German book covers for William Gibson novels

German book covers for Wiliam Gibson novels.

I like Calvin and Hobbes even more now that I realize the dad is William Gibson

Via William Gibson.

Link roundup

1. William Gibson wrote the X-Files episodes Kill Switch and First Person Shooter.

2. How to improve home wifi coverage.

3. The new Nintendo game Kirby's Epic Yarn was supposed to star a new character until the creators were forced to replace the star with Kirby.

*Buy X-Files DVDs at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. Hour and half mp3 of Cory Doctorow interviewing William Gibson and taking questions from an audience.

2. Chris Battle posted some new Power Puff Girls drawings in his Etsy shop.

3. Official site for the Spider-Man musical.

*Buy Powerpuff Girls at eBay.

Link roundup

1. Dirpy turns youtube videos into mp3s. Via.

2. William Gibson:

RT @jrronimo: @GreatDismal Is it true that, after Neuromancer, you bought your first computer and were annoyed by it's fan noise? [Yes]

3. A middle school in Nettleton, Mississippi is apparently segregating student body positions by race.

*Preorder Zero History for 40% off at Amazon.

Teasers from William Gibson's Zero History

Last year, William Gibson posted teasers for his upcoming book Zero History. These snippets may or may not be in the book, but they certainly indicate that it's a continuation of the story from Pattern Recognition and Spook County.

CRICKET

The room-phone began to ring. It was a collage, something else Inchmale dubbed steampunk. A massive, nautical-looking handset of rubber-coated bronze rested in a leather-padded cradle atop a cubical box of brass-cornered rosewood. Its ring was mechanical, and tiny, as though you were hearing an old-fashioned bicycle-bell, far off down a quiet street. She stared hard, willing it to silence.

"Intense hysteria," she said.

It continued to ring.

Three steps and her hand was on was it.

The handset was as absurdly heavy as ever.

"Coprophagia." Briskly, as if announcing a busy department.

"Hollis," he said, "hello."

She looked down at the handset, heavy as an old hammer and nearly as battered. Its thick cord, luxuriously cased in woven burgundy silk, resting against her bare forearm.

"Hollis?"

"Hello, Hubertus."

She pictured herself driving the handset through brittle antique rosewood, crushing the aged electro-mechanical cricket within. Too late now; it had already fallen quiet.

"I saw Reg," he said.

"I know."

"I told him to ask you to call."

"I didn't," she said.

"Good to hear your voice," he said.

"It's late."

"A good night's sleep, then," heartily. "I'll be by in the morning, for breakfast. We�re driving back tonight. Pamela and I."

"Where are you?"

"Manchester."

She saw herself taking an early cab to Paddington, the street in front of Cabinet utterly deserted. Catching the Heathrow Express. Flying somewhere. Another phone ringing, in another room. His voice.

"Manchester?"

"Norwegian black metal," he said, flatly. She imagined Scandinavian folk-jewelry, then self-corrected: the musical genre. "Reg said I might find it interesting."

Good for him, she thought. Inchmale's sub-clinical level of sadism sometimes found a deserving target.

"I was planning on sleeping in," she said, if only to be difficult. She knew now that it was going to be impossible to avoid him.

"Eleven then," he said. "Looking forward to it."

"Goodnight. Hubertus."

"Goodnight." He hung up.

She put the handset down. Careful of the hidden cricket. Not its fault.

Nor hers.

Nor even his, whatever he was.

COLD-FX

GABBLE RATCHETS

AMATEUR

BOHEMIAN

MR. FISH

FIFTEEN

THE GABRIEL HOUNDS

HOLD THE COPROPHAGIA

CABINET (HAPPY NEW YEAR)

*Previously: Here's what the footage from Pattern Recognition looked like.

*Zero History is 34% off at Amazon.

William Gibson's next book Zero History available for preorder

William Gibson's next book Zero History is available for preorder at Amazon. Via.

Caffiend (link roundup)

Doodled-on coffee cup by Rex Crowle.

