485 pages
English language
Published Nov. 6, 2014
Depending on her veteran brother's benefits in a city where jobs outside the drug trade are rare, Flynne assists her brother's latest beta-test tech assignment only to uncover an elaborate murder scheme.
"William Gibson returns with his first novel since 2010's New York Times-bestselling Zero History. Where Flynne and her brother, Burton, live, jobs outside the drug business are rare. Fortunately, Burton has his veteran's benefits, for neural damage he suffered from implants during his time in the USMC's elite Haptic Recon force. Then one night Burton has to go out, but there's a job he's supposed to do-a job Flynne didn't know he had. Beta-testing part of a new game, he tells her. The job seems to be simple: work a perimeter around the image of a tower building. Little buglike things turn up. He's supposed to get in their way, edge them back. That's all there is …
Depending on her veteran brother's benefits in a city where jobs outside the drug trade are rare, Flynne assists her brother's latest beta-test tech assignment only to uncover an elaborate murder scheme.
"William Gibson returns with his first novel since 2010's New York Times-bestselling Zero History. Where Flynne and her brother, Burton, live, jobs outside the drug business are rare. Fortunately, Burton has his veteran's benefits, for neural damage he suffered from implants during his time in the USMC's elite Haptic Recon force. Then one night Burton has to go out, but there's a job he's supposed to do-a job Flynne didn't know he had. Beta-testing part of a new game, he tells her. The job seems to be simple: work a perimeter around the image of a tower building. Little buglike things turn up. He's supposed to get in their way, edge them back. That's all there is to it. He's offering Flynne a good price to take over for him. What she sees, though, isn't what Burton told her to expect. It might be a game, but it might also be murder"--
"New novel from New York Times bestselling author William Gibson"--
A really outstanding world, if you happened to watch the 'inspired-by' adaptation on tv, definitely read this for the full depth of the ideas.
A really outstanding world, if you happened to watch the 'inspired-by' adaptation on tv, definitely read this for the full depth of the ideas.
Content warning Spoilers for the plot of The Peripheral (novel)
This novel is based on some great concepts, but overall I don't think it did enough with them.
The premise is that the inhabitants of a post-apocalyptic future have the ability to communicate with the past, which creates alternate timelines that they can continue to communicate with. They can recruit people in these alternate timelines (which they call "stubs") to control drones in their present, including humanoids that they call "peripherals".
This seems like a setup to explore wealth inequality and imperialist exploitation - the stub would be labour-rich while the future is depopulated - and it does have an element of that. However, it is portrayed more as a hobby, an intellectual exercise to see if anything can be done to avoid the apocalypse in the stub by making advanced technology available to it. The action of the novel is incidental to the nature of the stub or its relationship to the future - an accidental witnessing of a murder which makes it a battleground between forces that are alien to it, over matters that don't concern it.
In the end, this rich-man's fancy is unambiguously beneficial to the people living in the stub, and that's where it's left. Yay billionaire philanthropy, I guess.
I also found it quite difficult to follow what was going on initially. It starts out with one of my pet-peeves - a "game" that does not seem like something that an experienced gamer such as the protagonist would plausibly find entertaining: flying a drone around and bumping other drones out of the way for some unspecified reason. The TV show does much better with this by having the neural control tech for peripherals available in the stub from the beginning, and having it used in a way that could plausibly be an action-adventure game. But, this isn't a review of the TV show :P
A wonderful world to visit, a classic Gibson story that leaves you gasping "that escalated quickly"
A wonderful world to visit, a classic Gibson story that leaves you gasping "that escalated quickly"
Part whodunit, part dystopian, part time travel, part thriller, and all Gibson. Very nice.
It's good to see Gibson doing work set in the future. His past couple of books were not placed in a future time. I am hoping this book turns into a short series. There are so many unanswered question.
Overall it takes a bit to get up to speed and understand the setting, but once done, it's a good murder mystery.
It's good to see Gibson doing work set in the future. His past couple of books were not placed in a future time. I am hoping this book turns into a short series. There are so many unanswered question.
Overall it takes a bit to get up to speed and understand the setting, but once done, it's a good murder mystery.
