Author of cyberpunk novels such as Neuromancer (1984), Count Zero (1986), Mona Lisa Overdrive, and Virtual Light (1993).

Neuromancer, a novel about a computer hacker/criminal "cowboy" of the future helping to free an artificial intelligence from its programmed bounds, won the Hugo and Nebula science fiction awards and is credited as the seminal cyberpunk novel and the origin of the term "cyberspace".

Gibson does not have a technical background and supposedly purchased his first computer in 1992.