With what can only be described as Gibson-ian clairvoyance, William Gibson — the man behind almost every important cyberpunk novel of the last century — is set to promote his new literary venture Spook Country within the silicon walls of Second Life, a game he’s indirectly (yet almost entirely) responsible for.
While I seem to have missed all the chapters in Neuromancer where Molly has to cut her way through an army of sexual deviants in badger costumes, Second Life has always aimed to create the sort of interactive existence Gibson envisioned. The novel coined the term “cyberspace,” and constructed a then-fictional reality entirely within the world’s computer networks that the Linden’s — Second Life‘s creators — borrowed liberally from in the creation of their own faux reality.
While I personally can’t stand being in Second Life for more than a few minutes, the world is inhabited by thousands of people who must, no doubt, feel tremendously validated by Gibson’s decision. This is the virtual equivalent of your mom affixing your preschool watercolors to the fridge … or it would be, if your mom was also waving her penis in your face.
