The science-fiction novelist (b. 1948) whose 1984 bestseller Neuromancer coined "cyberspace." Bob uses him as a hinge in the book's endgame: Gibson, who lived in Toronto in the late 1960s and was familiar with McLuhan, is read as having turned McLuhan's discarnate cliché into an art form — naming the anti-environment while really re-describing the old discarnate and super angel state McLuhan had already spelled out. Introduced in dialogue 40.
Across the dialogues
Enters as the case that cliché McLuhan has become an art form — the SF novelist who coined "cyberspace" is read as having merely re-described McLuhan's discarnate percept, evidence that the discarnate has passed from environment into decoration
Bob places Gibson as the first of his generation of SF writers to take the computer world as his subject, in the novel that made him famous.
"William Gibson was the first science fiction baby boomer writer who took on the new computer world producing a novel, Neuromancer, which was a popular bestseller."
Gibson's coinage spread only as the Android Meme itself became visible over the 1990s — the name arriving at the exact moment the thing did.
"he coined the term cyberspace, which then became widely used as the Android Meme started to get noticed in the 90s with the Internet."
Bob's central reading — Gibson named the anti-environment but was really re-describing McLuhan's old discarnate/super-angel state, turning a worn cliché into art, which is how you know it is no longer the environment.
"Gibson turned the McLuhan discarnate cliché into an art form."
Bob grounds the McLuhan lineage biographically — Gibson's Toronto years put him in McLuhan's orbit a full decade before Neuromancer.
"Gibson had lived in Toronto in the late 60s and was familiar with McLuhan, subsequently a decade later turning the McLuhan theme into an art form."
Connections
Bob's claim that Gibson turned McLuhan's discarnate cliché into an art form — naming the anti-environment while re-describing the old discarnate / super-angel state.
Gibson lived in Toronto in the late 1960s and was familiar with McLuhan, a decade before Neuromancer.