True Names

[Thorn]

Re: True Names

I am a huge fan of Neuromancer, don't get me wrong, it was one of the books tht changed my view of the world. But after reading True Names + Shockwave Rider you see a lot of the (I'm guessing) influences Gibson drew on to create Neuromancer.

If we are going to go 'old skool' cyberpunk, before the term was coined, I'd throw in some Alfred Bester (The Stars My Destination, The Demolished Man) and even a little "Colossus: the Forbin Project" (A past DE CON TV staple, the original 'evil' computer movie) by Dennis Jones.

It's funny you mention Shockwave Rider, DT, I've been rereading it this week. It's definitely a seminal work on network identity.

Another body of work that is seminal in this area is Zelazny's three novellas, The Eve of RUMOKO, 'Kjwalll'kje'k'koothai'lll'kje'k, and Home is the Hangman, published together as My Name Is Legion. The common basis for the stories is an unnamed protagonist who creates and destroys multiple network identities as his cover as a private investigative operative.

[shrdlu]

Re: True Names

I am a huge fan of Neuromancer, don't get me wrong, it was one of the books tht changed my view of the world. But after reading True Names + Shockwave Rider you see a lot of the (I'm guessing) influences Gibson drew on to create Neuromancer.

Each and every one of us can be said to be standing "on the shoulders of giants" of course. Gibson reflects the excitement of the time, and seems also to have been influenced by JG Ballard and Phillip K Dick. I know that Dick has been in fashion of late, but Ballard is also worthwhile.

If we are going to go 'old skool' cyberpunk, before the term was coined, I'd throw in some Alfred Bester (The Stars My Destination, The Demolished Man) and even a little "Colossus: the Forbin Project" (A past DE CON TV staple, the original 'evil' computer movie) by Dennis Jones.

One of my earliest influences was Frederic Brown, in a story called (go figure) "Etaoin Shrdlu." It was about an intelligent linotype. Written in the late fifties, it's incredibly dated, and yet still fascinating. Oh, my. I just checked on the date. I *read* it in the fifties, but it was written (according to the bibliography) in 1942. He also wrote "Arena" which some folk may remember being made into an old Star Trek episode.

For genuine strangeness, I'd suggest Cordwainer Smith.

[Dark Tangent]

Re: True Names

I'm going to have to check out this book... Sounds like an interesting little read. =)

I am a huge fan of Neuromancer, don't get me wrong, it was one of the books tht changed my view of the world. But after reading True Names + Shockwave Rider you see a lot of the (I'm guessing) influences Gibson drew on to create Neuromancer.

If we are going to go 'old skool' cyberpunk, before the term was coined, I'd throw in some Alfred Bester (The Stars My Destination, The Demolished Man) and even a little "Colossus: the Forbin Project" (A past DE CON TV staple, the original 'evil' computer movie) by Dennis Jones.

[Suriyawong]

Re: True Names

I'm going to have to check out this book... Sounds like an interesting little read. =)

[astcell]

Re: True Names

Who had the first handle name IRL? Maybe the photographer, Weegee?

[shrdlu]

Once again, the topic of naming things shows up in the forums. It's an interesting thought, even if the most recent thread (Do nicks or handles matter) on the topic seemed to trivialize the idea.

I dropped into this thread to add my 2 cents about building a personae around a nick, how I really enjoyed the story "True Names" by Vernor Vinge's visionary story telling, how critical it is to protect your identity until you decide to make it public, etc.

Instead I find an SVoS (Swirling Vortex of Shit) that started with such promise. Well, at least the original question "Do nicks or handles matter?" had a lot going for it.

That launched me into a search (in my library) for the book containing the short story. I have it online, but I prefer the comfort of a book. Ah, yes. There are any number of important things going on, there, in the less than a hundred pages that it takes to tell the story.

Vernor Vinge wrote True Names in 1979-1980 (according to the original, from June 1979 to January 1980), but it has echoes of the environment we find ourselves in today. One of the strongest messages that I heard then, and that is even more true today, is that it is sometimes wise to have backdoors, and that is even true with one's identity. I have never made any particular secret of who I was, but the buffer between my online identity (shrdlu) and the person I was in real life was very convenient.

What you call yourself is important. Just as your physical appearance announces who you are, the name you call yourself online creates a first impression. It does more than say who you are, of course. It also *affects* who you are. I don't know how many people here would remember Tale (an elder god from early usenet days) or Spaf, but I would posit that those choices affected them for years after the things they'd been known for were gone and forgotten.

That story was written about the same time I started using shrdlu (yes, Virginia, there *were* computers back then), and reading it affected me deeply. There it was. An interesting AI. A description of the padded cell that our country seems bent on becoming. People like me (no matter how dated some of it seems now, it still captures the feel of writing code, and taking systems).

"They had discovered Mr. Slippery's True Name and it was Roger Andrew
Pollack TIN/SSAN 0959-34-2861, and no amount of evasion, tricky
programming, or robot sources could ever again protect him from them."