From: Michael Wiik (mwiik@messagenet.com)
Date: Thu Jun 26 2003 - 13:10:41 MDT
Brian Atkins writes:
> I think you have to give him credit for the way he can completely twist
> his writing into fitting the particular biases, conspiracy theories, and
> expectations of whatever particular audience he finds himself in front
> of. :-)
Indeed, but I didn't get from his article whether Sterlong saw this
(relinquishment) as a possibility or was just trying to show how absurd
it was.
I've wondered whether Sterling got sloppy, always being number 2. _Holy
Fire_ and _Distraction_ were ok, but nothing like _Schismatrix_ but
Gibson's _Pattern Recognition_ seems almost right up there with
_Neuromancer_. As in, Gibson still has it...
Maybe he is slipping into fantasy in his emeritus years. I've seen old
folks get rigid, to the point where I thought immortals would end up
sitting in a chair all day muttering longremembered hatreds and saying
'leave me alone'. Perhaps an opposite might occur to those who
self-educate throughout life, after some decades, everything reminds you
of everything else. For example, I'm often more fascinated by tangents,
by the dynamics of a conversation rather than the content, by amusing
synchronicities that occur only because of subtle deja vue experiences
meaningless to anyone else.
I don't admit to knowing anything about anything other than programming
and web development, and there I see it as an established beachhead but
beyond that there's a web-induced singularity. I can feel it reaching in
with slender fingers when I work, but surprise myself I still have the
discipline to prevent analysis paralysis. Of course once I abstract my
work away from the computer maybe I can enter fantasy land and write
unimplementable draft specifications for W3C.
But I'd take fantasy over rigidness any day. The path of Isaac Newton
rather than Archie Bunker (showing my age here).
-Mike
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