The Peripheral

Superb! A vision of the future of a future where humans are still very human but reality is well..... Peripheral!
So many ideas, down to earth yet soaring. From the hillbilly trailer down by the creek to the baroque RV of a strangely Victorian London future, a great engrossing tale.
Couldn't put it down.
Gibson is still the King!

The book starts slowly and in a confusing manner. I expected that from other reviews but plowed on as I have been a long time fan of Gibson. Eventually he links some threads together and the story starts moving, albeit in something of a pallid imitation of his early books. As he fleshes out his characters in the two time lines my disappointment started to grow.

The London time line has shadows of the Gibson of older novels. A bit of the old brilliance shines through and captures the reader. Unfortunately the time line set somewhere out in middle America is very unconvincing. He tries to put a good light on his American characters, but ultimately a deep dislike of them and their culture begins to show through, as the characters seem more of a 'people of Walmart' caricature than anything else. Drones, guns and chicken nuggets do not a convincing milieu make.

Ultimately the deal killer for me is the so called 'Jackpot', the watershed event separating the the two time lines (separating is simplistic, but I don't want to give a key plot twist away in this review.) The Jackpot is nothing but a tired list of politically correct disaster tropes leading to killing off 80% of humanity in something of a 'I told you so' manner. Fundamentally the Jackpot is a wish fulfillment fantasy of the sort I would expect to come out of an espresso driven deep green BS session, not from one of the leading voices of SF.

I have hit a wall with this book and the Jackpot. I honestly don't know I will waste the time to finish it. I wish half stars could be given. It is Gibson so he gets two stars by definition, but the book doesn't quite rise to three.

Disappointing.

I think I've read all his novels, but somehow this one didn't engage me. The conversations are cryptic; the scenes described with no reference to the current world view. I found it confusing and gave up after 2 chapters.

as always...WG can spill a yarn to tickle you right down to your toes. I've stopped trying to second guess where the complex ride he takes you on will end. His characters are so down home you think you'd see' em next door. And the complexity of his plots amaze me; I can see him snickering as a new bifurcation occurs to him.

Buy it. You'll be embarrassed if you don't when your friends start raving about it.

I used to love Gibson's books: so action-packed and exciting. And well-written. Unfortunately, not this one. It was dragging forever. Too much PC and (my main problem) predictable. Still well-written, but not much else. And no new ideas. I kept asking myself: "What was the whole idea of this book?" Couldn't find one.

Gibson's writing has remained wonderful through Pattern Recognition and the Big End books but the subject matter was never as much to my liking as, frankly, the core genre he helped create. Like I'm sure many who remember when Case traveled cyberspace, this is the subject I had hoped that Gibson would return to and evolve, update, resurrect.. And he has. It's great. And I'm sure more are coming.

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.

I don't mean the basic sci-fi device necessary to the story; those you always have to just accept. I mean the characters and their interplay, which just didn't seem to have enough depth or realism. Still, I will always read anything Gibson writes.

I'm afraid this book has surpassed Neuromancer in my love of William Gibson's work, and I read that when it came out in the 1980's. The future has changed a lot in the intervening time. We were afraid then that the corporations were going to take over government. That happened. We have more scary, end of this world type things to worry us now, and Mr. Gibson handles them with a deft hand not seen this polished since the Sprawl trilogy.

This is hard core, boys and girls. I giggled like a kid when I finished chapter 2 and realized I didn't yet understand a word of it, and knew I was home. Thanks, William.

Man, I was ready to give up on this book. Sixteen chapters in and confused, trying to stick it out only b/c of Gibson's reputation and previous fare. Then, at about chapter 18, things started to click. Other reviewers have mentioned Gibson drops you into his universe with no footnotes, does not explain the connection between the two parallel story lines. Certainly not my favorite Gibson book with a trite and predictable ending, but worth the read - if you can last the few hours of frustrating confusion

It's one thing to write a near-future sci-fi book, it' another thing to write it in the lingo that they would be using years from now. This to me, makes William Gibson prophetic. His concepts of time-travel are very interesting, even the science is interesting and should be investigated by cutting-edgers in computer science. This book is not for everybody, Gibson has never been a quick-read for me but that's another reason why I love him as a writer, his writing is rich, very very rich in the immersion of a different time in the future.

A brilliant look at what could be from what might become, split off into something else that will become elsewhere. In addition to the causal contest the story is about, the concepts Gibson conjures creates an interesting narrative with amazing technology concepts. I expect to see hollywood steal these ideas and incorporate them into all of their megablockbusters in the next 10 years. Brilliant book,

Gibson is always entertaining, here enjoying the possibilities of parallel realities and inhabiting physical "peripherals". His clean writing implies more than he describes, rolls like a robot 18 wheeler, and leaves one feeling delighted.

Some of William Gibson's recent work has been a bit too impenetrable and experimental for me. The Peripheral reads like a masterclass of how to write a gripping science fiction novel. Anyone who thought Gibson had lost his game, think again.

I loved the character development. The reality Mr. Gibson describes has gravity, you can feel it, see it, enjoy it. If you know William Gibson's work, you dont need me to say anything. He is spot on.

respectfully submitted

Lin Higgins

I thought maybe I was the only one having extraordinary trouble with this one. I loved the Nueromancer trilogy but I remember those taking a while to click. Maybe I'm not giving it a fair shot but I think 50 pages in I should at least be able to recap what happened. But I am lost beyond belief. Saving this one for when I feel masochistic

And you shouldn't consider yourself as having any aesthetic if you fail to read it and then after reading, smile and think a bit more about the predictive quality of just a few hard science fiction writers' brains.,

[SPOILERS]

This book is a huge disappointment. It has such an astounding lack of vision that it makes me concerned about Mr. Gibson, his life, and his health. What could have possibly been burdening him so much in the last five years that he would turn out such an incredibly mediocre book?

Contrast Neil Stephenson, whose 2008 work "Anathem" was a visionary leap ahead into a future (now unfolding before our very eyes) where quantum mechanics and its illogical principles are being proven as fact rather than fiction. "Anathem" was arguably the first major work of fiction to convincingly dissect and explain the general theory of the "multiverse"--that being the premise that the universe comprises an infinite, iterated series of slightly different timelines, all relative to each other, and all potentially unified in some manner, either systemically or otherwise.

"The Peripheral" is slightly derivative of that idea in its description of "stubs" (certain timelines in the past that endured for a while, but eventually atrophied and disappeared); and as well, "The Peripheral" is derivative of "The Terminator," in that it makes use of the premise of time travelers journeying into the past in an endeavor to save mankind from its own demise.

Is this what we have come to expect--or should I say, "accept"--as being reason enough to bestow four, or heaven forbid, and sanctimoniously so, FIVE stars? We are this excited that a prominent science fiction author has released a new book that is derivative of not one but two prior science fiction plot premises?

I shudder in disbelief at the reviewers here who DID bestow such ridiculously lavish praise on this book. I must surmise that they have only read a mere few science fiction books, or that their critical facilities are currently on vacation.

As examples of true vision, true originality, ground breaking science fiction, and phenomenal works of literature, it is an easy enough task to conjure up a shortlist that comprises a canon of science fiction books that DO deserve five stars. Consider these works, contrast "The Peripheral" with them, and it becomes obvious that anyone giving Mr. Gibson's new book five stars, or even four stars, has no idea what they are talking about. The following eight science fiction books are, without par, so original and visionary that they easily win five stars using pretty much any applied criteria:

Accelerando, by Charles Stross
Dune, by Frank Herbert
The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Player of Games, by Iain M. Banks
Snow Crash, by Neil Stephenson
A Voyage to Arcturus, by David Lindsay
Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle

Do yourself a favor: forego "The Peripheral," save your money, and instead spend it on one of the above eight books that you haven't yet read.

I should tell you up front that I am something of a William Gibson fan-boy. I own a limited edition hard cover of his first book, Neuromancer and I have read every book he has written. The only book that I didn't like is The Difference Engine, but I blame the flaws in this book on his coauthor Bruce Sterling who is, in my view, a lesser writer. So you've been warned...

The Peripheral is Gibson's darkest book since Neuromancer and his first science friction novel since the books set in the Neuromancer reality. Like Neuromancer, The Peripheral is set in a dark future, or perhaps I should write dark futures.

The central character is a young woman (Gibson seems to have a preference in his later novels for young women protagonists.) The young woman is named Flynne Fisher who lives in some small town named Clanton, presumably in a "flyover state".

