A police officer reacts to flames during a protest against Chile's government in Santiago, Chile on November 4, 2019. Unrest began in Chile last October 18 with protests against a rise in transport tickets and other austerity measures and descended into vandalism, looting, and clashes between demonstrators and police. Protesters are angry about low salaries and pensions, poor public healthcare and education, and a yawning gap between rich and poor. (Photo by Henry Romero/Reuters)

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 hippopotamus performs during a show at the circus in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, Russia, July 7, 2016. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

An Afghan woman walks with a child in the old city of Herat province, Afghanistan on October 15, 2018. (Photo by Mohammad Ismail/Reuters)

A young girl from the Makonde ethnic group wearing earth makeup on her facen, a beauty symbol, carries a baby on her back as she poses for pictures in the community of Marupa, a relocation center for internally displaced families in the Chiure district, on February 23, 2021. Thousands of families from different districts of the Cabo Delgado province who have been displaced have been located by the government in different areas of the province. (Photo by Alfredo Zuniga/AFP Photo)

An empty Turcot Interchange is shown in Montreal, Saturday, January 9, 2021, as the Quebec government imposed a curfew to help stop the spread of COVID-19 starting at 8 p.m until 5 a.m and lasting until Feb. 8. (Photo by Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press via AP Photo)

Girls in ballet dresses pose near St. Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin's Spasskaya Tower in Red Square in central Moscow, Russia on July 19, 2023. (Photo by Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters)

Escorts of city prince Stefan I on their way to the key transfer for carnival in Maastricht, Netherlands on February 18, 2023. City prince Stefan I symbolically gains power over the city for three days. (Photo by Hollandse Hoogte/Rex Features/Shutterstock)