The Peripheral (The Jackpot Trilogy)

I have a confession to make. I've never read NEUROMANCER. I was one of those who had to be pulled kicking and screaming into the cyberpunk era. I didn't want to read cyberpunk at all. Not only didn't I read NEUROMANCER, but I didn't read the other really big cyberpunk novel of the day, Neal Stephenson's SNOW CRASH. I wanted my space ships, I wanted my aliens, I wanted my galactic space opera. What the heck was this cyberpunk stuff, and why was it getting in my science fiction? I swore I was never going to like cyberpunk. I read Gibson's COUNT ZERO and VIRUAL LIGHT. I read Stephenson's THE DIAMOND AGE. I decided I didn't like the style OR the subject matter. Heck, I even tried to read THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE, by both Sterling and Gibson, and I decided that steampunk (yes, that was steampunk, but no one seems to credit it that way these days, at least not that I hear) was a waste of my time too. That was 30 years ago. Times change. People change. Writers change. Genres change. I don't mind reading steampunk these days - I feel that some of it is really pretty good. I absolutely loved ANATHEM by Neal Stephenson, although I generally don't read his books because they are monstrous doorstops that I don't have time for. And I tried Gibson again. THE PERIPHERAL was being talked about on podcasts, in blogs, and everywhere else that I pay attention to in the field. It was getting good reviews, and it was being hailed as "Gibson's return to undeniable science fiction". I was dubious of that last statement, as I didn't think anything else he wrote was science fiction, so how can he return to it? But as I said, things change. And since this was the year I was going to get ahead of the game by reading novels that would assuredly be on the Hugo ballot, I figured I would give it a try (and as far as getting ahead of the game, well, we all know how THAT turned out). And wouldn't you know, I liked it. THE PERIPHERAL takes place in a not too distant future. Well, I should rephrase that. It takes place in two futures: one not too distant, and one a century or so further on. The near-ish future, in America, or some form of it, is a bit of a mess. There's the drug trade, an updated version of what the reader presumes is WalMart, and a very bleak economy. The further along future that we see is in London, after an event called The Jackpot had killed off a great portion of the world's population. We begin in the near future. Flynne lives with her brother Burton and her mother. Burton is a military veteran who suffers from trauma he suffered while serving in the U.S. Military. He is getting aid from the U.S. government because he's not supposed to be able to work. He has, however, found a job beta testing some video game software for a Colombian outfit called Coldiron. One day he goes off to be part of a protest group against a religious organization, and asks Flynne to cover for him on the job for a few days. His job in the game is that of security. He tells Flynne to keep an eye on a particular tower and fend off little nano-paparazzi type devices. However, on the second day of the job she witnesses a murder, and something doesn't seem quite right to her about it. And off we go into the story. THE PERIPHERAL is a murder mystery, pure and simple. Well, maybe not so pure and simple, since we *are* talking a) science fiction, and b) science fiction by William Gibson. It's probably not too much of a spoiler to say that the murder was in the future, a future life is also stark and bleak - never mind just a bit weird - due to The Jackpot. One of the devices that the future has is some sort of mysterious server, built by the Chinese (but never really visited in detail or explained at all in the book) that allows residents of that future to travel back and interact with various different pasts, which may or may not be their own past (It really is all a bit wonky but kind of cool. I didn't let myself get too distracted by the lack of details or even the not quite understanding of how pasts and that particular future relate. It was better that way.), call "stubs". People who do that are called "continua enthusiasts", and while in the novel we don't much deal with them, the people we deal with do have to go back to the past to try and figure out what they can about the murder that took place. I'll tell you what - this is a really cool story with some really neat concepts. While the idea of telling a story that takes place in two separate times is not new, the way of the two timelines interacting with each other is new - at least to me. Yeah, it's a bit of "hand-wavium", but hand-wavium is a time honored tradition in our field, and it is acceptable some times and not in others. I think it works well here. The future is populated with a bunch of interesting - at least to me - characters, including an investigator, Lowbeer, who reminds me a lot of Paula Myo from Peter F. Hamilton's novels. The novel is not without its faults, minor though they be. The first 100 pages or so (yes, I looked while I was listening to the audiobook) were a bit of a slog to get through. Gibson introduces new terminology that makes readers scratch their heads for awhile until they figure out just what it is he is talking about (although it could be argued that a science fiction reader, especially one who reads Gibson, should not only be used to it by now, but shouldn't need anything spelled out for them anyway), and it