The time is several decades in the future from 2014. They have some kind of nanoassembly and 3D computer printing (there are lots of illegal computer printed guns). There are not many jobs in a place like Clanton. The major industry seems to be illegal drug manufacture. Those that can join the Military. Flynne would have joined the military, but she has stayed to take care of her mother, who has cancer. Flynne's brother Burton and their friend Conner have both joined the Marines. Both were in the Marine Corps "haptic recon" which seemed to be some kind of special forces where the members are fitted with some kind of neuro-machine interface. This has left Burton with a damaged nervous system. Conner is missing a leg on one side, a foot on the other and part of his hand.

Meanwhile the "one percent" are the only people who are doing well, but politics is getting crazier and less representative.

In this dark world there is a strange plot twist that seems a bit contrived - a connection from a time that is something like seventy years in the future back to Flynne's time. The connection takes place via a mysterious "server" that is believed to be in the future China. No one knows anything about this server. The future does seem to be the future of Flynne's world or at least a very close parallel universe. Only information can travel over this server connection and the act of connecting alters the course of the past universe.

Some have observed that science fiction is always about the present. Gibson doesn't write "message" novels but he does think about how the present plays out into possible futures. In this case the future is dark. There is massive species extinction with all alpha preditors except mankind wiped out. There is a decades long period of disasters and violence that kills 80% of the human race.

This is a possible future of Flynne's world when it reaches back to ensnare Flynne, her brother Burton, Conner and everyone else they know.

The novel is dense with ideas and strange little touches (one woman does "hate kagels" - I'm trying to imagine what exactly those are.) Gibson's extrapolations are in both Flynne's world and the future world. There is Hefty Mart, which is a massive Walmart like retailer and people are illicitly fabbing phones and other products in covert neighborhood computer driven 3D printers.

In the future universe there are "peripherals" which are bio machines based on human cells that have human form. These peripherals can be run by humans via a neural interface. There is a brief exploration of the perverse use that these could be put to.

As it happened, I read The Peripheral at the beach, but it is hardly a beach read. Gibson's dense plots demand concentration. Finishing the book it was hard to decide what to make of it. Gibson's ideas are always fascinating and there was a bit of suspense at the end, but when the core mystery is finally solved it didn't seem to matter that much.

Some people have observed that novels, like plays, have three acts. Viewed as a three act work of this novel may only be deserving of four stars. What is notable about this novel is its haunting prescience. I constantly feel that I am seeing the slowly unfolding "Jackpot" described in The Peripheral as the ecological consequences of the Anthropocene become more and more apparent. On the basis of Gibson's haunting prediction I have given the book five stars.

I have been a William Gibson fan since his first book, indeed have read all the earlier books twice. So I was excited to learn of The Peripheral, and bought it the day it came out. I bought the Kindle version so pagination is always a problem to establish but for what I would guess was the first 50 pages I could make neither heads nor tails of what the book was about. Indeed, throughout the book much of the time I had trouble figuring out who was speaking, and from whose point of view the narrative was going forward. It is no spoiler to say the book appears to be about a kind of stereotypical lower middle class rural Appalachian Virginia white family (I say Virginia because there is a minor subplot about moving to Northern Virginia), although exactly where it is is never made clear. The leading characters are the daughter Flynne and her brother, Burton. There seem to be multiple futures with whom they are in contact via a kind of self-mobile iPad, and they are suddenly and inexplicably backed by a vast multinational non-geographical corporate state, which is sometimes in the future and sometimes in the past -- Flynne's present -- which seems to be at war with another such for reasons that are never made clear. The only interesting part of this, and the one truly Gibsonian aspect I saw in the book relates to what are called Peripherals, organic lab grown humans without consciousness that can be occupied by people from the past in the future via some projective technology. But it is all a vast muddle. The truth is this book would never have been published if the author had been a previously unpublished novelist named John Smith. Big disappointment.

I really looked forward to this book coming out. It was quite a disappointment. I did not care about the characters, there was no real explanation about how the people were able to travel in time, why they wanted to manipulate the economy, or how the different pasts effected the future. I kept reading, hoping he would pull all the pieces together, but he did not. This book was a waste of my time. I was really disappointed. Save your money, and hope his next book is back up to his previous efforts.

I read a lot-150 books a year- and it's rare that something is so obtuse I can't get into it. Maybe obtuse is the wrong word; weird might be better. I like sci fi but I put this down after 100 pages. The characters seemed disconnected and the technology was contrived and far-fetched. I didn't understand the plot or the story line. Maybe I'm just too old...

Everything winds down - even famous writers. To everything there is a Season and William Gibson's season has apparently past which saddens me. His first novels and short stories were great sources of pleasure and thoughtful entertainment for me. I remember when Heinlein went into decline and felt similarly.

So what's wrong with this book? Think 800 word chapters. For some inscrutable reason Gibson has decided to bring back the 800 word chapter. Imagine this: Think of your point of view character changing every two pages. Every. Two. Pages. For 400+ pages. Fifty character and scene changes gets old after 100 pages. It gets bloody annoying after 200 and after 300 pages and 150 point of view changes please stick a fork in my eyes - I'm done.

Additionally, Gibson always liked to throw in lots of tech-speak into his novels and he used to do it so well. But the first 40 or so pages is so crammed with future shock-speach that it not only becomes distracting to the story itself but actively annoying.

Imagine any young writer on the slush pile who submitted the following: "The Zarthogs turned towards Zach and menacingly pointed their farquor device in his general direction. Zach knew that he had only seconds before the farquor broke down his local continua and pushed him into ziplock confabulation". Now how long before that young writer gets forcibly ejected from the slushpile? Another sentence? You're too kind. Gibson does the same thing only with better nonsense words and he does it endlessly and without explanation. The only reason he can get away with it is because he is William Fracking Gibson the freaking father of cyberpunk. And it still sucks and it makes the first 100 pages or so interminably annoying.

Mr. Gibson you have let me down to the tune of twenty-five bucks. This is almost certainly the last book I shall every purchase from you. My best advice to anyone else - read the first 40 pages in a library before deciding to purchase. It's probably not what you think it should be.

In all future books, include: 1) Cast of Characters with brief synopsis (Kindle x-ray function ain't cutting it for you); 2) Dictionary of all 'future' terms you introduce in the story, EVEN IF YOU BELIEVE YOU'VE ADEQUATELY DESCRIBED THEM.

So disappointed - my favorite writer of all time. Book is so scattered it is incomprehensible - lose track of characters and their relationships. Bought it first as audiobook, then thought reading it on Kindle would be better. Couldn't get past first 50 pages.

I found this book to be very tedious. After reading the a number of positive reviews and a little bit about the author, I was eager to read this book. I did not find it engaging nor did I wind up caring about most of the characters. I read many science fiction novels a year and only completed this one because it was not cheap. Sad waste of time.

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.

The writing style is hard to follow. It has run on sentences that refer to multiple people, with multiple pronouns of both genders, often I was not sure which characters were involved.
Seemed like some good concepts, but after finishing the book I still don't know what happened or why. Gibberish.

This book is very difficult to read as it requires a lot of work by the reader to try and decipher what is happening overall and at any given moment. I have read Gibson in the past and enjoyed most of the books, especially the early ones, but this one I just gave up as it wasn't fun. I read science fiction to relax, and just didn't get what was going on most of the time. It almost seems as if Gibson is more interested in giving the impression that he is on the cutting edge of youth-oriented society and technology than he is in spinning a good tale. If you don't mind rereading passages and trying to analyze what the hell he is talking about, this is a book for you.

Complete garbage. This book is undecipherable. 5% in on Kindle and don't want to waste any more time on this nonsense. I've never before bought a book that I just absolutely couldn't stand. This is a first. My fault for not checking the review's more thoroughly. Still, there should be a way to return this for a refund.

I've read everything Gibson. Was very happy to see this in my Library.

I love the Ipad because it lets me Google while reading.

I am on page 58. I came to the store reviews because. . . I am thinking of giving up. It is actually disappointing to realize that my interpretations of what is going on ARE on track. Paid to fly a remote camera in a videogame? Really? The girl who parasails on the floating plastic island is a "Mona" like celeb?

No one does near futurism/dystopia like Gibson. The Peripheral is yet another superb example of his creativity and his craft. Less one star from this reader, though, because -- his immense talents aside -- Gibson's novels are starting to have that 'been there' feel for me. They're almost too pristine in their construction, too common-stock in their ideas. Not 'common' in the sense of 'ordinary', but rather in the sense of 'shared'. By which I mean: Gibson's futurism is of a particular and distinctive sort. Gibson seems to revisit the same world in many of his novels. There's nothing wrong, in principle, with exploring different areas of the same universe (there's a lot of room in a universe to explore after all) -- and it's not that Gibson is literally writing about the same future world in all of his novels (at least, I don't think he is) -- but the cumulative effect of reading Gibson's novels (the ones I've read) is of an increasingly redundant reading experience. I liked The Peripheral (much more so early on, less so across its full span), but I didn't love it (I might, had I not read other books by Gibson). If you're a Gibson completist, you of course need to read this book, and you're likely to enjoy it. If the Peripheral is your first Gibson read, you'll doubtless be completely disoriented at first, and may be completely blown away by the end. If, however, you're a casual reader of Gibson, you -- like me -- may be only so impressed with this effort. Personally, I'd love to see what Gibson could do were he to apply his writing talents to a completely different sort of project.

