William Gibson

William Gibson was an American writer, best known for jumpstarting and popularizing the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction. Born in Conway, South Carolina, Gibson's family moved around often due to his father's position as a manager at a construction company. Some time after his father passed away from choking in a restaurant during a business trip, his mother sent him to the Southern Arizona School for Boys in Tucson. Gibson was unhappy there, and when his mother passed away when he was 18, he left without graduating and roamed the country. Inspired by the beat writers of the 1950s, especially his primary writing influence William S. Burroughs, Gibson moved within the counterculture spheres of the time. He moved to Canada in 1967 to avoid the Vietnam war draft; there, he met his future wife, Deborah Thompson, with whom he would have two children. He also attended the University of British Columbia, earning a bachelor's degree in English in 1977. After taking a class on science fiction, he was inspired to write his first short story, "Fragments of a Hologram Rose" (1977). Becoming dissatisfied with the style of science fiction prevalent at the time, Gibson began writing short stories that would come to define cyberpunk, such as "Johnny Mnemonic" (1981), "Burning Chrome" (1982), and "New Rose Hotel" (1984). This work would culminate in his first novel, the landmark Neuromancer (1984), which remained his most popular novel. The book, while receiving critical praise at first, took some time to build up steam. Eventually, however, it became seen as a lasting classic and influence on an entire subsection of science fiction. Within the next few years, Gibson would finish up his Sprawl trilogy, begun with Neuromancer, with Count Zero (1986) and Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988). Gibson remained prolific throughout the 1990s, collaborating with Bruce Sterling on "The Difference Engine" (1990) and writing the Bridge trilogy (1993-99). With the turn of the century, he turned to more realistic, contemporary settings, authoring the Blue Ant trilogy (2003-2010) in response to the September 11 attacks. Gibson returned to a more defined science fiction feel with The Peripheral (2014). Gibson is credited with coining such phrases as "cyberspace" and "matrix," and was recognized with awards like the Nebula and the Hugo for his work.