William Gibson

William Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American and Canadian speculative fiction writer who reshaped science fiction with his dark, near-future visions of technology and society. He is widely regarded as the pioneer of cyberpunk, though he has often distanced himself from the label. Gibson began writing in the late 1970s, crafting noir-inflected stories that blended "lowlife and high tech." He coined the term "cyberspace" in his 1982 short story "Burning Chrome" and popularized the concept in his landmark debut novel *Neuromancer* (1984), which won the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick awards. The novel launched the Sprawl trilogy, completed by *Count Zero* (1986) and *Mona Lisa Overdrive* (1988). With Bruce Sterling, he co-wrote the alternate-history novel *The Difference Engine* (1990), a foundational work of steampunk. In the 1990s, he wrote the Bridge trilogy, exploring postindustrial urban life. After 9/11, Gibson shifted to contemporary realist novels—*Pattern Recognition* (2003), *Spook Country* (2007), and *Zero History* (2010)—which brought him mainstream bestseller status. His later novels *The Peripheral* (2014) and *Agency* (2020) returned to overt science fiction themes. Gibson has written over 20 short stories and 12 novels, and his work has influenced film, design, and academia. He has been called "the noir prophet" of cyberpunk and "probably the most important novelist of the past two decades."