Skinner's Room

Infobox short story |
name = Skinner's Room
title_orig =
translator =
author = William Gibson
country =
language = English
series =Bridge trilogy
genre = Science fiction short story
publication_type = Exhibition catalogue, periodical
published_in = "Visionary San Francisco"
"Omni"
publisher = Prestal
Omni Publication International
media_type = Video, print (magazine)
pub_date = 1990
November 1991
english_pub_date =
preceded_by =
followed_by ="Virtual Light" (1994)

"Skinner's Room" is a short story by influential cyberpunk author William Gibson.

Synopsis

The story takes place in a near-future where the United States is in decline, having been negatively affected by some event referred to as the "devaluations." It is set in a decaying San Francisco in which the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge is closed and taken over by the homeless. [cite news|title=Seeing a City as it Was—and as it Could be Changing, Challenging San Francisco |first=Dorothy |last=Burkhart |work=San Jose Mercury News |date=June 15, 1990 |pages=14D] The wealthy denizens of the city have retreated to gated-access enclaves. [cite journal |title=Dream and Nightmare in William Gibson's Architectures of Cyberspace |first=Conrad |last=Russell |journal=Altitude |volume=2 |year=2002 |issue=3 |issn=1444-1160 |url=http://www.api-network.com/altitude/pdf/2/3.pdf |format=.pdf] The room mentioned in the title is a shack built atop one of the bridge's towers.cite book | last = Tatsumi | first = Takayuki | title = Full Metal Apache | publisher = Duke University Press | location = Durham | year = 2006 | isbn = 0822337746 |pages=p.118] Skinner has lived on the bridge, and in his room, for a long time, and is accompanied by a girl who arrived only three months before.

The story reveals that, long ago, the Bridge had been closed to vehicle traffic (for three years) and that the pressure to find somewhere to live had forced homeless people to seize the bridge and set up a squatters' town there. The community that arose was vibrant and was watched by the world's media. The town grew in a piecemeal fashion, built from salvaged parts as well as material apparently donated by more wealthy nations. The girl is interested in the history of the bridge town, and at the end of the story Skinner has a dream in which he remembers being at the front of the crowd who seized the bridge (Skinner is the first onto the bridge) and scaled the towers.

Publication history

"Skinner's Room" was commisioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for their exhibition "Visionary San Francisco", shown from June 14 to August 26, 1990. [cite book | last = Zinovich |first=Jordan | title = Canadas: Kanaki | publisher = Semiotext(e) | location = Los Angeles | year = 1994 | isbn = 0969843305 ] [cite book | last = Polledri | first = Paolo | title = Visionary San Francisco | publisher = Prestal | location = Munich | year = 1990 |oclc=22115872 | isbn = 3791310607 ] Gibson's story inspired a contribution to the exhibition by architects Ming Fung and Craig Hodgetts that envisioned a San Francisco in which the rich live in high-tech, solar-powered towers, above the decrepit city and its crumbling bridge. [cite book | last = Smith | first = Hazel | title = Improvisation, Hypermedia and the Arts since 1945 | publisher = Harwood Academic Publishers | location = Chur | year = 1997 | isbn = 371865878X |pages=p.261] The architects exhibit featured Gibson on a monitor discussing the future and reading from "Skinner's Room".cite web|url= http://www.skierpage.com/gibson/biblio.htm |title=William Gibson Bibliography / Mediagraphy |accessdate = 2008-02-09 |author = S. Page]

A slightly different version of the short story was featured in the November 1991 issue of "Omni".cite journal |last=Gibson |first=William |year=1991 |month=November |title=Skinner's Room |journal=Omni |publisher=Omni Publication International] The "OMNI" version concerns an unnamed girl and an old man named Skinner who live in the one-room shack built on top of the first cable tower of the Bridge. This version was collected in Gardner Dozois' 1992 anthology "", [cite book |year=1992 |title= |editor=Gardner Dozois |publisher=St. Martin's |isbn=0312078897] and in Larry McCaffery's "After Yesterday's Crash" (1995). [cite book | authorlink=Larry McCaffery |last = McCaffery | first = Larry | title = After Yesterday's Crash | publisher = Penguin Books | location = New York | year = 1995 | isbn = 0140240853]

Significance

"Skinner's Room" is the first appearance of the Bridge in Gibson's fiction.cite book | last = Rapatzikou | first = Tatiani | title = Gothic Motifs in the Fiction of William Gibson | publisher = Rodopi | location = Amsterdam | year = 2004 | isbn = 9789042017610 |oclc = 55807961 |pages=p.181] In the acknowledgements at the end of his 1994 novel "Virtual Light", Gibson writes that the short story later developed into the novel; the character of Skinner is one of the main characters in "Virtual Light" and the setting and characters of "Skinner's Room" are revisited in the sequels to the novel, "Idoru" and "All Tomorrow's Parties" (collectively known as the Bridge trilogy).

"The New York Times" hailed the "Visionary San Francisco" exhibition as "one of the most ambitious, and admirable, efforts to address the realm of architecture and cities that any museum in the country has mounted in the last decade", despite calling Ming and Hodgetts's reaction to "Skinner's Room" a "powerful, but sad and not a little cynical, work".cite news |first=Paul |last=Goldberger |title=In San Francisco, A Good Idea Falls With a Thud |url= http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE1DB103CF931A2575BC0A966958260 |work=Architecture View |publisher=The New York Times |date=1990-08-12 |accessdate=2007-11-06 ] After its 1991 republication in "OMNI", "Skinner's Room" was nominated for the Locus Award for Best Short Story in 1992. [cite web|url=http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/Locus1992.html |work=Locus |publisher=Charles N. Brown |title=The Locus Index to SF Awards: 1992 Locus Awards |accessdate=2008-10-09]

Related topics

*Kowloon Walled City, a former squatters' town in Hong Kong with which Gibson was fascinated

References