Dissertation on William Gibson: Finished

I have now handed in my MA dissertation and that's the last piece of work for my course. All that is left is to wait until November to find out what mark it gets and what grade the overall. In the end my dissertation title was "The Aesthetic of Information Technology in William Gibson's Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive"; suitably academic sounding, but mostly a long discussion of why his novels are so punky and stylish. With a lot about paranoia.

This was my second time using the Kindle for academic work and I found it immeasurably useful. I already have a copy of Neuromancer but it is pretty much on permanent loan to different friends as I am keen for people to read it. So instead I got myself a copy on the Kindle. All my other source novels were in paperback which gave me a chance to compare working with the different mediums. I've used the Kindle for an essay before, when I wrote about Gibson's Zero History. Why yes, I do like William Gibson's writing, how did you guess? Fortunately, since when I last used a Kindle to reference with, Amazon have added page numbers as well as locations, so my supervisor can find the quotes in a printed version.

The main benefit of the Kindle is the highlighting and copy/pasting of notes without having to copy them out by hand. Saves time and increases accuracy. Secondly, the search feature allows me to find lines that I only vaguely remember; so long as you can recall one or two words (and if they are unusual words then you only need one) you can find the quote. And while I was doing this I kept on finding interesting references elsewhere in the novel that were about the same thing and used the same words. I even used the search feature to compare how many times Gibson referred to either 'cyberspace' or the 'matrix' and was surprised to find how much more frequent the matrix is - not something I noticed when reading the book. I suspect that academics are really going to get into these kind of features when ebooks become more commonplace on courses.

The Brazilian cover - far better.

Of course, my Kindle edition of Neuromancer is not going to replace my actual book. I like being able to carry it around all the time and it is nice to search for quotes I remember, but it just isn't the same. I love the tacky blue cover on my battered paperback - one of the better covers for a book that is consistently produced in dreadful covers. The ebook edition has to be the worst offender here - despite the tough competition - because it doesn't even try. Covers are a lovely part of the whole book experience and help you remember books you read ages ago. The ebook of Neuromancer just has a text title though, on a blank background. Not even bothering. Soundly disappointing and unlikely to make me remember it fondly. I liked the minimal ebook cover for Zero History and something like the Brazilian cover design would work great on a Kindle. I feel somewhat short changed, but I'll live.

On the more important topic of my disseration: all in all it was quite fun to write though a bit of a drag towards the end when I'd been rewriting it for almost a week solid. Started to come up with sentences for my conclusion when I was asleep and dreaming. My favourite bit of the dissertation? - checking the quotes and bibliography while watching The Never Ending Story. If I am going to follow a bibliography format (MLA this time) then it might as well be done properly. And by properly I mean right down to the placing of commas. Punctuation dictator. My least favourite bit of the dissertation? - not being able to find a book that I needed to reference for an important chapter. Consequently turning my entire bedroom upside down to look for it - even moving furniture - to discover that actually it was on the bookshelf by the door all along. Stressful, time consuming, and messy. Lesson learned: keep all of your books in one box, not all except one.