does take awhile to figure out that Gibson is switching back and forth between two timelines. However, once all that stuff is squared away and the reader figures out the basics, the story moves along at a pretty good pace, and is a good read. The conclusion was, for me, satisfying. Gibson wraps everything up fairly nicely with a little bow, which is something many writers don't do these days (although it can be argued that this is a standalone novel - for which I am grateful - and he darn well should tie things up nicely). As far as the narration goes, well, I didn't think anyone was going to top R.C. Bray, the narrator of THE MARTIAN. I was wrong. Lorelei King was magnificent. She handled the voices of the different characters terrifically, in my opinion. The pacing was terrific, and I loved the accent. She didn't intrude upon the story; rather, she enhanced it from the very beginning. I would hope I run across her in other audiobooks I listen to in the future. NEUROMANCER was one of those novels that comes along once a generation that changes the face of the field of science fiction, at least that's what I'm told. I will have to go back and read it, 30+ years after the fact. THE PERIPHERAL is not that kind of novel, but it doesn't have to be. It just is what it is - a terrific book.

I was a late discoverer of Gibson, but happened upon his existing body of work at just the right time in my 20's to be profoundly swept into the poetry of his wordsmithing and edginess of his entrancing creative vision. The Sprawl trilogy was like that first swig of redbull. That first plunge into the cold wave. It didn't just describe a future, it grasped the sheer potential of the nascent digital revolution and swung counter culture edginess honed to razor sharpness with so much creative force that it scored a notch into reality itself. Life did imitate art. "Cyberspace" happened. The Bridge trilogy which followed was more solidly anchored in the world we know; bustling with life, more focused on how that other cyberspace world touches and overlaps with our own, how they complement each other, distinctions eventually breaking down, as in Idoru. We see more stories about people getting by, one way and the other, in the crazy world ours just might become. An older and more reflective Gibson wrote the Bigendian trilogy. He had lived more years in this world, seen the times come to a fork in the future and not go down a path like that of which he wrote. The future is no longer the Sprawl, no longer neo-Tokyo, no longer jacked in, drugged up, surviving in stitchpunk colonies on a broken bridge or lounging in the edgiest of designer clubs, but Gibson had found it, hiding, becoming, here and there in our midst, and written of those who walked those unseen paths just out of sight of our daily commute. *mild spoilers, should not affect your experience with the novel* This book is none of those things. I found it a bit unsettling, as if Gibson has lost faith in the future. In one timeline the future almost doesn't matter; in the other it only happens because of a (rather strained and undeveloped, as if Gibson recognizes the details are ultimately unimportant) protracted global cataclysm from which a minority are to adapt and survive. But I think I understand what's happening. I believe Gibson is making peace with his upbringing. Some of you will know that Gibson grew up in rural Appalachia, in a small town that was, in his own words, "a place where modernity had arrived to some extent but was deeply distrusted." Finding the atmosphere stifling and seeking refuge in sci-fi, this creative rebellion led Gibson to immerse himself in counter culture, which we see very strongly coming out in the Bridge trilogy. In The Peripheral we've gone back to rural Appalachia, not much changed from today, in some ways not much changed from Gibson's childhood, with its drug-based local economy, and returning veterans the worse for wear but making do; beloved mama on meds, slowly aging; "the boys" getting themselves into trouble but always ready to help others out of it; fried eggs in the local diner. Camo. I believe Gibson, well past his rebellious years and with the wisdom that comes with age, has delved into his oldest memories and painted a loving picture of the environments and people of his youth, with all their virtues and flaws, in a place where the future only trickles in, can only touch the outside of things. Those in the future looking back at it can only shake their heads, wondering that such a time was. Perhaps Gibson, peering all the way back over 3 magnificent trilogies, does too. There are occasionally moments of the Gibson of old; the first chapter when he describes the trailer is strong with that particular flavor, and serves as a kind of bridge from the Bigendian trilogy. Some portions of the farther-future timeline are compelling, like the Medici, and gratifyingly unsettling, like the Pacific garbage-patch world and its denizens. But there are chapters where one feels that his heart's simply not in it and he's moving through the plot, solidly but not masterfully. It's a good book, but feels more like something co-written by Gibson might be. It rallies a bit by the end; overall I was softly let down. But maybe that's what Gibson is sensing about the future these days... a quiet exhaustion, a vague sense that times are bad and worse times are inexorably approaching, but in the mean time life going on after the hangovers from all tomorrow's parties have subsided.

