The Agrippa Files

Bibliography » Reviews

The following citations and quotations are from reviews and/or pre-publication press coverage of Agrippa. Caveat emptor: because of limited access to the book, “review” is in this case a fuzzy-logic concept. Some press coverage is clearly based just on pre-publication announcements and some on actual acquaintance with the artifact. But the status of others is blurry.

Baker, John F. “Electronic Art Book … for One Read Only.”

Rev. of Agrippa: A Book of the Dead, by William Gibson. Publishers Weekly 29 June 1992: 28.

Straightforward review of Agrippa with valuable observations from Begos and Gibson. (more…)

Blade X (Ed.). “Agrippa—Book of the Dead.”

Cyberlicious 13 Feb. 1993. Retrieved 31 August 2005.
http://kbs.cs.tu-berlin.de/~jutta/scream/6.txt

Cyberlicious offers a brief press release and review of Agrippa. (more…)

Chollet, Laurence. “It’s The Story You Just Can’t Forget — This Book Is Read On A Computer — and One Time Only.”

Rev. of Agrippa: A Book of the Dead, by William Gibson. The Record 17 May 1992. Retrieved 31 August 2005. http://www.highbeam.com/library/

This article emphasizes the work’s ephemeral nature and discusses the genesis of the project, apparently from a chance meeting at an art and technology fair in Barcelona, Spain, and offers some commentary from Gibson. (more…)

Chollet, Laurence. “William Gibson’s Second Sight in Meetings of Man and Machine, Ecstacy and Dread, the Cyberpunk Guru Divines the Future.”

Los Angeles Times Magazine 12 Sept. 1993: 34.

Article offers a discussion of Gibson’s novel Virtual Light. Although the article primarily deals with other work by Gibson, it includes a few comments on Agrippa. (more…)

Edwards, Gavin. “A Real Page Burner.”

Review of Agrippa: A Book of the Dead, by William Gibson. Details June 1992. Retrieved 31 Aug. 2005. http://www.textfiles.com/sf/cyberlit.txt

Interesting review of Agrippa: a Book of the Dead, particularly in its claims about the book’s appearance and text, which seem to differ from other accounts. (more…)

Ehrenman, Gayle C. “Write Once, Read Once Literature.”

PC Magazine 11 (1992): 34 (1).

Article offers commentary regarding the ephemeral character of the poem’s content and the technology platform itself. (more…)

Fein, Esther B. “Read It, and It’s Gone.”

Rev. of Agrippa: A Book of the Dead, by William Gibson. Book Notes, New York Times 18 Nov. 1992: C26.

Short item in the Book Notes column of the Times about the book (“and the word is used in the loosest sense possible”) contemporary to its release. Includes a description of the book and Gibson’s scrolling poem based on announcements from, and an interview with, the publisher. (more…)

Gehr, Richard. “Here Today.”

Village Voice 29 Dec. 1992:93.

This article provides a thorough description of the work, as well as a summary of its broadcast and reception. (more…)

Holderness, Mike. “Vanishing Act Caught in the Net.”

Rev. of Agrippa: A Book of the Dead, by William Gibson. New Scientist 20 Mar. 1993: 45.

Article offers a short review of Agrippa and its early transcription on the net. (more…)