I was positively obsessed with (and still hold dear) Gibson's early works, especially the short stories, but the Idoru trilogy somehow bored me. Not sure whether his storytelling changed or my tastes did.
I love how (as Gibson himself has remarked) Neuromancer has become nearly impossible to read straightforwardly by younger readers because he failed to predict the ubiquity of cell phones and has the characters depend on landlines and pay phones for communication - to someone who's grown up with omnipresent cell phones their absence is baffling and seems like an intentional plot point building up to some twist that never comes.
I'm a superfan as well and I think the Blue Ant ones hold up the best. With a few years of context we can see now that he was really well ahead of the curve on a ton of stuff that is now our reality. When Cayce explains why she quit coolhunting she says that the world has begun to suffer a contagion wherein almost everybody is a coolhunter of some kind, and of course that did happen, but the publication of the book where she says this predates instagram by two or three years. Gibson was one of the first to point out how ubiquitous internet essentially killed the geographical subculture with its signature language of fashion and so on. They still exist, but on a smorgasboard of options presented by the twining together of internet and culture. The Bigends of our world will send global anything that looks promising, shorn of its physical context.
e: Molly Millions is the most iconic and famous Gibson character but I think Bigend, with his charm, machinations, drive to commodify art, etc, is the one really representing an archetype for our times.
>their absense is baffling
Well if they lack an imagination then that's not Gibson's problem. It would be like saying that they can't read fantasy because messages have to be delivered on horseback "why wouldn't they just have cell phones?" I hear them cry.
I love how (as Gibson himself has remarked) Neuromancer has become nearly impossible to read straightforwardly by younger readers because he failed to predict the ubiquity of cell phones and has the characters depend on landlines and pay phones for communication - to someone who's grown up with omnipresent cell phones their absence is baffling and seems like an intentional plot point building up to some twist that never comes.