If you've never read Gibson before, this is NOT the place to start. I remember the first time I read Neuromancer. Jeeze, like 30 years ago now. Reading Neuromancer and its often dense, cinematic prose often made me with for a glossary with the book, like there had been when I read my older brother's late 60s paperback copy of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange. But Burgess' was using Anglicized Russian as British English slang in that book -- you really needed the glossary. For Gibson, everything is written in English, so you get no glossary. You have to figure out the meanings of new/invented/esoteric terms from the context of the prose. Now, it's got it's confusing, hallucinatory aspects that make it akin to reading Burroughs sometimes (but without all the drugs and homosexual sex). But Burroughs' stuff also was frustrating to read because of the cut-up, disjointed narrative style. Gibson's stuff is far more tightly plotted and less hallucinatory. Figuring out the meanings of terms from the prose and context is less an issue in this novel than in some of Gibson's previous novels (like The Sprawl trilogy novels). But it is definitely much more of an issue here than it was with in the last three "Bigend" trillogy novels combined. I did not have a problem figuring out terms/actions from the context with this novel. For people who are already aware of topics as disparate but technologically reliant as social media's geolocation capabilities, social media mood indication/tracking, advancements in 3D printing, and concepts such as string/mbrane theories of physics (in a PBS TV kind of way) and possible parellel multiple universes, this book should not be difficult to read. For everyone else, yeah... it will be a problem. I recently had a friend -- who hadn't re-read any of Gibson's first 3-6 novels since she originally read them, 30-ish years ago -- complain about 3 things with respect to this book. I, however, recently re-acquired ALL of his books in ebook format, after having lost paperback and hardcover copies over the years. So I was in a unique position to respond to her arguments. First, she said the first 100 pages of The Peripheral were unnecessarily dense. My response to that was: no, not really, unless you've forgotten how he *used* to write. Because this is not a new style for him -- it's more a return to form. Second, she objected to the fact that under all the scifi trappings, it's "just a murder mystery." Well, you could say any of his previous novels had, "under the trappings," some fairly routine pulp-ish or noir-ish plots. Criminal pulled in/tempted by just "one last job." Corporate espionage and extraction of human workers who represent intellectual capital to these corporations. That kind of thing. In my opinion, there are two mysteries in this novel: the murder mystery (which is the obvious mystery) and the underlying, shadow mystery, which is revealed in dribs and drabs until very near the end: the myster of The Jackpot -- what it is, how it happened, who it affected. Ironically, the biggest mystery -- communication between people of one near future multiverse, and the people of a far future multiverse -- is simply set up as a given. (If anything in this novel is a deus ex machina, I suppose that is). So the mystery is never explained. Third and last, she objected to what she felt was a Disney-ish happy ending. But, I argued, virtually all of Gibson's otherwise highly dystopian visions of the future end similarly: the bad guys don't entirely win, and the good guys don't entirely lose. Which is, I guess, just another way of saying the bad guys kind of lose, and the good guys kind of win. But one senses that the struggle and lives of the characters continue after you finish the book, and nothing feels too deus ex machina (except, in this novel, maybe some of the givens). Let me put it this way: If you already know and pretty much love Gibson's previous stuff, I don't think this will disappoint. If, however, Gibson's writing (especially the early stuff) put you off, then you'll probably hate this novel, too. I loved it. Gibson has always been so expertly, specifically, and hauntingly able to describe the nostalgia of anachronistic characters and to chart the narratives of those people whose changing personal circumstances have left them with uncertain footing in either a not entirely friendly world, or an outright hostile one, as they try to secure some piece of stability and/or security for themselves amid an often constantly changing landscape. He's always written relatable and often quite compelling heroines, the vast majority of whom were not stereotypical scifi babes. He has also always extrapolated from current and historical sociopolitical and economical trends -- especially with respect to technological innovation -- to provide a glimpse of the growing, ever-sharpening class divisions that our world has rapidly devolved into. Much of what he presented as mere backstory or incidental detail in his Sprawl trilogy novels (and even in later workrs) has come to pass. He obviously has class politics, and to me, Gibson seems to be one of those ex-working