Comment by roughly

The heavily technical stuff is the reason that hard sci fi isn’t popular. Technically-minded people, even if they don’t get the specifics, are comfortable enough with technical stuff that it’s essentially decoration, and can probably intuit some things out if it through context. But non-technical people can’t just ignore what looks like a frustratingly opaque wall of gibberish, not realizing if any of it is crucial for plot advancement. Yet technical people are just as able to enjoy the vague vibe-tech stories as long as the author doesn’t try to fake the specifics. The system that Star Trek had in place was genius — the episode writers focused on writing characters, story arc, etc. and could add placeholders for tech talk. Then the script would get passed to specialized writers that could add in technical details to satisfy the persnickety trekkies fact-checking against their tech documentation.

A more charitable description highlights that Gibson is more literary than the authors you're comparing to. He has an artistic flourish to his wording, and he's very good at it. This isn't to detract from your main point.

It's interesting to think about that in Stephenson novels (I don't wish to draw too deep a comparison, but many make it between Snow Crash and Neuromancer), it is interesting to note how deep Stephenson dives to build his themes. In some places it's a subtle framework, in other places it's... very noticeable, as you allude to!

Really interesting, because his writing kinda gives you that wide-T sense, it's like the way Wu Tang rapped -- especially Raekwon, and to a lesser extend Ghostface -- where they avalanche you with all of these richly visualized and highly contrasted scenarios of this that and the other without ever go too deeply into any of them. Really does leave you awash in a lot of flavorful vibes and in 1991/1992 when I wasn't doing too much computering at all it gave me such a strong sense that sooner than later I'd be doing a lot of it

I went to one of his readings decades ago at a Borders for Pattern Recognition, I think, with no idea what he looked like at all. The first thing you notice is that he might be Buckaroo Bonzai. He speaks a little slower than most folks with a noticeable Southern drawl every few words, which I didn't expect, nor his near lifelong residency in Southern Virginia. His twitter handle as I remember it refers to the swamp he grew up near - Great Dismal. In every way his looks and history are about as antithetical to Sci fi writing as you could dream up but there you go ... genre Lord.

For a long time I thought I really loved the cyberpunk genre. But I kept reading story after story by different cyberpunk authors and found them mediocre and cliche at best. The closest and best I could find was J. G. Ballard, who doesn’t really qualify as cyberpunk in a strict sense.

It was at that point that I realized: I’m mostly just interested in Gibson, not in whatever self-labels as in the genre.

> Gibson is such a unique sci-fi author because his fundamental interest is fashion (he’s said this himself)

Check out Pattern Recognition if you're interested in following him down this line of inquiry!

As I’m sure you know, Gibson himself briefly worked as a fashion model. Unlike most male authors and most sci-fi authors, and especially unlike most male sci-fi authors, he describes what people are wearing with great precision and creativity. For example, Molly’s first appearance in Johnny Mnemonic has her “wearing leather jeans the color of dried blood.” I wanted to dig up a contrasting quote from Asimov, so I went to my Asimov shelf and although I had a great time looking, I had trouble finding a description of what any of the characters looked like, let alone what they were wearing.

Edit: ok, I found one. “They wore scarlet and gold uniforms and the shining, close-fitting plastic caps that were the sign of their judicial function.” But I think this proves my point. I know exactly what Molly’s jeans look like. Those uniforms are much harder to visualize.

You know this makes a ton of sense and why his writing is so compelling. We experience the “vibe” of a world, not the technical details. And I am saying this as someone who came into Sci-Fi from Heinlein who to a fault focused on the technical. I think the moment you get into the mathematics of anything it starts feeling more mundane. But perceiving a different reality by how it feels is what we do as children and that’s why it’s such a magical feeling.

One of my pastimes is finding more plot holes in Harry Potter and one of the canonical ones is why do they deliver mail by owl? They have the ability to instantly teleport using several different methods. They have telepathy. Why owls? But owls are just really cool as mail carriers and no other reason is needed. I am sure to a wizard, reading those novels would range from boring to infuriating but if you aren’t a wizard, the setting is compelling (even if the plot and the author are not).

>his fundamental interest is fashion (he’s said this himself)

I read Zero History and found it supremely boring. Can't fathom this fashion interest.

Ahem:

https://www.gregegan.net/

Totally disagree. He has the deepest understanding of all, of humans, aesthetic, culture, and art. Much more important than specifics about technology which is almost always completely irrelevant.