#burning chrome

[xinu1941-1966]

design：yukimasa OKUMURA 奥村 靫正

William Gibson book covers

Neuromancer / Burning Chrome /

Count Zero /Mona Lisa Overdrive

#yukimasa OKUMURA #奥村靫正 #design #japan #art

[theblackestofsuns]

Burning Chrome (1986)

William Gibson

Ace Books

[omercifulheaves]

Artwork for Yugoslavian releases of Neuromancer and Burning Crhome in Sirius magazine. Art by Igor Kordey

[where-your-eyes-dont-go]

Just read Burning Chrome, the short story by William Gibson that helped codify the image of the netscape hacker in cyberpunk fiction.

You know how in a lot of cyberpunk rpgs, the hacker character doesn't get to do a lot of the exciting stuff with the other classes, and when they do it grinds the rest of the session to a halt as they play their own complicated mini-session with badly described abstracted visuals? I'd like to congratulate all those games on their perfect adaptation of the source material.

[mumblelard]

a foe survived is a foe vanquished or darkness drives out darkness

thank you for your service standard essentials cleaning system larger size angle broom. at the beginning of this pandemic era, you only cost a dollar and you performed four years of light to moderate sweeping with admirable efficiency and enthusiasm. you will be missed

[romanowork]

[vintagerpg]

The 1987 Ace softcover edition of William Gibson’s first short story collection, Burning Chrome. Cover by Rick Berry. I’m new to Gibson, having only previously read Neuromancer. I didn’t expect to enjoy this very much based on my reaction to the novel — it took me a while to get the flow of the novel, so I expected the short works to end just as I was settling into them. As ever, I was wrong!

The whole collection is pretty great. The Sprawl stories are all suitably Sprawly. I think I might enjoy the heist in the title story more than the similar heist that is central to Neuromancer. My favorite though is “Hinterlands,” about a rift in space, alien artifacts and the reduction of human culture to a cargo cult. Has Gibson written more about that setting? Because I definitely want to read more about it.

[transfem-monarchist-laura-rolla]

i read all of william gibson's burning chrome! here are my thoughts on every story

johnny mnemonic: asks the excellent question "what if all of cyberpunk existed within a 20 page short story that also has transbian puppygirl sisterplay and heroin addicted dolphins and a bunch of other sick shit"

the gernsback continuum: you ever think about how a bunch of old scifi was crazy racist? what if all the old racist scifi started seeping into our world and made you realize how fascist the core of america is

fragments of a hologram rose: 8 pages of that scene from a million different movies where the guy looks at a photo of his ex, except he's doing it with a vr headset that pulls out his memories

the belonging kind*: extroverts are secretly weird bug people

hinterlands: this is basically a really good twilight zone episode about some fucked up shit happening in space. hard to describe

red star, winter orbit*: a kinda boring twilight zone episode about some fucked up shit happening in space. easier to describe tho, it's just a soviet space station mutiny

new rose hotel: how many of the more visible trappings can you remove while staying recognizably cyberpunk to the core? turns out it's most of them!

the winter market: sound engineer is sad that his favorite artist is becoming a vtuber for keeps and uploading her brain to the internet

dogfight*: a guy assaults his girlfriend so he can steal her adderall and use it to beat the champ at the fgc locals being held in the back of a truck stop (this one fucking sucks)

burning chrome: johnny mnemonic had all of cyberpunk contained within it so you might be surprised to learn that burning chrome has some cyberpunk that wasn't in johnny mnemonic, but it does! this time it's all cyberspace all the time

from best to worst: johnny mnemonic, gernsback continuum, burning chrome, new rose hotel, hinterlands, the winter market, fragments of a hologram rose, the belonging kind, red star winter orbit, the belonging kind

all of them except dogfight are good to great with the top few being genuinely incredible. people should read johnny mnemonic

*these ones were cowritten by him and i'm not actually sure how involved he was. i feel kinda bad for saying they're the worst ones but they are

[selfiesforalgernon]

Signalis to Gibson Pipeline??

Ok so let's talk about this because I haven't seen it anywhere.. I just read Hinterlands by William Gibson and listen, Signalis wears it's inspirations on its sleeve, but Hinterlands's DNA is all over Signalis, am I wrong? Look at this shit: (also I know that gestalt is not just specific to these but the term combined with surrogates and space sets off bells to me)

It's also just a necessary read if you're a fan OF Signalis imo

[fanyeline]

just have to say, that reading burning chrome is like… the whole time I was reading it I was like this is so cunty. And every story is a banger, so much so that it was kind of making me mad..

I didn’t have a high opinion of cyberpunk and this book is really like idk. Tits forward, women are so hot and mysterious and I’m a lonely old boy. Give me the juice (cyber drugs)… and it’s like, yes it’s all of that. But it’s so much cuntier than I thought it could be. it all sounds so corny but it's actually super cool, sadly

[thisworldisablackhole]

Burning Chrome by William Gibson - 4/5

Felt nice to revisit Gibson. Neuromancer was the book that got me back into reading and made me realize how much I love sci fi, and it feels like so long ago now that I wrapped up Mona Lisa Overdrive. I didn't know how interested I would be in reading a book of short stories, but when I saw this copy sitting on the book store shelves I couldn't say no (1987 print, way cooler than the newer versions).

I'm really glad I decided to pick this up. These stories contain some of Gibson's most imaginative writing, but also some of his most challenging. Just like his other books I've read, I found the best way to get through it was to not get caught up in the details. There is just a ton of psychedelic technobabble here that is really hard to follow or even imagine for anyone except Gibson himself. Considering how many times drugs are brought in these stories, I almost wonder if he was tripping when he wrote some of this (or maybe I'm just dumb). I mean, I had to read "Fragments of a Hologram Rose" twice and still have no fucking clue what happened. At least the short story format makes re-reading small sections a breeze, and there is plenty reward in doing so. Gibson is usually good at revealing concrete information toward the end of his stories, so going back to the start with that information can really shed a light on everything else.

"Johnny Mnemonic" and "Burning Chrome" were two of my favourites since I was already familiar with the Sprawl setting, and seeing some familiar characters make cameos was a nice touch. I also really connected with "The Winter Market" because it referenced a lot of actual locations around the city I live in. It was neat to be able to picture exactly where the characters were. Gibson's attempts at Soviet Space Propoganda was an odd surprise but also neat cause it reminded me a lot of Omon Ra by Victor Pelevin in the way that it was simultaneously depressing and absurdly comedic. I found the three collaborations stories in this book to be some of the most narratively coherent—probably the result of having someone else keep Gibson on the rails. All of these stories were good at something though, even if that something was just pure technologic hallucinations.

Despite all of the dense, flashy, and often nonsensical sci fi imagery, a lot of these stories are actually very sad—often leaving you with a stark image of addiction, alienation and loneliness. It made me realize just how much focus and impact a short story can have (and may have inspired me to try writing my own). Getting to really zoom in close on some of Gibson's character studies and strange thought experiments was a delight, even if it was sometimes hard to grasp. Highly recommended if you enjoyed the Sprawl trilogy. It made me really want to re-read Neuromancer and also check out some of the Bridge books.

[crownhate]

I honestly wasn’t super interested in reading this but how could I say no to this cover? This version was printed in 1987 and it just looks so cool. Feels good to be reading Gibson again.

[unorco]

The street finds its own uses for things.

William Gibson

Nothing to see here, run along

[johnnypneumonia]

thinking about ❤️her❤️ (the gernsback continuum)

[vforvalensa]

cyberpunk character working too hard, call that burning the chrome at both ends

[romanowork]