laura@haddock.UUCP (09/25/87)
Keywords: In article <1297@tulum.swatsun.UUCP> hirai@swatsun (Eiji "A.G." Hirai) writes: (In response to a query about ICE) > > Intrusion (or Intruder?) Counter-measures Electronics. Correct >me if I'm wrong. There was a discussion about this some time ago in >sf-lovers. I think some other author came up with this originally. As far as who came up with it first, I have an article containing a transcript of a panel at a science fiction convention which included the following dialogue between Tom Maddox and William "God of Cyberpunk" Gibson: Gibson: [...] There is some kind of weird synchronistic phenomenon that all science fiction writers seem to be aware of. If you get an idea, and you don't use it, somebody will use it. Maddox: Like ICE. Gibson: Tom is the inventor of the acronym ICE. He submitted his first story to me for my consideration, and I said: "What are you going to do with this story?" He said: "I don't know." And I said: "I'm going to steal this acronym." Maddox: Actually that's much too polite. We were sitting in a bar in Portland, and we were sitting there leafing through this and he came to this one page, and it was like BOING! He said: "I'm going to steal this from you." I knew the story was doomed, so I said: "All right." But I'm the only one who got credit. (c) copyright Science Fiction EYE, Vol. 1, No. 1 -- Yet another missive from The writer in the closet {harvard | think}!ima!haddock!laura "Think of it as Evolution in Action." -- Oath of Fealty