The Peripheral (2014) is a standalone SF novel. It is set in America within the near future and London seventy odd years later.

In this novel, Flynne Fisher is a young American woman. She is the younger sister of Burton.

Burton Fisher is a former soldier. He was medically discharged with PTSD.

Leon is Flynne's cousin. He stayed home when Burton and Conner joined the Marine Corps.

Conner Penske was severely injured in combat. He lost an arm and both legs.

Macon and Edward are technicians. They fix everything in the county except for the drug producing equipment.

Shaylene is a friend of Flynne. She owns a fabber business.

Wilf Netherton is an publicist in London. He is very good at lying. He is also a lush.

Rainey is an employee of the Canadian government. She uses peripherals to visit Netherton.

Lev is a the youngest son in his family. He is very wealthy.

Dedra is the daughter of a very rich father in England. She is the sister of Aelita.

In this story, Flynne agrees to take two shifts of protecting the fifty-seventh floor of a tower in game set in a future London. She chases away paparazzi bugs. Flynne told Shaylene about the job.

On the second night, she sees a woman living in the tower pushed off a balcony. She sees the man who pushed her. On the way down, the woman is eaten by a swarm weapon.

Flynne has played games before involving deaths. Yet something about this death bothers her. She told Burton that she wasn't going back to that job.

Meanwhile, Netherton meets with Rainey in a bar. She is wearing a ten year old peripheral. The rental agency was out of adult peripherals.

The cameraman captures Daedra hang-gliding down among the Patchers. She tries to open the zipper in her coveralls, but it sticks partway down. She extends her thumb nail and kills the Patcher leader.

Lev lives in his grandfather's house. It is older that the Jackpot. Lev likes to cook on the huge French stove.

Lev has Netherton over for breakfast and a discussion. He gets Wilf to agree to talk with Flynne. Netherton confesses that London is in the future and not a game.

Netherton moves into Lev's grandfather's Mercedes land yacht. It is a huge vehicle. Wilf usually sleeps on the grandfather's bed.

Macon builds a helmet for Flynne. This allows her to inhabit a peripheral in London. She can visit Netherton and others in the future.

Burton and Conner also inhabit peripherals. Burton borrows Flynne's peri and crashes through, but he is provided with another. Conner gets the body of a martial arts instructor.

This tale changes Flynne's life and everything around her. Lev plays the stock market in America to raise money. He buys most of the county.

The American action takes place in a offshoot of the main continua. London is no longer in the same timestream. Only information can be exchanged between the continua.

Eventually, Flynne gets a Hefty Boy to talk with Netherton. This does not have a sequel. If you have not previously read this author, he has many other novels, starting with Neuromancer.

Highly recommended for Gibson fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of continua stubs, information exchange,and combat actions. Read and enjoy!

-Arthur W. Jordin

Lazarus Man (The Cyberhawk Series) (Volume 1)I am a great fan of Gibson's "Neuromancer," his first and great book, so I opened "The Peripheral" and dove in headfirst. That was a mistake -- there was no water in the pool. Reaching page 53, I was so confused by dozens of new words about hightech (a Gibson specialty) and by trying to figure out the plot, I was going to toss the book aside. Then I had the brilliant idea of reading the dust jacket. Voila! Plot explained! So I soldiered on until page 103 where it was finally revealed what the word "stub" meant, and that the plot revolves around past and future as expressed in manipulation of parallel continuums and "transtemporal affairs." Or something like that. I may now finish the book, though I am increasingly annoyed by Gibson's use of English. I know he is striving for a unique `voice,' but unlike Tom Wolfe, he fails when he insists on omitting pronouns and using sentences like: "Face of the man at the window reminded her." The saving grace of the tale is the riveting scenes -- Gibson's forte -- based on an extrapolation of current technology or knowledge like: Google Glass versus "Viz" eye socket implants; and the salvaging of plastics from The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. I am 20% into the story and still don't know what the often referred-to "jackpot" might be, though it apparently changes the course of history in one American continuum. This novel would be impossible as an audio book, as the 1-star and 2-star reviews suggest. If those reviewers will read the dust jacket first, then page 103, then start at the beginning, they might go up to 3-stars. As one reviewer wrote, I wish I could give it 2.5-stars.

I've really debated how many stars I wanted to give this book. Ask me yesterday and I would have said 5. After finishing, I'm down to 3. I'm a big Gibson fan and really wanted to like this book.

As others have said, the first 50 pages throw you into the deep end without any floaties. At one point I told my husband that I must be a dumb person because I understood nothing of what happened in the preceding chapter. Push through that confusion, and things start making sense relatively quickly.

From that point on, I enjoyed the book. The characters weren't groundbreaking, but if you've spent time in small town America, they were familiar. I enjoyed the two worlds and the interactions between them.

The "jackpot" story seems a bit handwave-y and tacked on, but I could appreciate a subtle apocalypse, especially from Gibson.

My big beef, and why I dropped 2 stars, was the ending had absolutely no pay off. I worried how it could end when we hadn't even made it to the party and only had 20 pages to go, and the answer is that it just threw up some completely genetic baddies who seemed to lack any and all motivation.

I still don't know why any of them did what they did, and I don't think Gibson does either. It was disappointing after investing so much in the book.

Ultimately, I think the book is worth reading for the body, and maybe even that wild opening, but temper your expectations for the ending.

The Peripheral pulls the reader into a fully-realized world populated by characters who seem very real and worth caring about. The driving ideas behind the plot are not necessarily original (e.g., contact between parallel worlds, a form of time travel, nanotechnology) but are combined in an original and quite interesting way. The plot could be said to center on a mystery, the apparent murder of an inhabitant of the "original" world, witnessed by an inhabitant of its analog continuum in the context of what she believes to be a very advanced virtual reality game. It jumps between the parallel continua and is enjoyably complex in its development, with political, economic, and paramilitary action and intrigue. All of this is anchored by the main POV characters in the two worlds, as they work together and with others to solve the initial mystery, which is found to be only a very small part of a much larger scheme involving both worlds. I've greatly enjoyed Gibson's earlier work, starting with Neuromancer, (I haven't read his more recent work after Pattern Recognition), and The Peripheral compares very well.

William Gibson imagines worlds of such otherworldly familiarity that it almost seems that they will, they must, exist - if not coincident in time with our world, only in a parallel space, then in some nexus-branched alternative future.

The concepts he has invented to occupy the worldscape of his latest book, "The Peripheral" are like that; at once outlandish and futuristically weird, but simultaneously familiar, and well before the end of the book you will find yourself accepting the reality of communication between the "then" and "now" of a timestream which originates in an almost-familiar, not-so-distant future as a given.

In a presumably late-21st Century/early-22nd Century timeframe, somewhere in the rural South of the United States of America, in a world that is slowly going to hell but in which technology which is now, in the early 21st Century, in its infancy, is commonplace and well advanced from the state in which we know it, Burton, a disabled veteran of a high-tech advanced tactics unit of the U.S. Marine Corps, asks his sister to stand in for him on a job. The job, presumably, is beta-testing an advanced video game, but when Flynne, on her stand-in shift, witnesses a bizarre and disturbingly achieved murder, their familiar, if dysfunctional, world starts to spin out of control.

Gibson drops you into the story with no preamble, and "The Peripheral" is definitely a "keep reading, hang on, and catch up" experience. The relationship to the world of his earlier book, "Mona Lisa Overdrive", struck me early on. The prevalence of advanced cyber-science in the worlds of both books is strikingly similar, and familiar. With its feet in two worlds which are removed from each other in both time and space, "The Peripheral", draws the reader in with the familiarity of the presumably Ozark worldscape where Flynne and Burton live, while simultaneously challenging your perceptions, and understanding, with the not-too distant future with which the two, and their friends and family, are soon communicating with, being affected by, and virtually inhabiting and interacting with.

Because of what she witnessed, Flynne is the key to a future-time power struggle involving shadowy forces with unimaginable technology at their beck and call, as well as incredible wealth - and the ability to manipulate, from the future, the past-timestream which Flynne and Burton inhabit. Keeping her feet planted beneath her, figuratively speaking, and her head on straight, Flynne is a down-home, "nothing fazes me" character who takes the upheaval in her life completely in stride, holding her own as she and Burton, as well as the entire town, indeed the county, they live in becomes ground zero for the financial and political power struggle that has reached back from the future to engulf them. She is the calm center in the eye of the storm, and she and her rural Ozark friends and family are a striking counterpoint to the ultra-sophisticated, high-tech world of future London with which they are enmeshed.

