Playing Into the Sterotype

William Gibson has taken the easy way out with All Tomorrow’s Parties. He has played perfectly into the stereotypical science fiction novel, which must have been simple, techno geek that he is. So, he likes technology—we could probably go so far as to say that he’s obsessed with it. So why then, is All Tomorrow’s Parties written with a obsessively pessimistic outlook on this technology that he supposedly loves and respects? If he loves technology, where does he get this dystopia of what we are going to become from? While he is playing into this stereotypical sci-fi genre, he’s taking the simple route, the one where humanity falls into chaos. When he created Rei Toei, he played on the innate desire of humanity for perfection, but in doing so, he unintentionally implied that humanity in its natural state, with its imperfections, is useless. And, while we are in pursuit of this perfection, we are destroying ourselves. Gibson isn’t challenging himself by stepping off the beaten path and finding the potential happy balance between nature and technology. We don’t need another sinister, chaotic portrayal of where the world is headed, with technology at the helm. What does it do for us, make us feel depressed when we read a very feasible scenario for our planet? That’s how I felt when I read this novel. What’s the point? Instead, lets see a scenario where there is a natural balance between the preoccupation with achieving perfection, and the appreciation of things that aren’t perfect, but are instead original and beautiful that way. Show us how to achieve that, a feasible utopia, and then I will be impressed. I don’t want an unoriginal novel, full of unoriginal, copied gadgets; I want something new, something inspiring- I want something more.