class intellectuals who never lost touch with the fact that -- had he never become successful as a writer -- he'd probably would have worked some kind of blue collar or civil servant/wage slave type job his whole life, because that's what he was headed for. So he has remarkable sympathy for those square-peg-round-hole drones who get caught up in things larger than themselves, especially those who've had a taste of "the good life" and then otherwise blew it, lost it, or had it somehow snatched away. Yet he never comes across as overtly or explicity adhering to any 'ism;' he never comes across from that kind of tiresome first-raised pro-blue-collar/almost anti-intellectual pride, either. That's probably because, for many of his protagonists, it's their intellect, their brainy skills, that got them out of whatever backwater, wrong-side-of-town situation they were originally born into. The way he writes his dystopian futures -- which are all merely extrapolations of things that are already true now -- "it is what it is." There's no agenda-pushing by Gibson, it's just a very dry recitation of the surrounding details that gradually weave into a whole where you see how the poor get poorer and the rich get richer, and you come to realize that is what we all would observe ourselves about our current world, if we were only paying attention. So when one of his underdog protagonists finally achieves some level of security, you feel like it's been really earned... and much of the time, those underdogs are trying to pull another person or two or more up with them, or sometimes, enlighten an entire group even as they merely pursue their own trajectory. It's that warmth and strange optimism amid all the doomy gloomy dystopia that has always kind of made Gibson's stuff moody, haunting, and ultimately very fulfilling reading for me. These are some of the things I've always really admired about him.

If you're a fan of William Gibson's writing, I don't think there's much for me to tell you here. It's a great read like all of his other books and weaves a great tale that taps into the thing he's so great at doing: talking about a near future that could be entirely plausible as multiple narratives converge into one. If you've never read a William Gibson novel, the first thing to know is that this isn't a continuation of a previous novel or set of novels so you've got a great chance to dive in here. The second thing to know is that reading a novel by him can either feel right from the start or might take a little getting used to. I hate to admit it but in my daily life, trying to keep up with news from different aspects of my life--one of which is technology--can ultimately teach you to skim and skip over words for the sake getting through to the next thing you need to read. Granted, if you're already an avid reader of fiction, this may not be as much of a big deal for you. For me, since I'd really gotten a lot of reading done as a kid and teen (I mean...LOADS of SF/Fantasy amongst others), regular fiction reading hasn't been on the top of my list of late. Just so much other stuff going on. So, for me, diving into this novel was actually jarring. Why? Because Mr. Gibson has a gift, a skill, that involves taking a very short snippet of a sentence and painting a huge swath of visual with that small snippet. It's like someone taking a word and describing an entire scene. The first few pages of reading, I felt almost like my brain was cramping. Just so much in just a few words. Eventually, I got back into it and burned through every word on every page until the end. He's masterful at this. I remember recently trying out another author's book. I started to go nuts. To describe a scene, this other author required very dense (we're talking single line spacing here with not a lot of letter spacing) text covering multiple pages. For Mr. Gibson, the same scene would take a couple sentences to a paragraph. And it's not about skimping on descriptive narrative or glossing over details. It's more about leveraging modern concepts--things we know and in some cases may not without a quick Google search--and using the analogy to fill in all those details without having to do so explicitly. It's beautiful and personally, I just love it. That all said, the plot takes advantage of some serious science fiction (you don't need a degree to understand it, just an open mind) and recent technology trends to weave a tale about two very different groups of people in very different circumstances finding themselves intertwined through a series of seemingly unrelated events. If you're the type who likes their fiction a certain way and you haven't experienced a novel of Mr. Gibson's, it might be a large leap but I think it's worth giving it a shot. Reviews of fiction can be very subjective for obvious reasons so please take this with a grain of salt. I've loved every novel Mr. Gibson's put out. While, personally, I love his older works that went much further out into the future and imagined all sorts of crazy stuff (the Internet? What?), I've warmed to the near-future stories he's been producing of late, The Peripheral being one of them.

