William Gibson Reads Neuromancer

William Gibson Reads Neuromancer

The author Ray Bradbury is
one of the early science fiction authors that moved science fiction
into a literary form. As a writer Bradbury constructs beautifully
written stories and novels. Bradbury’s writing is in stark contrast
to Bradbury as a speaker. The first time I heard Ray Bradbury speak
was at the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) yearly conference
in Los Angeles in the 1980s. Hearing Bradbury speak is an almost
painful experience. The pictures that Bradbury can paint with the
written word seem to be entirely missing when Bradbury speaks. He is
halting, awkward and does not seem to know where he wants to go
in his talk.

In contrast to Bradbury, listenting to William Gibson has the feel of
his written work. The same complex world view and sentence structure
is there, although not as finely edited. An example of this can be
found in the documentary made about William Gibson, No Maps for these Territories.
This documentary includes extensive interviews with William Gibson.
No Maps also provides a glimpse of the way Gibson looks at the
interconnections and relationships in the world around us. This view
of Gibson’s mind shows us his genius.

The mirror between William Gibson’s spoken voice and his written voice
gives special force to his readings of his work. Early in his career
Gibson did an abridged reading of Neuromancer, his first novel
and the work that made him famous. It was in this novel that Gibson
coined the term cyberspace. This reading was only published on
audio-tape and is now out of print.

I hate the idea that Gibson’s wonderful reading of Neuromancer
should be lost or inaccessable. I was only able to hear it because
the Mountain View (California) Library had a copy. Fortunately I’ve
been able to find an MP3 copy of these audio tapes. They can be
downloaded below.

I am only providing these MP3s because the original has been out of
print for years. As a software engineer I believe that I should be
paid for my work. If I hold this view then it is only reasonable that
I should also believe that artist should be paid for their work. All
of the software and music I own I have paid for (or is open source).
I would prefer that the publisher re-issue the audio-tape of William
Gibson’s reading in a more modern format (perhaps CD) and that William
Gibson collect royalties on this work. Gibson’s reading has been out
of print so long that I can only assume that this is unlikely to
happen.

If you’re a fan of William Gibson I hope that others will mirror these
files as well so that they will never be lost.

This reading was published on four magnetic tape audio cassetts.
These have been re-recorded in MP3 format:

• An
  on-line copy of William Gibson’s Neuromancer

  Neuromancer is one of the few books that I’ve read many times. All of
  Gibson’s books are good (well, except for The Difference
  Engine, but that’s Bruce Sterling’s fault). Neuromancer is
  still in print, so you should go out an buy a copy if you want to read
  it. Writers pay their bills from the royalties from book sales. I’ve
  included the link above in case you want to get a feel for the book
  before you buy it (even paperback books are not cheap these days).

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