The contrast between the two worlds is the basic thesis of the story, and the matter-of-fact manner in which Flynne and her folk take it in stride while riding a virtual whirlwind of change demonstrates the genius of Gibson's story-telling powers.

In a time when a seemingly endless procession of novels recounting variations of dystopian futures are presented to the reading public (especially YA readers), Gibson has demonstrated yet again his unchallenged mastery of the cyber-science future-world genre, and we should all be very thankful to him for his efforts.

Flynne Fisher leads a miserable life in a miserable town where the primary industry is drugs, where most of the male population consists of damaged souls back from one or another of America's wars, and where jobs are pretty much non-existent... especially for Flynne after she proves too good at videogames. When her brother (one of the damaged war veterans) offers her a chance to make some money playing a videogame while he heads off to beat up some pseudo-religious nuts, Flynne grabs the chance. But when she witnesses an "in-game" murder, she accidentally sets off a cascade of events that leads to a future version of our earth contacting her.

Traveling between the future (where she takes the form of a "peripheral" or human body that lacks a "self" and her own present, where her sometimes-allies from the future, Flynne eventually discovers the secret they've tried to hide from her... the 'jackpot' is coming and that means the near-extinction of human life. In their future, only the very rich survived the mass die-off created by human greed.

There's a lot to like about this story. First, Flynne's world is scarily like a realistic future for us. The elite get richer. There simply aren't any jobs for the unskilled (except for jobs in the military). Even the national parks have been privatized. Homeland Security and the drug cartels are so intermingled that it's impossible to tell which one controls the other. The technology, with 3-d printing of stuff (including food and drugs) is a logical extension of today, as is the drug and game-centric view of semi-rural America author William Gibson presents. Flynne makes a good character, sympathetic and human. The semi-romance between her and Netherton from the future adds a bit of depth. The far future was a bit harder for me to identify with. I got the result of the jackpot, the kleptocracy that rules the future, the self-enforcing technologies that prevent further destruction but I didn't really get the motivations either of the group allied with Flynne or especially those opposed to her.

Overall, THE PERIPHERAL kept me involved in the story, caring about the characters, and cautious about our own future. While not perfect, this is a good SF tale and a worthwhile addition to Gibson's life-work. As a warning of what the future can hold, I recommend it highly.

I was given this as a late Christmas present, having already been made aware that this was the author who created the term 'cyberspace' and the like, that it was he that first spawned the 'cyberpunk' novel.

Not knowing of the author's desire not to spoon-feed his readers, which he tells us at the end, I did not know that if the writing style at times seemed unduly enigmatic, that it was meant to be. As a holiday read, I might have been more inclined to to along with the ride and enjoy the bok style's post-modern sensibilities and total immersion in this future world As it is, I did sometimes get impatient with the novel. What is thing supposed to be all about? - I pondered, on another tiring commute across the other side of the Sprawl I happen to inhabit.

The basic plot is this - as with Neuromancer, we are introduced to a war-damaged veteran Richard Fisher who can no longer do much in cyberspace because of damage to his haptic nerves. In the Peripheral, however, it is his sister Flynne who agrees to take out a new project on his behalf. The trouble is, she witnesses a horrific murder, though she is not sure at first that that is what is was.

More importantly, this murder actually takes place more than seventy years beyond her time frame. And that someone from this future knows she knows and wants to have her silenced - preferably in her time frame.

That is the noir thriller side of the story and the pacing for this does heat up once you get past the first part. As with a lot of Gibson novels, the plot side of the story does seem a little thin - it does seem to be more about creating exciting new images in the mind's eye of the future that are me exciting. There are robot waitresses. A goth girl with tattoos that move on her skin. Cars with pixilated invisibility cloaks and dwarfs with controlled skin cancers that actually protect the skin. And all this against a backdrop of urban poverty where the world wealth and power is concentrated into a handful of multinational shopping centres and the only way to get rich is to deal in drugs - or take on cyber jobs.

This is a world that is not difficult to extrapolate. It is set in maybe twenty/thirty years from ow. Seventy years from beyond that pint, however, and already most landmarks to understanding this world is lost. The virtual world of social media and instant communication have become intimate in ways inconceivable right now. Individual characters from this new world seen in Flynne a lost innocence and authenticity of being. In cyberspace it is now possible to project individual consciousness into robot-like bodies called peripherals.....

A future mass extinction period called The Jackpot is referred to at some point.

In both futures, money talks and both money and power seem to be concentrated in very small areas - this is still a very Gibson-like world. Perhaps because only a few rich individuals survive the Jackpot, Art and art galleries have become very important. There is a solution however - it is possible to receive a jab that allows its recipient to speak total bulls*** at any gallery. Are we to assume the writer may have a jaundiced view of the current art world?

It is a bleak and dystopic world that is depicted here in both futures, even though many characters do not suffer unduly unhappy endings. Dystopian - but also a fascinating vision, in its way.

I liked the story line but didn't enjoy William Gibson's writing style. His sentences often didn't seem complete (missing/implied pronouns) and there were many others from which I could drive no meaning even after repeated readings.

The first one hundred or so pages I felt lost with no key to unlocking the secret code. A glossary of the authors invented terms/processes/items would have helped immensely. I would have given up early on if I hadn't been reading this for my local book club meeting. I gave up on trying to understand much of what Mr. Gibson was writing, and settle for following the basics of the plot line, which I did enjoy.

The story starts in some point after 2023 in the United States. Flynne Fisher is an ex-gamer, but just this once she agrees to sub for her brother and work his shift beta testing a game. Well, she does it again the next night and this time all doesn't go so well. Some one in the game is killed in a gruesome manner and she begins to question whether it really is a game.

The story skips back and forth between Flynne's time and a future time, about seventy years from them. In the future, Wilf Netherton has some involvement with the death that occurred and it's important to him to protect Flynne from any backlash from that event.

The character of Flynne is well developed and I found her down to earth and likable. She is very family oriented and ethical. She sticks to her morals even when large amounts of money are waved in front of her face. My other favourite character is Conner, a long time friend who is ex-military with multiple crippling war injuries. He's in your face, does what he needs to with no apologies.

This story made me ponder the role of technology in society. Change used to be a long time coming, but now, technology seems to change almost over night. Download a file, a bam, with a 3D printer you can have a new product in hours. Who's to decide/determine whether this is good or bad.

All things considered, I enjoyed the story line and had no trouble believing the bridging of the time differences, I only wish that it had been easier to read and understand the actual wording.

William Gibson's long awaited return to the genre that made him famous is off to a rocky, but otherwise good, start. After finishing "the Peripheral," I gathered that Gibson's skills in sci-fi are rusty, but he's still got it; he just needs to get the ball rolling again.

As a book in and of itself, "the Peripheral" is great. It has flaws, it's confusing, but overall, a very good sci-fi story. For a longtime Gibson fan, this book is a bit disappointing, but contains enough great stuff to make up for that.

Strengths of Gibson's that are present in this book include unique presentations of the future society and technology (and in this book, we get TWO such futures!); an interesting storyline; and well written main characters that avoids annoying cliches. (You will not find any orphaned Chosen One or ultra-sexy female leads in Gibson's work; his characters are rounded and believable, with families and average bodytypes.) The highlight of the book is a supporting character named Ash. Like Molly of the "Sprawl" series and Chevette of the "Bridge" trilogy, Ash is the standout character of "The Peripheral," with her 8-shaped eyes, Gothic garb, and mobile tattoos.

The book did have a few flaws. The chapters were unusually short, which normally isn't a problem, except that in this case, each chapter switches to another character's point of view. Gibson is normally very good at multiple POV stories, but in this one, he was switching between POVs much too fast. Then there's the usual stylistic choice of not explaining technologies, slang terms, or situations clearly, so it takes until about half the book before you really understand what's going on.

The biggest flaw, however, was that--for a Gibson novel--"The Peripheral" felt a bit empty. What made the cast and settings of the "Sprawl" and "Bridge" trilogies so great was how *full* they were. Each character had a significant trait or quirk, so even minor characters were memorable. You were seeing new little technologies and oddities on every page. In "The Peripheral," there was far less of that. Most of the supporting characters were so nondescript that I had to choose between paging back to remind myself who they were, or just saying "screw it" and regarding them as random people randomly along for the ride. In Gibson's defense, a writer can only create so many characters, fashion styles, technologies, etc. before he runs out of ideas.