Anti-Climactic Being in this book was interesting, even somewhat captivating. 3 out of 5 is due to two major problems. The first is the beginning, the second is the end. The end is simple - it was anti-climactic. Perhaps I have misidentified the end as the denouement, but their was no high action end, no moment where I honestly feared for the success of the protagonists. No moment where I thought they would lose their way or their lives. The problem with the beginning is a typically Gibson problem. Although I vastly appreciate the way he tends to ignore the fact that the reader is unfamiliar with the world he has created and just start. He gives no back-story, typically. I do, most of the time, appreciate this. But in this case it left me lost, asking, “Huh?” too often to get involved with the story. In this sense, my experience of the book was indeed peripheral. The theme of being on the edges of things, being aware that one is involved in something that they can not possibly see the whole of, carries on throughout the novel and mirrored my experience of the book as reader. As an intellectual idea, this is intriguing. As a reader, and this hurts me to say, it was boring. Overall, I was left with a sense of disappointment in Gibson, as I have come to expect so much more. Perhaps it is my nostalgia for my experience of his other books that kept me from rating this at less than a 3 out of 5. The things that were great were the things that he always does well — the sense of coolness, of believability in the tech as a product of our current world, characters that are so unimportant as to create a sort of instant connection with the reader, etc.

William Gibson's books seem to fall into two categories. His early works (Count Zero, Neuromancer, Mona Lisa Overdrive) were science fiction set in a distant and distopian future. His later books (Pattern Recognition, Spook Country, Zero History) move ever closer to the present and simultaneously ever closer to social and political commentary. Gibson's newest book, 'The Peripheral,' marks a return to his earlier science fiction roots (with just a dollop of social commentary). Flynne is a young woman in rural West Virginia who sometimes earns extra money by playing online games (gaming enthusiasts pay good players to be on their team). Flynne (along with her brother, Burton, a partially disabled veteran) becomes involved with Wilf Netherton, a Londoner who lives in what we are told is one of a number of possible futures. The connection is a computer program which allows personalities (but not bodies) to move from one time to another (exactly how is kept vague). People moving from the past to the future can inhabit quasi-human bodies (called "peripherals" - hence the title) whose original purpose seems to have been to allow people in the future to (for example) attend a business meeting in Beijing without leaving Chicago. Netherton's future is on the far side of an apocalyptic event referred to as "the Jackpot" which seems to have largely depopulated the world as well as leaving it under the control of intrusive police and security agencies. The McGuffin which drives the story is a murder which Flynne witnesses while she is filling in for her brother in what she thinks is the beta-test of an immersive multi-player online game - but which actually is a trip to the future. A bewildering array of over 25 named characters (I had to make notes so I could keep them all straight) either support, or oppose the investigation of the murder. Gibson being Gibson, these characters are well-drawn, quirky, and authentic - although bewilderingly diverse. The story is interesting and engaging - Netherton is a publicist with a drinking problem recently fired by a performance artist/media personality. He takes refuge with his friend Lev, the scion of a Russian Mafia family thoroughly transplanted to London. Lev is actively using the time-travel program, and thus the connection to Flynne's brother and ultimately to Flynne. Unfortunately 'The Peripheral' is far from being Gibson's best - the denouement is disappointing and one gets the impression that Gibson finally got tired of the story and didn't have any good ideas for an ending, so he just chopped it off in a way that seems hurried and careless and which still leaves major loose ends dangling. Definitely worth four stars, and only misses five because the ending feels unsatisfying.

