William Gibson Essay Research Paper Around the

William Gibson Essay, Research Paper

Around the late 1970’s and the early 1980’s a new genre of fiction was beginning to emerge. A derivative of science fiction, cyperpunk was a fresh new addition to what was primarily American literature. One of the pioneers of this new niche was William Gibson. In 1984 William Gibson’s first novel was printed. Neuromancer went on to win the Nebula, Hugo and Philip K. Dick awards, all are high honors amongst science fiction novelists. It was a rare feat for one book to win all three awards. Neuromancer presented it’s readers with a fresh new world of science fiction, by combining high tech with the effect of technoshock. It was revolutionary.

After Neuromancer, Gibson went on to write several more ground breaking novels, all based within the same reality Neuromancer introduced. Count Zero, Monalisa Overdrive, Idoru and Virtual Light all pulled the reader into a harsh new world where technology was rampant and things were out of control political. In other words, his novels showed of a glimpse into a possible, a very possible, future.

His books revolved around a few basic themes. The themes in which he wrote, were what he felt were inevitable turns approaching on the worlds path. Primary among these was the acceleration of technology. Not only was technology accelerating, but it was outpacing humanities ability to cope with out. The resulting effect was classified, in his works, as technoshock. Simple defined, it was a humans inability to react sensibly to the science around him. Mostly this takes the form of medical technology. Specifically the introduction of mechanically prostheses devices as replacements for lost limbs. Although at the time, this was a very real concept, Gibson added a significant twist to the reality. The idea of voluntarily removing a limb or two, to gain the added strength of a mechanical leg or arm. Of course this had a price. Gibson’s books explore the idea of losing a piece of your humanity along with the body part you chose to replace.

For example in Neuromancer, the main character, Case, constantly worries about getting attacked by gangs of “cybered” up people. Cybering up would be the process of exchanging a real part for the metal one. Case explains that these flocks of metal clad people are many times more violent than your average street criminal. With the loss of so much flesh and bone, and the installment of the cyber parts, their minds were made unstable and as a result, they were much more violent and prone to acts of terror.

This had a real world counterpart. People with pacemakers and other artificially organs often felt a bit detached by them. The same thing was experienced with people who have had transplants of animal organs, such as a pig’s. The felt like losing a heart of liver was like losing a piece of their soul.

Gibson’s version of this takes us a few decades ahead to when this kind of radical, at present, surgery would be common place and even more exotic prodcedures would be possible. Cloned, vat grown limbs could be used to replace mangled ones, and of course mechanical ones could be another option. People would become nonchalant about changing a toe if theirs bothered them. Something so de-humanizing would become a subject dealt with in apathy.

Another quirk of this technological advanced would be a new kind of crime. Today cars are stolen and stripped of their wheels and other parts to be sold on the black market and in chop shops. In Gibson’s works, a regular healthy person may be stopped in an alley somewhere to be robbed of an arm of a leg. Maimed and dying the victim wasn’t safe yet as scavengers would come and try to sell the other organs to human body chop shops. Though, much more morbid, these kind of setting almost plays out in hospitals nation wide.

When people are in accidents or are injured purposefully, and they need an organ transplant, they are placed on waiting lists until an organ frees up for them to be helped. But what if a rich man greased some palms to try and get bumped up on the list, his life fleeting from his possession . The likely next stop would be for people arranging accidents to folks with similar blood and body types to increase the supply of organs that go to those on organ waiting lists. Gibson gives us the next steps in his books.

During the book a mysterious boss known as Armitage is seemingly a victim of the loss of empathy due to having body parts replaced with cybernetic implants. He was a soldier in one of the many corporate wars. Not the victim of any accident, Armitage seems to have volunteered to have many of his body parts exchanged, arms and legs, most torso organs, so that he could fight as a mercenary in the corporate wars. It was almost a military style enlistment. A person would volunteer to be “cybered” up and the corporation would pay for the surgery and parts. Then in exchanged the person would serve in that companies covert army for a few years, then he or she was free to be a mercenary or whatever that person wanted to do.

Even women actively undergo cybernetic surgery. They seem to have a broad range of reasons. Some weaker ladies like to augment their physical strength so they could resist the attacks of the various denizens of Gibson’s future. Some have sexual organs replaced and enhanced so they can work as high price call girls. Neuromancer’s female prot