I generally begin my day with a strong mug of Tetley's tea and a browse through Apple News, a habit that I've had for long enough that Apple News is quite aware of my interests, and as such my feed contains a specific Science Fiction section.
This morning's feed featured a link to a Screenrant article by Tom Russell regarding cyberpunk's lack of mainstream presence, and how the upcoming AppleTV adaptation of Neuromancer, William Gibson's 1984 SF masterpiece, has the opportunity to change that. The article was blessed with the lengthy headline "Apple's Cyberpunk Series Based On The Greatest American Sci-Fi Novel Is Coming At Just The Right Time."
The greatest what now?
Although William Gibson was born in the United States, he has been living in Canada since 1972*, and, as far as I can tell, his entire body of work was written here. It appears that he does maintain dual US-Canadian citizenship, but I'm certain that he's living his best life someplace just west of me in the Point Grey neighbourhood of Vancouver**, and has been for quite some time. Good grief, I've all but bumped into the man walking along Broadway West near Macdonald Street!
So, I'm sorry, Mr. Russell, but no. I can't imagine him doing the Joe speech, but as far as we're concerned, William Gibson is Canadian - please pick one of your own cyberpunk authors for future articles.
- Sid
* According to Wikipedia, he first moved to Canada in 1967, but returned to the US temporarily to complete his high school diploma when he was 21.
** I quote from a 2014 GQ interview with Gibson by Zach Baron:
William Gibson lives in an overwhelmingly green suburb with old-money roots south of Vancouver’s downtown, and it is in this suburb that I am currently wandering, looking for William Gibson.
Sounds like Point Grey to me.
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