Sci-fi author Bruce Sterling to keynote, predict future at Austin GDC
by Randy Nelson 
{ Jul 23rd 2008 at 3:00AM }
Sterling will deliver his keynote address, "Computer Entertainment 35 Years from Today," at the upcoming Austin Game Developers Conference being held September 15-17. It will certainly be intriguing to hear what one of the founders of the cyberpunk movement has to say about the future of our shared hobby, especially given the recent introduction of technology such as Wii MotionPlus. We also have to wonder if he's seen Sony's famous "PS9" commercial.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Lone Starr @ Jul 23rd 2008 3:09AM
PS9?
BUT CAN IT RUN CRYSIS?!?!?!11111one
Wow, that's really not funny anymore.
Jakka (Not sure why he got banned?) @ Jul 23rd 2008 10:30AM
The fact that it probably would not run Crysis isn't funny either.
And I don't mean "shitty" Crysis.I'm talking 2048x1536 Very High Settings,Full AA and AF at 80fps Crysis.
Misquito @ Jul 23rd 2008 3:25AM
Hm, is he as good as Ray Kurzeil?
Zoesch @ Jul 23rd 2008 3:46AM
Bruce Sterling rocks but he's not as accurate or descriptive as William Gibson or Ray Kurtzweil when it comes to technology predictions. However he's got some very interesting ideas, that keynote will be a blast.
Maybe get Neal Stephenson next?
epobirs @ Jul 23rd 2008 4:04AM
William Gibson? You have to be kidding. Gibson is a culture watcher, not a technology watcher. Neuromancer was written on a typewriter. Gibson bought his first computer, an Apple ][c after that book became a big success.
Sterling is a good technology writer, when writing about the here and now. His non-fiction is much better than his fiction. But he hasn't much of a track record for predicting the future with any accuracy to any greater degree than the average SF reader.
Stephenson I would travel a bit to hear. Despite his 'free tanks!' pleading for Linux, he's a very interesting speaker.
Brodie-san @ Jul 23rd 2008 5:26AM
Gibson wrote Neuromancer in 1984. I don't see the relevance in mentioning that it was written with a typewriter as that was the tool that was available at the time. You don't have to own all the latest gadgets to be a futurist.
Yes, Gibson focuses more on culture and the effect of technology on it as a whole rather than going into when we will have flying cars etc. but this is the man who coined the term cyberspace and predicted the ubiquity of the internet as a communications hub. Gibson does not simply "watch" technology or culture. He extrapolates where we will be in the near future (and if you read Pattern Recognition and Spook Country the now) based on current trends.
I'd be interested in hearing from Gibson, Stephenson and Sterling; in that order. I don't know what Stephenson is up to these days. Ever since he finished the Baroque Cycle it looks like he's just been spending his time chopping wood out his back yard.
epobirs @ Jul 23rd 2008 6:10AM
Brodie, perhaps you aren't old enough to remember 1984 but I am. Word processors were the primary application driving PC sales. For someone still limping along on a typewriter to be seen as delivering a grand vision of the future is one of the great literary hoaxes of the era. (Harlan Ellison still uses a typewriter but he has never been a futurist either, outside of those Chevy Geo commericals.) The fact is, Gibson knew pretty much nothing about computers or networking. Thats why his version of the online world is so utterly removed from anything like reality, giving us endless moronic depictions of hacking in film and TV ever since. Gibson wasn't writing his deeply considered conception of the future. He was just making stuff up, which he has not been shy about admitting. He didn't have any insights about the internet that weren't covered better by others years earlier, such as John Brunner's 'Shockwave Rider.' ('Stand on Zanzibar' and 'The Sheep Look Up' are also very worth reading despite their age.) Although Brunner didn't see the rise of the cheap PC, he had a pretty good take on the ubiquitous network's effect on culture. This is the book in which the term worm, as in malware, was coined. Something that has had far more realization than the goofy metaphor of Gibson's cyberspace. 'Neuromancer' was a decent SF novel but given far more acclaim than it deserves. (It isn't even the first SF novel to use that title.)
Predicting the Internet in the 70s was a notable thing. Doing it in 1984, when much of it was already coming together, not so much.
I fail to see the wonder of 'Pattern Recognition.' By halfway through the book I wanted somebody in a Michelin Man costume to give the lead character a fatal heart attack and let the tedious exercise end.
Stephenson has a history as a coder and genuinely understands what he is writing about while still being a fine writer. That creates a big attraction for those of us in the audience who know the difference.
BTW, Stephenson's next novel, 'Anathem,' is coming out in September. It's a 900+ page doorstop of a book, so that is why it's been a long time coming.
Brodie-san @ Jul 23rd 2008 9:13AM
Hey Epobirs. Thanks for the reply. It's good to see some well thought-out prose even if we don't fully agree on the topic.
Yes, I remember 1984. I was playing Ski-Run on the ZX Spectrum at the time (Or was that 1982? It's a long time ago and my memory fades).
I accept your points that Gibson is not necessarily the most technical or even a self-proclaimed "futurist" but my point was that he has (and had) an interesting take on the future and would be a worthwhile keynote speaker of interest. I still think just because he wrote his first novel on a typewriter rather than a "new fandangled" word-processor makes little difference. The medium of writing has no relevance on the content. If you check www.williamgibsonbooks.com you'll see that Gibson chose the typewriter due to no other reason than he was poor and it was available.
Thanks for the info on Anathem. I was wondering what Stephenson's next book was and I've been checking the web intermittently to see when anything got announced. Looking forward to September now!
Zoesch @ Jul 23rd 2008 12:47PM
Actually what I like about Gibson is that he doesn't deal with technology without dealing with the cultural aspects surrounding it. Technology follows culture and vice versa, they're inseparable.
Stephenson also deals with it but in a more distant way, Sterling has mostly avoided it, leaving the cultural analysis to the reader.
In any case, no one is dissing Sterling, ever... he happens to be one of my favorite authors, but not one of my favorite futurists.
Jakka (Not sure why he got banned?) @ Jul 23rd 2008 6:36AM
The first thing that came to my mind when watching that PS9 commercial was "WOOT CYBERSEX!".