"The Winter Market" is a science fiction short story written by William Gibson, and published as part of his Burning Chrome short story collection. "The Winter Market" was commissioned by Vancouver Magazine with the stipulation that it be set in the city.
The theme of the story primarily concerns human relationships and their tenuous and problematic qualities by deploying the concept of technological immortality, in which one's consciousness is s...
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"The Winter Market" is a science fiction short story written by William Gibson, and published as part of his Burning Chrome short story collection. "The Winter Market" was commissioned by Vancouver Magazine with the stipulation that it be set in the city.
The theme of the story primarily concerns human relationships and their tenuous and problematic qualities by deploying the concept of technological immortality, in which one's consciousness is separated from the body and "uploaded" into a supercomputer, where it continues to think and function on its own. Characters in the story are marked by a distinct failure to connect, while they express typical genre concerns regarding this type of theoretical mind transfer; whether or not the online consciousness really is the same individual, and whether or not it was moral to allow this to happen.
In this particular tale, Lise's original body is defective and failing, partially due to a congenital disease, and partially due to drug abuse....
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