Review: William Gibson by Gary Westfahl
This probably rates around 2.5 stars for me overall, mostly likely because I expected more from it than what the text provided. I appreciated the short interview at the end of the collection, and the fact that this provides an overarching look at Gibson's writing career and some parts of his personal life and motivations, it made the text worth reading. However, I found the narrative a bit more difficult to get through than I expected. I read many academic texts and I'll admit that I learned many things in this that I didn't know about Gibson's life before, but I honestly didn't see that much passion in the narrative within this text. It felt a bit lacking and dry in the presentation of the material, and it's not necessarily a text you would want to peruse if you wanted a more comprehensive examination of Gibson's individual works and contributions. It's good for a short reference, and definitely organizes the material as far as his contributions of poetry, in fanzines, short stories, screenplays, and his novels, but somehow it left me wanting more when the narrative was all said and done.
Good for a quick reference, but not so much for a comprehensive resource for a man who's contributed remarkable work.
Overall score: 2.5/5 stars
Note: I received this as an ARC from NetGalley, from the publisher University of Illinois Press.
4
