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A review by harmonictempest
The Peripheral by William Gibson
4.0
Page-turning fun from a sci-fi legend.
The writing here is really solid, and it’s really interesting to see the “boring part” of the future world. Gibson paints a completely believable version of something like backcountry West Virginia, in a county with no income, a few decades in the future where most things can be 3D-printed. Bizarrely and I think intentionally, his much more advanced second setting feels in many ways more familiar to me, which I think is an intentional commentary on class baked into the novel.
The premise of the book can’t be described without spoilers because the book itself walks you through the it without upfront explanation. That also keeps me from sharing a few things due to spoilers, but there are a few genuinely sticky ideas and haunting images in the book. Suffice to say that what appears to be a quick beta test of a game in her (wounded veteran) brother’s trailer turns out to be a lot more.
The world was clearly imagined and the action moved briskly and was highly entertaining. There’s not a lot of deeper message or reflection in the book, and the lead characters are often along for the ride rather than moving the action. Read this for the entertainment and the thorough imagination of the effects of nanotechnology and 3D printing on our current world.
The writing here is really solid, and it’s really interesting to see the “boring part” of the future world. Gibson paints a completely believable version of something like backcountry West Virginia, in a county with no income, a few decades in the future where most things can be 3D-printed. Bizarrely and I think intentionally, his much more advanced second setting feels in many ways more familiar to me, which I think is an intentional commentary on class baked into the novel.
The premise of the book can’t be described without spoilers because the book itself walks you through the it without upfront explanation. That also keeps me from sharing a few things due to spoilers, but there are a few genuinely sticky ideas and haunting images in the book. Suffice to say that what appears to be a quick beta test of a game in her (wounded veteran) brother’s trailer turns out to be a lot more.
The world was clearly imagined and the action moved briskly and was highly entertaining. There’s not a lot of deeper message or reflection in the book, and the lead characters are often along for the ride rather than moving the action. Read this for the entertainment and the thorough imagination of the effects of nanotechnology and 3D printing on our current world.