SOURCE: “Mythology and Technology: The Novels of William Gibson,” in Extrapolation, Vol. 34, No. 1, Spring, 1993, pp. 65-78.

In the following essay, Schmitt discusses William Gibson's mythologizing of technology in his fiction.

With only three published novels and a collection of short stories, William Gibson has quickly risen to the top of his field, winning the Nebula, Hugo, and Philip Dick awards for Neuromancer. Even more important is the fact that Gibson is considered one of the principal, formative forces in a movement within science fiction known as “cyberpunk.” I see “cyberpunk” as an appropriate label for Gibson's heroes since they share two important similarities with the punk rock movement—one which is more obvious and another which is probably less recognized.

First, the cyberspace “cowboys” in Gibson's novels, like punk rockers, use the technology that is supposed to be a means of ordering and mechanizing the world to attack...