“In my opinion and personal interpretation of fact, Gibson is ranked up there with Dick and deserves to be recognized as one of the true cyber-punk pioneers. Like the science-fiction forefathers (i.e., Asimov, Clark, Pohl, Herbert, etc), Gibson is a visionary in a time when science fiction needed to be revamped and renewed. In my opinion, these forefathers had the knack and thus the duty to look to the future and point out present weakness in the human condition that would lead to imminent (and often ominous) outcome. Naturally, much of this turned into soap-box rants on politics, but I like that, and I think it is socially functional as an art. For that, I thank these folks. Gibson does the same, but in a relevant and fresh facet of the over-all genre. That being the age of cyberspace, which fortunately includes all the fun; the associated grit and grandeur.
This is one of the two reasons I spent several years in the cyber-punk world. The other reason, though less heady, is quite impressive to me. It is the simple fact that Gibson, Dick, and perhaps others were able to envision the direction of the cyber "movement." Not only that, but they were able to lend momentum and even jargon and concepts to the cyber-age. Believe it or not, Gibson is widely thought to have even coined the word "cyberspace." I always thought that good sci-fi is that which becomes true, from the most simple flip-open communication device (beam me up Scotty) to the vast construct of "virtual reality" (also one Gibson's ealry inventions).”