for Spook Country.
Very different from the book that came out, but still has some spoilers.
Fascinating though.
I didn't like Snow Crash, but Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle were delightful.
I love both Stephenson and Gibson but they live in different sections of the Platonic Library that casts shadows into my brain. Or in different shadows, I should say.
:: slots Spook Country into "look forward to" space::