And a few more links:

1. Apparently Cayce Pollard from Pattern Recognition (my favorite travel book) is based on Xeni Jardin.

2. Tonight's Adventure Time teaser was mathematical. (Zombie salaryman, giant mecha, hotdog princess, karate Lincoln, and more.)

3. A senior Prada manager in Japan is suing Prada, claiming that the Prada Japan CEO forced her to fire or demote several workers because they were too unattractive. Via.

*Previously: William Gibson's "footage."

*Buy Pattern Recognition at Amazon. (I've read it three times.)

William Gibson's "Footage"

William Gibson has an uncanny knack for making things sound cool, whether it's a Buzz Rickson MA-1 bomber jacket, or a Volkswagen Phaeton, or the imaginary "footage" that's at the heart of Pattern Recognition. Unfortunately, when I actually see those things in real life, they're always tremendously disappointing.




Turns out, even the imaginary footage is disappointing.

I can't remember where I first saw the (disturbing) videos you see below. But I definitely didn't think they were worth posting at the time (and I thought there was a third video?). But today Gibson described them "as seriously Footage-y as anything I've seen on YouTube."





They couldn't possibly have been more different than what I envisioned, which was more a romantic, timeless Sky Captain look.

Bioshock Splicer Mask (link roundup)

Bioshock Splicer Mask given to a fan for participating in the New York Bioshock event. (I haven't seen photos or video from today's Boston event.)

And a few more links:

1. William Gibson: "Neuromancer was a conscious critique of all the mainstream SF I'd read up to that point. Why it worked, IMO."

2. Dave McKean: "Just to be clear, I didn't want to do the revised Sandman covers for personal reasons between me and DC, nothing to do with money."

3. Right now, you can watch every episode aired to date in The Clone Wars Season Two.

*Previously: Another splicer mask given to a fan.

*Buy Bioshock toys at eBay.

Space Amoeba poster (link roundup)

Poster for Space Amoeba. Here's the trailer.

And a few more links:

1. Apparently this is what William Gibson had in mind when he created the Idoru.

2. Mike Krahulik draws his D&D players' characters.

3. Click I'm Feeling Lucky on the Google home page and a mysterious number appears. It apparently counts the seconds until the end of the year.

*Previously: Neal Stephenson recounts his battles with William Gibson.

*Buy plush amoebas at eBay.

Mortal Kombat: The Live Tour tv appearance (link roundup)

Circa 1996, actors from the Mortal Kombat: Live Tour show off their moves and answer questions on an Los Angeles morning news show. Via.

And a few more links:

1. Here's video footage of "Case," the live performance of Neuromancer. (Not quite as exciting as I'd hoped.) Via.

2. The Tim Burton retrospective honors his Southern California roots:

We've attempted to accomplish this by organizing material under “Surviving Burbank” covering the years of Tim's upbringing in Burbank, CA; “Beautifying Burbank” on his years as a student at CalArts and an apprentice animator and concept artist with the Walt Disney Company, including his early collaborations with sculptor and artist Rick Heinrichs, animator Joe Ranft and effects artist Stephen Chiodo; to “Beyond Burbank” for the years since his first feature, "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" (1985), to the present.

Read more about the show here.

3. Cruel nicknames for overweight vampires. For example: Taco Bela.

*Previously: Redesigned Mortal Kombat Characters.

*Buy Mortal Kombat action figures at eBay.

Three Teen Wolf Moon t-shirt (link roundup)

Three Teen Wolf Moon t-shirt on sale for $20. Via.

And a few more links:

1. Here's what's in the Star Wars: Clone Wars season one box set.

2. John Lennon paper toy.

3. Any William Gibson fan will be interested in seeing that Buzz Rickson has a new jacket. (Although I was pretty disappointed when I saw what the Pattern Recognition jacket looked like.)

*Previously: Obama wearing the Three Wolf Moon shirt.

*Buy Beatles toys at eBay.

