Mal ,'Out Of Gas'
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
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):
My dead TV = black.
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::
My copy of Spook Country is on it's way from amazon. Of course, I got TCG hooked on him, so I'll probably have to fight him for the copy when it comes in.
I like Gibson a lot more than Stephenson. I've never actually gotten through a Stephenson book, although I intend to eventually. Stephenson rambles too much for me, like he has to get out every tiny bit of information he knows about a subject whether or not it is relevant to the story. I prefer the density of Gibson's writing.