Dustin Murley (L) and Jessey Sisson race on their ostriches during the annual Ostrich Festival in Chandler, Arizona March 10, 2013. (Photo by Joshua Lott/Reuters)

In this Thursday, April 11, 2013 photo, North Korean female soldiers stand watch on the river bank of the North Korean town of Sinuiju, opposite to the Chinese border city of Dandong. (Photo by AP Photo)

People move through a waterlogged street in Gauhati, India, Tuesday, July 16, 2013. Heavy showers flooded some areas in the city on Tuesday. (Photo by Anupam Nath/AP Photo)

An employee at Christie's auction house examines a complete sub-fossilised elephant bird egg on March 27, 2013 in London, England. The elephant bird egg is expected to fetch 30,000 GBP when it features in Christie's “Travel, Science and Natural History” sale, which is to be held on April 24, 2013 in London. (Photo by Oli Scarff)

Members of the 2013 “Jarl Squad” take part in the annual Up Helly Aa festival which culminates in the burning of a Viking Galley in Lerwick, Shetland Islands on January 29, 2013. Up Helly Aa celebrates the influence of the Scandinavian Vikings in the Shetland Islands and has employed this theme in the festival since 1870. The event culminates with up to 1,000 “guizers” (men in costume) throwing flaming torches into their Viking longboat. (Photo by Andy Buchanan/AFP Photo)

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.