VR

[gothwalk]

I've just finished reading William Gibson's Idoru. It brings to mind a few oddities of cyberpunk novels of the 80s and early 90s. The main one being that cyberspace in them appears to conceived in one of two ways - highly stylistic, or highly realistic. In the stylistic version, everything is represented through simple looking avatars and icons. The second one has everything looking solid and three dimensional, a level or two above the iconic meanings of the stylistic one.

I think the cyberpunk writers didn't know people very well, because the "back streets" and dead areas of these cyberspaces are depicted as either either empty space, or realistic back alleys and abandoned side streets. But the dead areas of real cyberspaces are not like that. Look at the web - a good proportion of it is untended kitsch. It's not empty, or backstreet-y, it's just pastel or primary colours, tacky graphics, and pages dedicated to such-and-such.

But I'm not sure I'd want the novels to be like that. I like their versions better.

Comments

[sciamachy.livejournal.com]

Wow... I'm about halfway through that book! I've owned it for ages but only lately got round to reading it properly.

TBH when I get a book that I know will be worth reading but I can't get into it, I put it on my Scheissebuch list - books to read while having a dump - and leave it in the loo to dip into whenever I'm there on a long mission. I've got through many a weighty tech tome that way, reading it in short bursts until I'm familiar enough with the basics to take the book out of the Scheissebuch list & read it normally.

[iresprite.livejournal.com]

Wow. That is such a great system. And a great name for it, too! I applaud you. *grins*

[podling]

Yeah, I know what you mean. It's usually depicted how they'd like it to be, when really, how it *has* actually developed is quite different. Sometimes I look at it like that's all the elite areas of whichever cyberspace area is operational in the particular universe. I think George Alec Effinger's dealing with it, or rather, more or less not dealing with it in his "When Gravity Fails" series was a decent approach. And I really like the way Daniel Keys Moran describes cyberspace in his novels. He rocks.

[oceacat.livejournal.com]

I read Idoru some time ago...books of that ilk are always fascinating to me since I spend so much of my time thinking about the social and psychological aspects of cyberspaces. Of course, the other challenge for many of those writers, me thinks, is how to situate cyberspaces within the larger cultural milieu that both define (and in some ways transcend) their characters. I sometimes think the narratives fluctuate between telling stories about cyberspaces on the one hand and simply situating stories within cyberspaces on the other.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

I couldn't get the comment box to show up on your airship post. Clint loves airships! I like them, have to admit they're one of the neatest features in certain Final Fantasy games. His NaNoWriMo is about an airship captain, actually. :)

Wm Gibson drives me nuts. He does no research. He even misspelled "Aidoru" in that book. -_-;