In 1993, just a few months after WIRED put out its first issue, the magazine ran headlong into what was perhaps its first major controversy. The editors had sent William Gibson, a forefather of cyberpunk, to Singapore to report out a travelogue. They must have known his account would cause a splash when they put it on the cover, the author staring out at readers with a pensive, troubled look on his face. His essay, "Disneyland With The Death Penalty," is hardly an endorsement of the city-state. But who could have expected the article would get the magazine banned from an entire country less than a year after its founding?
I'm actually not kidding. It's unclear to me when, exactly, the ban was reversed, but for a time WIRED was not allowed into Singapore. In an ironic twist, this taps into Gibson's anxieties about the island nation's authoritarian streak. To be fair, there's no denying his impressions of the country, while fascinating and rich, are othering, even caustic. "Singapore is curiously, indeed gratifyingly devoid of certain aspects of creativity," he writes at one point. "I say gratifyingly because I soon found myself taking a rather desperate satisfaction in any evidence that such a very tightly-run ship would lack innovation elan." Oof.
Honestly, I doubt this piece would get assigned in 2023. The politics of sending someone off to write about visiting a foreign country on the other side of the world are more fraught now than they used to be, and for good reason. But credit where credit is due: There's something brilliant about enlisting a science fiction writer to pen a nonfiction story about travelling to a far-off land. With that in mind, I want to know, if you could read an essay like this, which novelist would you want writing it, and where would you want them to travel? Drop your fantasy pairings in the comments below the story.
See you next week!
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حبيبي ليس يعدله حبيب *** ولا لسواه في قلبي نصيب حبيب غاب عن بصري وسمعي *** ولكن في فؤادي ما يغيب يا حبيب ...
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