William Gibson's Significant Object

William Gibson wrote a short story about an ashtray and it's on sale at eBay.

But his story is really about tie tacks, and you can also find military tie tacks at eBay.

*Previously: Original treatment for William Gibson's book Spook Country.

Angry farewell cakes (link roundup)

One of several angry farewell cakes on display here.

And a few more links:

1. Could there possibly have been a time when bees were mailed in tiny little cages. (Umm, is that how they're shipped now?) Via.

2. William Gibson denies being paid to write about Volkswagen in Spook Country. (I was terribly disappointed when I saw what a Buzz Rickson’s bomber jacket actually looked like.)

3. On that topic, anyone else wonder if Monday's Penny Arcade strip about Gilette was a paid ad?

4. Japanese FedEx poster makes delivering packages look awfully exciting.

*Previously: Raiders of the Lost Ark cake.

*Choose from thousands of cake toppers at eBay.

Maximilian from The Black Hole desktop wallpaper (link roundup)

Download a desktop wallpaper featuring evil robot Maximilian from The Black Hole.

And a few more links:

1. Photos of a koala taking a bath.

2. To make a bs point about fighting malaria, Bill Gates released mosquitoes during his TED talk. His schools are apparently a big failure, by the way. Probably why he has to resort to scary stunts to try to intimidate his audience.

3. William Gibson continues to publish what seem to be small snippets of a sequel to Spook Country.

4. Seems like only yesterday I mocked the garbage posted at Barry Diller's new blog. Traffic has apparently fallen significantly since then. Via.

*Previously: Why you never see Disney's The Black Hole on tv.

*Buy plush koalas at eBay.

Edward Gorey-inspired gown/costume (link roundup)

One of many Edward Gorey-inspired costumes spotted here.

And a few more links:

1. Original cover for William Gibson's Neuromancer reminds me of Tron.

2. Tips for adding custom art to a cheap Ikea mouse pad.

3. Tenacious Toys has the first six Mechtorians available for preorder at $15 a piece.

4. Concept poster for Batman 3, featuring a logo that hints at The Riddler and Catwoman.

*Previously: Batman drawn by Edward Gorey.

*Buy Doktor A art toys at eBay.

Snowman paper toy (link roundup)

A little more complicated than the papercraft projects I typically post, but it still looks doable. Papercraft snowman by Matt Hawkins.

And a few more links:

1. Forget the hype about Twilight (the movie). It'll sell about as many tickets as . . . "Patch Adams, the No. 10 movie of 1998. Or roughly the size of George of the Jungle, which placed No. 13 the year before." Via.

2. Owner of cadaver transportation company who mishandled corpses sentenced to pay for billboard apologizing for misdeeds (photo link). Via.

3. William Gibson posted . . . an excerpt from his new book? Featuring characters from Spook Country?

4. Some notable media moments from 2008. I'd completely forgotten Jesse Jackson saying Obama was "talking down to black people . . . telling n—--rs how to behave." Yet that story was basically the only thing on every news channel for a day or two.

*Previously: Barack Obama paper toy by Hawkins.

*Buy Barack Obama toys at Amazon.

Girl gloats as house burns

Charming (Photoshopped?) image of a firebug found here.

Here's a few more links:

1. Daily News shows how easy it is to fool New York's office of the city register by creating some blatantly false documents and seizing ownership of the Empire State Building.

2. High school teacher in San Diego, California raises money for supplies by selling advertising space on exams. Via.

3. Go here to see what a young William Gibson looked like. Via.

4. Vintage LOLcat.

5. Xbox logo-like spacecraft visited Earth in 1697. Via.

*Previously: Neuromancer poster.

*Buy "I Can Has Cheezburger?: A LOLcat Colleckshun" at Amazon.

Neuromancer movie poster?

Real or not, it's cool, and I do love Neuromancer. Click here to see who's supposedly going to star.

*Previously: Neal Stephenson describes his fights with William Gibson.

*Buy movie posters at MoviePosters.com.