William Gibson

William Gibson may not exactly be the next Philip K. Dick, but who wants to be a Dick? Gibson has achieved significantly more commercial success than his sci-fi forebear, and may not have the same literary gravitas, but he still can spin a pretty great yarn. The coiner of the word “cyberspace” also created cyberpunk as a literary form. And although Dick beat him to the idea of the dystopian future (what a simple idea—that humans may actually be moving backward through time, morally speaking), Gibson has already explored galaxies of headspace from “Johnny Mnemonic” to Neuromancer to Idoru. Here he’ll be reading from Pattern Recognition, a brand new caper in the same style, though set in a present that Gibson has been envisioning for 20 years. Barnes & Noble Edina, Galleria mall, (952) 920-0633, bn.com