Will the future be better or worse? - and does the story we are telling ourselves help or hinder us? With economist Diane Coyle, writers Cory Doctorow and William Gibson, and futurologists Mark Stevenson and Jon Turney.
Part of the Out of this World: Science and The Future event series.
Cory Doctorow and the Boing Boing Boing team talk to William Gibson about Spook Country.
From http://odeo.com/episodes/16091713-Boing-Boing-Boing-015-William-Gibson
For all of the Internet era, and even before, novelist William Gibson has been the ultimate science fiction guru of the age. He invented the notion – the word – “cyberspace” before the Web even existed. He took us to dystopic futures that became nows in “Neuromancer,” “Burning Chrome,” and “Virtual Light.”
Now, when whole lives – or big pieces – have migrated to the Web and beyond, Gibson is beyond as well. He’s watching the culture from new angles. We speak with Gibson about his latest novel, “Zero History,” and where our world – and his – stand now.
Cory Doctorow is a best-selling science-fiction writer, champion of creative commons and, now, self-publishing pioneer. He’s distributing his latest book, a collection of short stories called With a Little Help, without the aid of a publishing house. Instead, he has turned to his online community, and social networks like Facebook and Twitter, to help build buzz, get advice and even copy edit his new book.
Doctorow tells NPR’s Michele Norris the key to making money off a business model that’s built around the word "free."
Huffduffed from http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2010/10/25/130811846/doctorow