In an interview with author William Gibson, the creator of the notion of “cyberpunk” — a milieu that remains heavily influential to the world building of video games — comments on what inspired him to deviate from the then-too-polished world of mainstream science fiction. It’s relevant to today’s Neuromancer-inspired video games: Make sure you put the dirt in corners.
William Gibson On Cyberpunk’s ‘Dirt In The Corners’
“It seemed to me that midcentury mainstream American science fiction had often been triumphalist and militaristic, a sort of folk propaganda for American exceptionalism. I was tired of America-as-the-future, the world as a white monoculture, the protagonist as a good guy from the middle class or above. I wanted there to be more elbow room. I wanted to make room for antiheroes.”
Fantastic interview.
William Gibson is a visionary and a literary treasure.