Uncorrected Proof

I'm pretty sure my favorite writer is William Gibson.

I'm reading "Virtual Light" now, and I love it so much I have been doing that thing I was always getting busted for when I was a kid: staying up late reading past my bedtime.
This never happens to me.

I was in a book slump that lasted for many years, until 2003 (i think). I would read books, listlessly, and have a horrible time finishing them, uninterested in them, blah blah blah. I still read, all the time in fact, but I was sort of going through the motions. I got so that I would read the first chapter, carefully gauge my reaction, and usually ditch it. Then I read Gibson's "Pattern Recognition". It kicked my ass so hard that I remembered why I loved books. It's a bold statement, but true. I remembered why I loved LIFE! At the time, I was working in a bookstore (it was my 3rd year in the book biz, I think, to be followed by about 3 more), which may or may not have contributed to the book-slump.

Mykle just finished re-reading "Pattern Recognition", I just finished "Mona Lisa Overdrive", I'm on to "Virtual Light", even though it was written 15 years ago it feels like it's the future that has just come to pass. I often can't tell if something he writes about actually exists or if he made it up. Anyhow.

I was reading Gibson's blog tonight (cheers to Cooper for telling me that Gibson had a blog. When I voiced my disbelief, he said, "OF COURSE William Gibson has a blog!!!"). I was in the archives of 2003, right before "Pattern Recognition" was released. He says:

Please remember that those are uncorrected proofs you’re reading, and that that is not just a matter of typographical errors. The text of the ARC is the text of the manuscript I turned in last year, in the first week of April. It has since been quite substantially revised, top to bottom, twice; Material has been added, material has been subtracted, and much busy tweaking undertaken generally.
The text of the ARC should not be regarded as the text of the novel. Ever. Some of the current discussions hinge on details that have since been removed, or altered.

ARC means "Advanced Reader's Copy". Being that I worked at a bookstore when it came out, and that I was REALLY poor, I went and looked at my tattered edition of "PR". Right on the front it says:
Uncorrected Proof for Limited Distribution

It's an ARC.

I'm totally going to go buy the actual published version of it tomorrow.