[orig. by SF writer Bruce Bethke and/or
editor Gardner Dozois]
n.,adj. A subgenre of SF launched in 1982
by William Gibson's epoch-making novel 'Neuromancer' (though
its roots go back through Vernor Vinge's 'True Names' (see
the Bibliography) to John Brunner's 1975 novel 'The Shockwave
Rider'). Gibson's near-total ignorance of computers and the
present-day hacker culture enabled him to speculate about the role
of computers and hackers in the future in ways hackers have since
found both irritatingly na"ive and tremendously stimulating.
Gibson's work was widely imitated, in particular by the short-lived
but innovative "Max Headroom" TV series.
See cyberspace, ice, go flatline.
