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“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." Unfortunately, television is digital now and dead channels are just black.

by w0mbat 5y ago

the_af 5y ago
An iconic opening line indeed! Doubly interesting because no-one, not even Gibson himself, can tell what visual imagery he was thinking of with that description. I always thought it was "gray snow/static", but TVs didn't always show that (they certainly don't today, as you pointed out). Depending on the era, dead channels alternated between black, static snow, blue, etc; when Gibson was talking dead channels it wasn't static snow. Gibson has contradicted himself on different interviews about this. See replies and discussion for this question: https://scifi.stackexchange.com/q/163304/770 https://scifi.stackexchange.com/q/163304/770
- w0mbat 5y ago
  In 1984, when Neuromancer was published, TV was analog and inbetween channels you got static snow. Gibson had to mean that. A grey/white overcast sky. Everything else is over-thinking. I love Neuromancer but the irony is how badly cyberpunk or indeed any sci-fi has predicted the future, the absence of smartphones being the most obvious example.
  - the_af 5y ago
    If you read the scifi.se Q&A I linked to, which mentions several contradictory answers given by Gibson over the years, you'll see it's not so simple and definitely not overthinking it! Analog TVs didn't always give static snow, by the way. One of Gibson's latest answers is a retweet of Monica Lewinsky's (yes, that Monica) photo of a cloudy gray day and stating "that's exactly what I was thinking of". It looks nothing at all like an analog's TV static snow!
robocat 5y ago
I read that again recently and laughed that it would only resonate with readers that had analogue televisions when younger. The quote is William Gibson, Neuromancer. Neil Gaiman did a tribute to it in Neverwhere: "The sky was the perfect untroubled blue of a television screen, tuned to a dead channel." because for a while, blue was the colour of an untuned channel. Plenty of kids now probably don’t even grok what a channel number or TV is.

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." Unfortunately, television is digital now and dead channels are just black.

by w0mbat 5y ago

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." Unfortunately, television is digital now and dead channels are just black.

the_af 5y ago

An iconic opening line indeed! Doubly interesting because no-one, not even Gibson himself, can tell what visual imagery he was thinking of with that description. I always thought it was "gray snow/static", but TVs didn't always show that (they certainly don't today, as you pointed out). Depending on the era, dead channels alternated between black, static snow, blue, etc; when Gibson was talking dead channels it wasn't static snow. Gibson has contradicted himself on different interviews about this. See replies and discussion for this question: https://scifi.stackexchange.com/q/163304/770 https://scifi.stackexchange.com/q/163304/770

w0mbat 5y ago
In 1984, when Neuromancer was published, TV was analog and inbetween channels you got static snow. Gibson had to mean that. A grey/white overcast sky. Everything else is over-thinking. I love Neuromancer but the irony is how badly cyberpunk or indeed any sci-fi has predicted the future, the absence of smartphones being the most obvious example.
- the_af 5y ago
  If you read the scifi.se Q&A I linked to, which mentions several contradictory answers given by Gibson over the years, you'll see it's not so simple and definitely not overthinking it! Analog TVs didn't always give static snow, by the way. One of Gibson's latest answers is a retweet of Monica Lewinsky's (yes, that Monica) photo of a cloudy gray day and stating "that's exactly what I was thinking of". It looks nothing at all like an analog's TV static snow!

robocat 5y ago

I read that again recently and laughed that it would only resonate with readers that had analogue televisions when younger. The quote is William Gibson, Neuromancer. Neil Gaiman did a tribute to it in Neverwhere: "The sky was the perfect untroubled blue of a television screen, tuned to a dead channel." because for a while, blue was the colour of an untuned channel. Plenty of kids now probably don’t even grok what a channel number or TV is.