As a longtime Gibson fan, my hope is that he will continue to write sci-fi, and will regain his former mojo. I'd love to see either or both of the futures from "the Peripheral" further developed, along with any of its characters.

On a side note, fans of Neal Stephenson will note similarities between Netherton's future and "the Diamond Age" (with neo-Victorians and moving tattoos). I'm not accusing Gibson of copyright, or saying it's a bad thing; it's just something I found interesting. Also, it seems Stephenson, too, has returned to sci-fi, with "Seveneves." I'll have a review of that up, hopefully before the summer's out.

All in all, "The Peripheral" is a good read. If you're a fan of Gibson or sci-fi, I recommend it. But go into it with a grain of salt.

Gibson has a gift for writing about people who are almost disembodied, projecting their consciousness into other places or spaces. He started this with Neuromancer, where Case would project his consciousness onto the net, to try to steal data from corporations. In the Peripheral, he brings the same idea into play, but in a really compelling way.

Without ever explaining how or why, a server in Shanghai offers the ability to connect the present (represented by a down and out Southern county peopled primarily by meth dealers and ex-soldiers) and the distant future, where people are living after the "jackpot" - a never explained but clearly catacylsmic event. People in the current times can contact and exchange information with those in the future, and vice versa. This starts out sort of harmless enough, people in the future living out their continua fantasies. After all, connections between the future and the past (our present) form different stubs - the past can't be changed by the future.

People in the present can control peripherals in the future. In this case peripherals are very humanoid robots. In a strange twist, a human in the present witnesses a murder in the future, and that sets off the rest of the novel. There are forces in the future, and in the present, who don't want the murder solved or even investigated. Other forces want to understand what happened and put it right.

Like recent books by Neal Stephenson and other sic-fi writers, a reader of Peripheral needs to wade through a lot of exposition without explanation in the first 100 pages or so. The story begins to congeal after that. I had the chance to see Gibson speak and he admitted that he wanted the readers to work through the first portion of the book. I can imagine many people giving up. One word of advice: don't. Stick with it even if it doesn't make sense, because the rest of the book is a traditional "whodunit" with ideas about what a person is, what the future is worth, and some interesting ideas about whether or not we can talk to the future - after all, it's only information. Gibson is always good, this one returns to some ideas from Neuromancer and will make you think.

Let's get the flaws out of the way right away: Gibson, as usual, is not a dialogue guy. "Looks like you came up short on the number of ****s you need to not give," said one character. Pretty tortured. I'd love to have, say, Neal Stephenson rewrite the dialogue. I'd love to rewrite the dialogue, come to think. And Gibson's love of deliberate vagueness can occasionally frustrate - what the hell was Haptic Recon 1, anyway? And can you write a whole book about that, Mr. Gibson? Characterization is sufficient but not rich - as always. It's a flawed book, so it won't get a full five stars.

That said, The Peripheral is as brilliant a science fiction novel as Neuromancer was, and in many ways better. It's an unsettling picture of our near and (possible) far futures, suffused with resigned post-Snowden surveilance paranoia and the creeping dread of impending environmental and social collapse. But I like it most because it paints such a devastatingly accurate picture of how evil works these days.

Let me unpack that.

The evil in this book isn't scenery-chewing, cackling, overtly malign evil. It's penny-ante evil, an evil of inertia and boredom and self-interest, an evil of unintended consequences and misguided priorities, an evil that sort of slouches into one's life and the world without anybody paying much attention. The entire crisis driving the narrative is set in motion by the dillettante youngest son of a Russian gangster getting into a new hobby and his alcoholic sleazeball friend trying to impress a patholgically narcisstic reality star. The antagonist is overtly amoral, but with motives almost too boring for Gibson to bother describing. The near-century of multiplex catastrophe the novel describes seems caused entirely by blunders, denial, and errors discovered too late to fix. It's a cliche to point out the banality of evil, but this book makes the disturbing implied case that the results of banal evil are just as devastating as the results of Hitlerian crazed-madman evil, in the final estimation.

The book's gotten a lot of flak for its Pollyanna-ish happy ending...but is it really happy? I was left with this sort of queasy uncertainty about how it ended. The queasy positivity of the ending seemed deliberately ambiguous to me, and left me with only the faintest faith that the protagonists would build a world better than the one they're trying to steer away from.

I found the Blue Ant Trilogy literally unreadable. The Peripheral, I'm on my second reading of. It's flawed but truly great.

Also, one additional quick note: this is a notably diverse novel. The main character and several strong supporting characters are (strong, competent, intelligent) women, several racial, sexual, and gender minorities are represented, two characters are disabled...and they're all included in a way that is natural, unforced, and real, and without being patronizing. Well done.

If you are a William Gibson fan, you’ll likely be excited to learn that he has returned to his particular flavor of science fiction. He has detoured into more conventional (but no less enjoyable) fiction recently, exploring conflicts among ad agency/security firms, investment denim creators, spying drones controlled by smart phones, etc, but returns to the scifi genre in The Peripheral. For folks who’ve never read his work, his prose is exactly right-not unnecessarily long, not too spare. Just right.
He is the guru of the near-future; one reads about things in his work that you are certain don’t exist, and then observes them in a few years. This novel however reaches a little farther into time than his previous work. It presumes that multiple presents and futures exist-that is the multiverse or quantum universe hypothesis.
Within that framework, he shows his craftsmanship in creating characters that the reader immediately envisions, easily finds believable and become interested in.
In the book, the U.S. has been economically devastated by an event only hinted at. Our protagonist Flynne is an expert gamer and the sister of a former highly skilled military veteran. (Gibson seems partial to heroines). At his request, she substitutes for her brother in what she believes to be testing an online shooter game, only to observe a death that she finds uncomfortably realistic. Her observation of the event set the plot in motion, and the book proceeds along two dimensions, one in the not-to-distant future U.S.; the other farther into a future. And the folks in the more distant future have learned how to get messages to the past/other parts of the multiverse. And some of them are out to make sure that no one in their future finds out what Flynne saw.
These messages flow in both directions and enable Flynne and others to experience the alternate universe via realtime communications. Going much further into that will give too much away.
While it is science fiction in its roots, Gibson has always been equal parts scenes, characters, mystery and action, with the future tech and science fiction in supporting roles. The action proceeds quickly in The Peripheral, locking the reader in. We become quickly attached to the no-nonsense, quick-thinking Flynne, her professional warrior brother Burton, and his ex-military buddies. We are suspicious of Inspector Ainsley Lowbeer who is investigating certain event in the future, and curious how she seems to know so much. We are unsure of who are the good guys and bad guys within the large cast of characters in the alternate universe.
Like a few other celebrated authors, Gibson creates words when he feels it necessary (do any reviews fail to mention he invented the term cyberspace?). A few new ones crop up here; we’ll see which join the dictionary.
I’ve stated before that I have one huge problem with Gibson. Apparently I can read his books far faster than he can write them. I did my best to stretch this one out- limiting the number of chapters to burn through at each sitting. Fighting the urge for an all-night reading session. But inevitably I finished and I eagerly await his next.
This is William Gibson at his best: a skillful professional story teller. An intriguing page-turner. Highly recommended not only to Gibson fans like me but to anyone who cares for science fiction.

