Today is William Gibson’s birthday. In the mid-to-late 1980s, he and Bruce Sterling were as gods to me.

When my now-wife was becoming my then-girlfriend, she told me she didn’t read much science fiction, but loved William Gibson’s Neuromancer. That made her more attractive to me. I haven’t reread any Gibson in a while, but I reread Sterling’s Schismatrix a few years ago, and it holds up. Still one of my favorite novels.

I’ve never had any fiction published, but I’ve had some flattering rejection letters. When I was in high school, Espionage magazine rejected a story I wrote about a hit man. The rejection letter said, “Understand, the story is good enough. It’s just not espionage.”

Just out of college, I wrote my attempt at cyberpunk and submitted it to OMNI. The editor wrote back, “The writing is good enough, but I think cyberpunk is just about played out.” Maybe that’s just a polite way of calling my story derivative, but I was pleased with what he said — though obviously not as pleased as I would have been to have the story published.

Seventeen years later: “Trim Is Dead”