This is first time that I can recall ever having read a book three times in succession. Such is the power of The Peripheral by William Gibson. I am the first to admit that I am extremely biased when it comes to Gibson’s writings. There has not yet been a single book that I’ve read of his that I didn’t like. Yes, that even includes his book about pants (Zero History), a book which developed one of my all-time favorite literary characters, Milgrim. The Peripheral, however, is more of a return to his Neuromancer days that made Gibson famous in the first place and got him designated as the “father of Cyberpunk.” None of that matters to me, however. I simply enjoy great writing and Gibson scores in a huge way with The Peripheral. So much so, that I would probably have to put it as my favorite Gibson book ever (if I were forced to choose, that is). In The Peripheral, the reader is immediately injected into a future world without any preamble or explanation, leaving the reader alone and lost for quite a number of pages before any explanations are forthcoming. It is as if you have been dumped into a vast forest without a map or compass, but this particular forest is far stranger than any forest you’ve ever been in; indeed with no similarity at all to any forest you’ve ever seen or been in before. What absolute fun and delight it is, being led out of that confusion by this master writer in his own good time and at his own brilliant pace! Gibson takes you back and forth, back and forth—short chapter to short chapter--between a near future world and another farther future world—the post-jackpot world--70 years beyond that; a world in which everything has changed dramatically. Gibson does not, however, create the usual, typical dystopian future world of most sci-fi works. Both of his future worlds are much more interesting in their respective components than that. The interplay of these worlds and the core of the story: a noir-like murder mystery constitute the primary elements of the book. I am not going to attempt to synopsize The Peripheral any more than that. I will again say, that I am glad that I have a Kindle to read Gibson on because his combination of vocabulary and overwhelming wealth of trivia is almost unbelievable in its complexity at times. For me, however, that is much of the fun of reading Gibson: I always learn something. I will only say that Gibson once again creates wonderful and memorable characters that are fleshed out on a need-to-know basis. He never gets you lost in extraneous detail like so many authors fall prey to. Gibson always knows how to trim the fat off a story, leaving us with just those essential details needed to move the story forward. I cannot praise The Peripheral enough. Read it. Highly recommended.

Despite being a William Gibson fan for decades and having read and re-read his classics like Neuromancer and Mona Lisa Overdrive, Peripheral is a different world/reality but nonetheless requires patience for Gibson's style of prose. Gibson never treats his readers with kid gloves instead thrusting you immediately in a confusing and alien world with only enough explanation to explain the characters and their present reality. Which is not to say he doesn't describe the environments and worlds with rich detail. He does, but as if you were already familiar with the world, its lingo, and culture. It's confusing and frustrating, and likely to make you want to stop reading only a few chapters in. But don't. because eventually the new terms slang, people, and worlds all start making more sense as you're led deeper into the plot. You may not completely understand all the terms throughout the entire book but you understand the overall gist and that's often all you need. Gibson doesn't spend any time setting the stage - he just throws you in and half the fun is getting your bearings along the way. Fortunately, Peripheral has enough of its roots in our reality that some of this will be familiar and you won't experience the full brunt of Gibson. Nonetheless, it has obviously rattled some based on the other reviews. Just remember to lean into that confusing prose and eventually you'll be rewarded with a complex plot that brings you in and won't let go. Oddly enough I hadn't gotten into this book series until after I watched the first season of Peripheral on Amazon. While that's an entertaining series, it is very loosely based on the book. The series lacks the depth of plot and while many characters are carried over, the plot deviates quite a bit. The interesting thing about the series is that it chooses to set the initial beginning just ten years into the future whereas Gibson does a nice job of masking timeframes and inferring a not too distant future. If you've read the book and expect the series to mimic or at least follow the same plot, you'll likely be disappointed. I prefer the book over the TV series, but did enjoy the series regardless. Your mileage may vary.