I’ve read that our eventual contact with aliens will be nothing so spectacular as “Close Encounters” or “ET: The Extraterrestrial”, merely a transfer of information, with an enormous delay-gap, between two civilizations using some form of electromagnetic radiation combined with mathematical code to bridge the gap between two alien cultures. The speed-of-light limitation will mandate a Q-and-A-time-lapse of anywhere from years to centuries, depending on the distance between our star and theirs. Certainly, once communication is established, we can beam non-stop information (as we understand it) to our new-found friends—and they may do the same—but for one of us to ask a question and wait for an answer from the other will be a matter of long-term planning.
There will be no invasions—even a form of commerce would be hard to imagine, since we would only be able to trade information—and that only of a scientific sort—and all ‘casual’ (or ‘tit for tat’) communication would require the Q-and-A format, thus entailing those long delays. Our ‘contact’ with aliens will be so tenuous that, given our nature, there will undoubtedly be a group that denies the truth of their existence, and of their information. This will be the banal reality of First Contact—a miracle, turned strangely disappointing by virtue of our expectations of little green space invaders—and an impact so slight as to allow some of us the luxury of disbelief, not much different from evolution.
And we find many sci-fi memes, nowadays—as they near, or even become, reality, to be equally banal by comparison with our old fantasies. Space exploration has barely begun in earnest—we haven’t even visited Mars yet (in person, anyway) yet we already see the Space Industry busying itself with plans for tourism and asteroid-mining. No ‘Interstellar’, no artificial colonies in orbit, no Ringworlds—just mining and tourism, and of a much more Spartan type than can be found right here on terra firma. And, speaking of right here and now—we have the technology (as they used to say on “The Six-Million Dollar Man”) to do incredible things—but we don’t do them for ‘economic’ reasons. It seems that filthy lucre, not literal ignorance, is the bounding limit of humanity’s aspirations.
And this is what William Gibson gives us in “The Peripheral”—time travel, one of sci-fi’s favorite memes/themes, without any of the excitement of our fantasies—no paradoxes, no transfer of the flimsy human corpus into alternate dimensions (and back again), no murdering one’s grandfather. In “The Peripheral”, time travel becomes a full-body virtual experience during which one inhabits a blankly artificial human body of the future that already awaits the ‘operator’ of the past. The future-people, creating a separate time-line by virtue of having contacted the past-people (something that never happened in their own past) are free from any consequences of changing that past of that alternate Earth. The past-people, visiting only virtually within a blank body, are even more free from consequences of their future-adventures, since they can do anything, even kill themselves—and still wake up from their virtual experience with no effects other than a need to pee after having ‘gamed’ for so long.
Yet within this very hands-off time-travel predicate, Gibson gives us an adventure as thrilling as any page-turner—and filled with imagined wonders of both futures that are not much more than tweaks on existing technology. This author’s greatest gift is his ability to take what we have just discovered hints of, or invented rough prototypes of, and extrapolate their eventual place as givens of our near-future culture. Many of today’s hot topics, such as 3-D printers, drones, the isles of plastic waste forming in the oceans, the overuse of antibiotics, direct cyber-links to the nervous system, and war-veteran prosthetics technology, are imbedded in the everyday of Gibson’s pre- and post-Jack-Pot future.
Even the post-apocalypse of “The Peripheral” is banal in comparison to its more-sensational precursors—the “Jack Pot” is described as a slow disintegration, over decades, of our infrastructure, our immune systems, and our ecology, which all leads to the dying back of our present population to levels more in keeping with pre-industrial civilization—but leavened with technological advances that remove the medical and ecological threats. This leaves the far future with a comparatively tiny, chastened humanity, safe from extinction but still engrossed, for the most part, in repairing their damaged world. The characters don’t even contact the past for any reason so dramatic as survival or catastrophe—they’re simply entertained by the notion of these alternate worlds of their almost-past.
This is why I admire William Gibson’s books so much. He gives you sci-fi without any hint of space opera or fantasy fulfillment—just good, old speculative extrapolations on ‘things to come’ and engaging, wonderfully-drawn characters who live ordinary lives in his extraordinary worlds, but come to live through some of the bizarre situations that such futures suggest. In the process, he illuminates our present technology, dazzles us with hints about where it all may lead, and feeds our dreams with his imagination.
If you’ve read Gibson, I don’t have to tell you to go get this book. If you haven’t—you’re in luck—go get this book, and all his others, and get ready to have your mind blown.

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.

This book surprised me. I'd read Gibson's SPOOK COUNTRY a few years ago and it didn't make much of an impression on me. But there was something about this book that kept calling out to me, so finally I gave in and took the plunge. I'm very glad I did.

The first thing you need to know about this book is that you'll feel as if you're reading a foreign language for at least the first 50 pages, and then sporadically throughout the remainder of the book. In that way it is a lot like A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Please note, this is not a criticism. I am a fan of ambitious books and ambitious writers. But, if you're not a full-on cyberpunk aficionado and don't know much about it (which is an accurate description of me), you're going to scratch your head and think WTF? constantly until you learn Gibson's vocabulary. I say all of this because getting through the first 50 pages is completely worth the effort, because after that it was off to the races and I found myself fully absorbed, even if I still don't fully understand parts of it (for example, don't ask me where the book is set in the United States--I THINK it's Oklahoma, but that's mostly a hunch). I don't mind that I didn't understand parts of the book ... in fact, I like being in the company of an author who knows more (a lot more) than I do, who can create and capture a world, and who can dazzle with inventiveness.

The problem with dystopian literature, I think, is that the characters have no real joy; their lives are just difficult and unpleasant. Gibson's American characters fit that description, and yet they still manage to feel affection for each other, crack jokes, and get on with it. I liked Flynne and Conner; thought Burton was OK but couldn't really get a handle on him; found a lot of the secondary characters to be interchangeable. The low note is Wilf Netherton, a major character, who proves that alcoholics in the future are as boring and one-note as they are in the present. The real star here is Ainsley Lowbeer--an AMAZING character. I hung on her every word and I loved her sense of moral responsibility for making the world a better place. Gibson's near future and distant future are marked by a world run by wealthy people and powerful mega-corporations who really don't give a rat's ass about anyone but themselves, so I guess you could say that the future is now.

The plot here is actually a murder mystery; and let me just say that the way it's resolved is unique. I don't want to give any spoilers, but let's just say it's completely in sync with the book. The mystery does drive the plot (along with the techno-whiz-bang aspect) and I found the pacing to be quite good (again, once I got past those first 50 pages).

So, brave readers, do pick this up and give it a chance. Don't get mad when you have no idea what's going on--just roll with it and accept the fact that the book is like a college course where you know you'll never understand EVERYTHING the prof says and you're happy to get a B because you enjoyed the course and the professor so much.

I also have to contrast this book with some others. Now, for example, I have tried reading the past two Thomas Pynchon books. They're as ambitious with language as Gibson, but they are boring and pretentious, and I couldn't finish either one of them. I just read two abysmal mysteries, THE BLACK HOUR by Lori Rader-Day and MURDER IN BELLEVILLE by Cara Black, and reading this fine book afterwards only made them seem that much worse. For me, a book like THE PERIPHERAL makes me admire the writer, rather than wonder who on earth decided such a book was worth publishing. We need more books like this, please.

If you are a convinced William Gibson fan you have read or will read The Peripheral, that is certain. If you don’t know who Gibson is, and you are wondering if you should take this opportunity to sample his work, I would say “Why not?”

I have only a few quibbles about The Peripheral. It takes around fifty pages to get rolling, but after that the accelerator goes to the floor and the story rips along for a couple hundred pages. I’ll admit I groaned audibly during the chapter where Gibson indulges in the pure, melodramatic cliché of having Daisy Duke, excuse me, I mean “Flynne Fisher,” kidnapped by the evil Corbell Pickett, who has no mustache to twirl while he explains, in proper villain fashion, that he will collect millions if he kills her instantly, but he will hold off for just a little while because - well, you get the idea if you have ever seen a Dudley Do-Right cartoon. The Peripheral runs nearly 500 pages, and around page 350 I was like “Could we please move it along here instead of discussing Chinese take-out?” I have to think William Gibson knows more about pacing than I ever will, but my willing suspension of disbelief was fraying while the climax was considerably delayed for chit-chat. But then, after a bit too much slack, the story-telling returns to Gibson-style “taut,” and we learn what happens to continuum-warping future elitists when they mess with militarized country folk. Welcome back to the future, Mr. Gibson.

Gibson delivers two protagonists that are fleshed out and will draw you into their worlds. Flynne Fisher lives with her veteran brother Burton. Burton was part of elite Haptic Recon unit in the USMC and suffers from neurological damage caused by those implants. Flynne agrees to take on a job in his stead- beta testing a reality game. She inadvertently witnesses a murder in a futuristic London building. Our second protagonist, Wilf Netherton, contacts her. Netherton works in public relations in future London. He seeks her aid in finding the murder as Netherton and others work to alter Flynne’s future. I loved Flynne’s snark and endless questions. While Netherton is not as animated and low-key, the two worked together.
The world building in this speculative fiction is fascinating. Filled with corrupt governments these dystopian worlds are unique from the technology to the stark differences between them. One is disease free and a drug lord runs the other. Secondary characters are unique, and draw you further into both worlds. The tale moves back and forth between Flynne and Netherton and eventually moves to complete interaction.
Gibson not only weaves this incredible world he then makes the reader question scientific advances. We see corruption in the government and financial worlds all while feeling realistic. Despite being dark at times, he gives us flawed heroes allowing us to hold out hope for the future. Leaping into the “peripheral” was fantastic.
Lorelei King is a wonderful narrator and I have enjoyed her work previously. She creates unique voices and her tone and pacing where perfect for this story. I loved how she enhanced Flynne’s snarky personality and her interpretation of Netherton I felt was spot-on.
The world is incredible, but as I am told, this is Gibson style. He drops you into the tale without a boat. I struggled to stay afloat and indeed went back and listened to the first thirteen to sixteen percent of the audio before gaining enough of a footing to stay afloat. Things are explained as introduced and while I ended up loving this, I struggled at moments.

