Books

Short works

Books : reviews

William Gibson, ed.
Burning Chrome.
Grafton. 1986

Contents

Johnny Mnemonic. 1981
we're an information economy. They teach you that in school. What they don't tell you is that it's impossible to move, to live, to operate at any level without leaving traces, bits, seemingly meaningless fragments of personal information. Fragments that can be retrieved, amplified...

The Gernsback Continuum. 1981
Fragments of a Hologram Rose. 1977
John Shirley, William Gibson. The Belonging Kind. 1981
Hinterlands. 1986
Bruce Sterling, William Gibson. Red Star, Winter Orbit. 1986
New Rose Hotel. 1981
The Winter Market. 1985
Michael Swanwick, William Gibson. Dogfight. 1986
Burning Chrome. 1982

William Gibson.
Distrust that Particular Flavor.
Penguin. 2012

William Gibson was writing fiction when he predicted the Internet. But as his stories bled into reality he became one of the first to report on the real-world consequences of cyberspace’s growth and development.

These essays, from the technological and cultural frontier, confront our attempts to make sense of this new territory. They cover a variety of subjects, including: ‘Metrophagy - the Art and Science of Digesting Great Cities’; an account of obsession in ‘the world’s attic’ – eBay; reasons why ‘The Net is a Waste of Time’; Singapore as ‘Disneyland with the Death Penalty’; and a primer on Japan, our default setting for the future.

Studded with revealing autobiographical fragments, these pieces map the development of Gibson’s acute perceptions about modern life. This is a guide to the new territory we find ourselves in – written by one of the first to explore it.

William Gibson.
The Peripheral.
Penguin. 2014

In the near future in a broken-down rural America, Flynne Fisher scrapes a living as a gamer for rich players. One night, working a game set in a futuristic but puzzlingly empty London, she sees a death that’s unnervingly vivid. Soon after she gets word that it isn’t a game after all – the future she saw is all too real, she’s the only witness to a murder and someone from that unreal tomorrow now wants her dead.

William Gibson.
Agency.
Penguin. 2020

San Francisco, 2017. Clinton’s in the White House, Brexit never happened – and Verity Jane’s got herself a new job.

Verity, aka ‘the app-whisperer’, has just been hired by a shadowy start-up to evaluate a pair-of-glasses-cum-digital-assistant called Eunice. Only Eunice has other ideas.

It’s soon clear that Eunice is smarter than anyone she’s ever met, conceals some serious capabilities and is profoundly paranoid, which is just as well, since suddenly some bad people are after Verity.

Meanwhile, in a post-apocalyptic London a century from now, PR fixer Wilf Netherton is tasked with interfering in the alternative past in which Verity and Eunice exist. Something nasty is about to happen there – and fixing it will require not only Eunice’s unique human-AI skillset but also a little help from the future.

A future that Verity soon fears may never be…

William Gibson.
Pattern Recognition.
Penguin. 2003

William Gibson.
Spook Country.
Penguin. 2007

William Gibson.
Zero History.
Penguin. 2010