Gibson's books are about human topology. In
mathematics, topology examines what is invariant about spaces
(shapes). If I push and twist and contort a shape, what about it is
still the same and what about it has changed? This is what Gibson
does. He twists and contorts human society and the people within it
and then he finds what has not changed. This may be what can never
change about people and society no matter how much we contort
everything else.
And if we know what can never be changed about ourselves, and by
extension what can be, where are we then? How important is the shape
of society to what we are? Does it matter how much technology changes
us? Was Marx right about people being functions of technology? Gibson
says no and finds that what is invariant about us can survive whatever
technology exists and however technology changes and contorts our
society.
Also Gibson forces us to realize that technology will change
our society no matter what we want. And those in the future will be
unaware of the change and unaware and uninterested in our world and our
struggles and our doubts. They will have their world.
Gibson is more than just the father of the latest generation of sci-fi
writers. He has done something which (in my mind) hasn't been done by
any other writer of this genre: he has transcended science fiction and
writes great literature. Gibson does what Pynchon does, only better. His writing style reflects the multi-dimensional complexity of today's world as viewed by a consciousness that only perceives a few bits and pieces of the total pattern: those bits that concern himself. He sees the rest of the pattern as a frightening, sharp-edged jungle with no meaning.
Also, as with all great art, reading a Gibson novel requires lots of
effort on the part of the reader to take part in the creation of the
story and the characters. Great art is interactive, and requires the
reader/viewer/audience to participate in some way on some level. This
is what differentiates it from entertainment, which can be simply
absorbed with a flatlined EKG.
Gibson has paved the way for speculative fiction to become more than
it has been. I look forward to more great literary writers becoming
science fiction authors and following in his footsteps. |