Science fiction as a genre is often characterised as the triumph of plot over characterisation, rather than letting the plot emerge from the characterisation. Definitely the case for this one by Gibson (and the reason why I gave up on Neuromancer). To understand what's going on, you need to get a handle on at least ten characters- say, at least five characters for the two future time zones- Ash, Macon, Ossian- even Flynne and Wilf do not emerge for us, and as for the minor characters, they seem interchangeable. All it would have taken was, say, a page spread over the book to tell us what they looked like: this is the point of reading, to have characters fairly clear in your mind, in physical terms, and then let their behaviour let loose the dogs of plot. Gibson has a good ear for Britspeak in the far future as well as redneck-speak in the near future. But we are left mystified by events, even (and that's bad): just what was it with the assassination squad and the fate of Corbell Pickett (a villain who deserved to at least have some moustache-curling mannerisms so we could visualize him?). Ultimately, the worst thing I can say about this book is that it needs a glossary and maps- and that's not good. The theatre of the mind doesn't need much for the cast list, but it can't survive on nothing. One thing is for sure: if they make a movie out of this, there won't be any arguments outside cinemas or in chat rooms a la "That's not what Lowbeer/ Connor/Daedra" looks like!"

I am old enough to remember when Gibson burst onto the scene with "Neuromancer," and how much that book changed SF. It even had enough of an impact on society that words like "cyberspace" entered the standard English lexicon. It's impossible to overstate how influential "Neuromancer" was. Its successor, "Count Zero," was even better. Then, in my opinion, I found his books sequentially less and less interesting. By the time Gibson got to "Zero History," which is a novel about a woman shopping for a jacket, no SF aspects remained in his work.

I think even Gibson was bored by "Zero History," because "The Peripheral" is a fresh, densely-packed, highly-imaginative work of SF unlike anything you've read before. I hesitate to describe too much of it, because the excitement of seeing this book unfold as you read it would be ruined. Suffice it to say that Chapter 1 shoots you out of a cannon directly into the middle of the narrative; you may need to read it two or three times to figure out exactly what is happening. That's not because of unclear writing; it's because Gibson drops you straight into the future and the plot without any exposition. Personally, I thought it was genius. You won't want to put this down. The ending - which, like Neal Stephenson, is often Gibson's weakest point - is strong. It leaves the door open to future stories in this universe, while still serving as a strong conclusion. I love that, given that a hugely weak point of many SF novels is the fact that they just stop, pending the release of the next novel.

Highly recommended. Gibson has rediscovered his mojo, and I am very happy for him, as well as his readers.

Just my opinion but I thought THE PERIPHERALS was a little more frustrating than Gibson's other books. You might as well know that before you dive it. In this book he adopts a writing style that left me feeling as if I'd been dumped into the story half way in. It took some muttering and hanging onto the shark before I got swept up and away.

But I really enjoyed this book. THE PERIPHERALS is very much character driven and some how, without paragraph after paragraph of descriptions and explanations, he creates a world that's believable and concrete.

I don't actually remember whether Mona Lisa Overdrive and the other Gibson books I read eons ago were so character driven. But THE PERIPHERALS is. There are characters to like and characters to wonder about. The technology and 'forecasting' is still there and still strong, but different. The world/worlds you have in THE PERIPHERALS are at a different stage of their lives and so the tech is less shocking and trendy.
.
.
THE PERIPHERALS is expansive tale that covers life on two different time fronts. And William works his magic by doing one of the things I think he does best, beside prognosticating; he introduces you to a wide range of characters in vignettes that leave you scratching your head and thinking how in H- can these people have anything to do with one another. And yet it all comes together in the end. A Good Read. I'm not sure I'm entirely satisfied with the ending. But it's A Good Read.

Read this book if … you need your sci-fi fix and you aren’t afraid to work for a it a little. It’s true that Gibson’s prose requires more intellectual labor than your average genre book, even among other similarly academic authors’ works, but The Peripheral still meets all the requirements for an entertaining read.

Don’t read this book if … your version of “enjoying a book” doesn’t involve slogging through unwieldy vernacular. One can’t help but wonder if Gibson uses language to deter any possibility of casual readers, and I don’t blame people for getting discouraged and throwing the book across the coffee shop... Or gently setting the book down and finding something more accessible.

This book is like … the novels of Greg Bear or Philip K. Dick. All three authors construct their worlds as palimpsests over our own, using their sharp minds and visionary fiction to prophesy our future. Their futuristic stories are both alien and familiar–sometimes eerie for how familiar they are. In The Peripheral especially, Gibson presents a military aspect that Bear uses frequently in his novels.

Read my full review on my blog: http://litbeetle.com/2014/11/25/on-william-gibsons-the-peripheral-and-gibson-in-person/

Extremely short review - I adored this book. It has a fantastic plot combining a future plausibly derived from our own with a hard fiction future in an innovative way. At the same time, I do not disagree with the negative reviews saying that this book is very hard to get into for at least the first third of its length.

Longer explanation - I listened to the book on Audible during my lengthy commutes. I had no problem simply letting the narrative wash over me, and I believe that this is my personal key for enjoying Gibson's stories. In my opinion Gibson is a narrator more than a traditional storyteller. He describes events that are happening, he doesn't explain them. When Gibson is at his best his fascinating vision and unique language are what makes his stories compelling. This is necessary because you have to be willing to stick with them until 2 characters reach a point in the narrative where they sit down and discuss what is going on. Up to that point his stories can be confusing or, at their extreme end, simply incomprehensible. I think of it like watching a play - Gibson provides the set dressing and narrates events, the reader has to keep up until the explanation arrives. You also need to accept that certain things are never going to be explained. Sometimes that bothers me and sometimes it does not - I can not explain it better, except to say that with The Peripheral it did not bother me.

Through Gibson's career he has had narratives that I loved (the Sprawl trilogy), narratives that I liked (the Virtual Light trilogy), and narratives that didn't grab me at all (the trilogy that began with Pattern Recognition). I do not think it's a coincidence that the farther in the relative future the stories are set the more compelling I have found them. The Peripheral manages to be about a horrifying far future and a horrifyingly plausible near future at the same time. I can not think of an author that could do it better. The book is also, at the end, surprisingly upbeat and hopeful. This is a world of imagination to which I would gladly return.

I really don't know what to say about this book. Let me say first, I have every WG book he's written and in general enjoy each one. This one, is a little different. Okay, a lot different. From the beginning I've found it very hard to follow. I brought it with me on the plane to China (16 hours) and found that I'd rather watch the little screen in the back of the seat than read this. I usually wind up reading his books a couple of times to "get" everything; this one I may not finish. Sorry Mr.G.

Probably his best novel in more than a decade.

What has really always been very compelling about his books, from the beginning, is the sense of place and realism that the future holds. That is, it feels like he just drew out the logical next 3 or 30 steps in where society and technology are going -- and put a story there.

But I'll admit that a few of the novels have been light on compelling plot points, or characters whose motivation or world view felt really real.

Imagine my surprise when Peripheral hits both out of the park:

The plot is not some macguffin about a pile of cash. And the characters are clear and (mostly) fleshed out.

For those that find the plot too complex, with the different times and places, sorry, but this is part of what makes the story so profoundly interesting.

The only thing I am sad about is that it's over. And isn't that one of the key indications of a great book? You enjoyed it so much that it left you wanting more?

William Gibson is not an author you would expect to be telling tales of time travel. But you have probably never heard a time travel story like The Peripheral. The Peripheral has the streetwise grittiness of Neuromancer with a further out dark future. It embraces today's latest technologies and projects them out a few years to a believable future. Then it projects the same technologies out to more extreme evolutions where, despite thier fantastical capabilities, they still seem believable.

There is a lot of violence in the story, but most of it seems to be sudden, fast and just missed by the main characters and the reader. I felt that I was frequently visiting the aftermath of things that happened while I was looking the other way. I'm not sure if I completely like that. I partly for the same reason I felt it was frquently anticlimatic.

The Peripheral was a fascinating story with great characters, deep schemes and the really wierd plot lines you can expect in a William Gibson novel.

Just finished "The Peripheral" by William Gibson.

In this book, we see not so much a return to the heavy cyberpunk and action of his earlier works, but more a synthesis of that with his more recent, slow burn, near future work.

Gibson reminds us that he is the master of nigh-prophetic speculative fiction as he brilliantly weaves for us a world in which technology has radically changed humankind, without using boring data dumps.
He plays with prose, cracking the rules as easily as a hacker breaks ICE.
Almost poetic and dream like, he tells the story of Flynn, a young girl in our near future who gets sucked into events larger and weirder than she could ever imagine.

The ending was a surprise, and a pleasant one at that.

