Who is William Gibson and what is Neuromancer?
William Gibson’s writing was a big influence on the Zooropa album. Gibson is known as the “father of cyberpunk” and has been credited with introducing the term “cyberspace”. His book Neuromancer, and the following books in the trilogy, Mona Lisa Overdrive and Count Zero dealt with cyberspace and virtual environments. He was one of the earlier writers tackling such subjects in the fiction he was writing. Gibson’s 1996 novel, Idoru drew from Gibson’s travels with U2 during the Zoo TV tour. One of the novel’s plot threads deals with the world’s most popular band, Lo/Rez. Some of U2’s experiences in the night clubs of Tokyo during the Zoo TV tour are echoed in that novel. One of Gibson’s short stories was adapted for a feature length film, Johnny Mnemonic and Bono was initially offered a starring role in the film. He wisely chose to turn the offer down, and instead U2 contributed a song to the soundtrack. U2 also contributed music to the audio adaptation of Neuromancer. In April 2005, Gibs
