A woman travels on a train stopping at a subway station visited by foreign reporters in central Pyongyang, North Korea on April 14, 2017. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

An employee dressed in a Santa Claus costume plays with cats at the Catgarden in Seoul, South Korea, December 14, 2020. (Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

Workers clean the premises of Pashupatinath temple in Kathmandu, Nepal, December 16, 2020. The Pashupatinath Temple in Nepal reopened for devotees on Wednesday morning, almost eight months after it was shut due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo by Xinhua News Agency/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A dog wearing ski goggles rides on the back of a man as they both stand in Times Square in New York, USA on January 25, 2021. (Photo by John Angelillo/UPI/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A string art picture made by artist Ani Abakumova in a workshop in the village of Romashkovo in Moscow Region, Russia on August 2, 2019. Ani Abakumova and her husband Andrei Abakumov create string art replicas of famous paintings. Andrei makes computer calculations that show patterns for future images, then Ani winds coloured strings around nails hammered around a plywood board. (Photo by Anton Novoderezhkin/TASS)

A market trader in Gaibandha in Bangladesh on September 25, 2019, surrounded by bottle gourd vegetables, which sell for around 3p ($ 0.04) each. (Photo by Solent News)

William Gibson is not one of the authors that spits out novels like a machine – in his long and fruitful career he has only published 11 novels andof short stories and articles in the tens each. Still his impact on modern literature was huge – the “noir prophet” of the cyberpunk subgenre (that he was one of the pioneers of) has predicted the rise of reality television, virtual reality, video games and the internet. He is a Hugo and Nebula award winning science fiction writer, with a special eye for what the future might bring.

A chicken seller carries his chickens on his head in the market in Peshawar, Pakistan, August 20, 2015. (Photo by Khuram Parvez/Reuters)