Highly recommended

For some people science fiction is about "sense of wonder," the awe that comes from discovering strange and innovative technologies and mysterious unfamiliar worlds. But of course in real life new technologies only feel new for a couple minutes before becoming part of the intellectual furniture of our daily lives. The future is never as gleaming as we imagine it will be: the bold and wondrous blends in with the second-rate and broken-down, and desperate different trappings things run along more or less as they always have. It's this aspect of technological and social change that William Gibson captures most clearly in his new novel.

The Peripheral alternates between two settings in over 100 short chapters. The precise relationship between the two settings is part of the narrative mystery, so I'll only say that one feels like the near future and the other is a bit more high-tech. In the former, Flynne Fisher helps out her ex-Marine brother with what he says is a virtual reality game he's been testing, and witnesses what might be a murder; in the latter, London-based publicist Wilf Netherton prepares for an event that he has no idea is about to go disastrously wrong... at least from his perspective. Eventually, of course, these two storylines will converge into a tale of high-stakes political and financial manipulation that threatens Flynne, Netherton, and everyone around them.

And yet it's not the course of the narrative that makes The Peripheral a success. Once readers have completed the pleasurable process of working out what exactly is going on in each strand and how it all fits together, the rapid movement between storylines and points-of-view is more distracting than compelling. The plot involves fairly routine escalation and complication, complete with a final confrontation that can't help feeling imported from an uninspired SF-tinged action movie. Where the book shines is its worldbuilding and worldview. It's not so much that the technology and social order of the two settings, particularly Flynne's, feel like a realistic extrapolation of a possible future (though they do) as that they speak to contemporary concerns about issues like mass surveillance, drone warfare, and economic inequality. And they do so not with the earnest "here are the issues I'm discussing" air of much politically-engaged science fiction, but by evoking through minimalist, faintly melancholy prose the quietly desperate lives of people like Flynne, who don't expect much from the world because they have no reason to. Marvels like 3D printing haven't really changed the tenor of Flynne's life, which resonates with the challenges, frustrated ambitions, and quiet resignation of working-class existence.

Netherton's world is, as noted, more futuristic, and his despair is more privileged and existential then Flynne's, but his chapters are tinged with the same pessimism about how power is used and misused. At times this jaundiced attitude is an awkward fit with the course of the narrative, which demands a good-and-evil approach rather than the generalized cynicism that permeates the novel's atmosphere. Gibson is clearly aware of this disparity, but there's no easy way to address it, which makes the novel's resolution feel slightly hollow. Nonetheless, this is a rich, rewarding reflection on the ways in which technology can and cannot change our lives, for the better, and for the worse.

William Gibson's "The Peripheral" is the first book he's written in the last 10 years that I've found readable. It's much closer to his earlier works than to his more recent stuff. He's got an interesting world (or two) here with decent characterizations and an interesting plot. Probably the biggest problem with the whole book is that he spends the first several chapters trying to confuse us about what's going on. So, if you do pick this book up, don't give up at the beginning. After a bit, he'll give you the pieces you need to understand the world and the book's structure. From that point on, the book gets better and better right to the end. My only other issue with the story is that there are an awful lot of characters with similar names, so keeping them straight is a bit troublesome. But, still, I rate the book at a Very Good 4 stars out of 5.

I think this is Gibson's strongest book in a while. It has some flaws -- mostly a few plot points which depend on the reader suspending their disbelief a bit because they are a little fuzzy (the computer server in China?) -- but I think Gibson does best with dealing with the "what ifs" rather than "what is," and about dealing with issues from today under the guise of the future, rather than being explicitly in the present day, or almost, as some of his other recent books have been.

This should read like putting on that old favorite so comfortable t-shirt feels for any Gibson fan. In peak form here, the classic Gibson writing style is sometimes difficult to follow, yet always easy to read. The book is populated with overabundance of characters, many of whom you will never have any sense of knowing; others well defined, also, unfamiliar words, mostly neologisms invented by the author, which are presented with no explanation. Nothing to do but read on, effortlessly, enjoying the style, the technoidioma and the exotic future, until, maybe, a fragmentary contextual explanation is granted twenty pages further on, typically (this is a nice touch) in an alternate chapter via a narrator who is also unfamiliar with the object the new word describes.
Approx. 50 pages in to the story I realized I had had very little idea of what was going on, so started over and re-enjoyed it thoroughly.
None of the above is intended to be negative. I relished this book and look forward to future novels from William Gibson.

I've enjoyed books by this author for years.
The peek into the future, the lure of tech, the sheer poetry of the work captures my imagination and interest again and again.
This was no exception.
The scope and intensity of the story does justice to this author's already excellent reputation as a top cyberpunk writer. I can't wait to start the next book.

I read Gibson for the technology perspective. This one doesn't disappoint there: Internet of Things, Ubiquitous Communication, Big Brother Monitoring almost by accident. Full points there.

I love this book for the way Gibson weaves: economics, kleptocracy, espionage, and hope into a compelling tapestry. Definitely my new favorite William Gibson novel. More, it is one of the great novels of speculative fiction and maybe will stand as a Great American Novel in time. The characters were well defined and evolved in difficult circumstances. I could not put it down and didn't get my day job done for a couple of days because of it.

Tightly written. Characters I liked. Broad and believable themes (including incorporating the big pile of plastic junk in the Pacific Ocean today) and a far flung tapestry of possible endings that cross time and still come back together in a most satisfying way.

As I read it, I war reminded of Moby Dick by Hermann Melville for its sheer audacity and scope. This book actually holds together better than Moby Dick but deserves a look from anyone looking for a tightly crafted, suspenseful, tangled, and speculative novel with compelling characters.

after the last couple of Gibson novels, i said i probably wouldn't read him again, but the reviews were so glowing, i thought why not. NOPE. Gibson has such a need to live up to his reputation as a genius that his writing becomes unbearably top-heavy, forgetting about characters or narrative flow, badgering the reader with opaque dialogue that says more about his insecurities than anything to do with actual story. If you love to puzzle over text for clues, and don't really care about getting sucked in, well, here you go. If you like getting caught up in something, turning pages because you just have to know what comes next, this isn't your book. Don't know how i got halfway through it; I need something to read to fill my long train rides for work, so endured, but i was cursing it after about page 10. After halfway, i ripped it in half and tossed it in the trash. I loved Neuromancer and its siblings, total page-turners. but unless i hear about him returning to story and characters, I think i am done with Gibson and his incessant leg-humping.

btw, the word other negative reviewers were looking for is "obfuscation".

I generally love Gibson, but this is too meandering. Too much effort required to keep track of names, made up concepts, etc. Found myself skipping page after page because I could not unravel the text without cross-referencing to previous chapters. I don't mind some cognitive load but this was too much.

EDIT: I've kept coming back to this in between other books, and actually finished it. The latter half of the book improves - I'm not sure if it's because I finally committed to memory the various characters / concepts or not. I really like the story and the setting; the writing flows well and reads well - but I stand by the initial comment that multitude of characters / sigils / contexts makes for a very confusing start.

Learning anew Gibson world has its challenging moments but usually has payoff to make me come back. I can't quite give it five stars for the first read through but my rating is based on the fact that initially I was going to stop reading...I found my place and understanding of the themes change. This is my way through most of his work. I am satisfied and confused.

I have an on/off relationship with Gibson's books. The Peripheral drips cools and style and just generally very clever writing. Where it falls short is having much of a payoff at the end.

To be fair, 3/5 is a bit harsh. It is not a bad book and a lesser writer would deserve 4 stars, easily. But Mr. Gibson is capable of much better.

In criticizing the payoff I don't mean that it doesn't have a plot. It does, and, yes, it is hard plot to follow at the start. Characters come and go, without introduction. Often he seems to make deliberately hard to track who is speaking and who is who. For example, Flynn at the start refers to her mother, to a person called Janice and to a person called Ella. It took me some time to narrow down that Janice was a friend and Ella was the mother. No big deal, this book rewards paying attention and I had probably missed something in the initial presentation.

Eventually, by page 100 or so, the plot somewhat settles down. Vintage Gibson plot - multiple unrelated character groups, shadowy conspiracies. You get to understand that there are two different time periods, one in Flynn's time and one about 75 years in its future and their relationship is not your standard time travel yarn.

And, yes, that idea is just COOL.

Other things that are cool are Gibson's trademark capacity to describe the world in clever and thought provoking ways. That's where the good writing comes in - Gibson is a SF writer, sure, but he's got a style that can compete with many mainstream lit authors'.

For example - "this was a scuba documentary, one about Lower Manhattan". Other writers would have yapped at length about global warming, Gibson throws out a short elliptical quip instead. He is in form here and channels a fair bit of Bruce Sterling vibes about urban and rural nomads scraping by in a dispossessed and semi-functional society and environment. This has always been Gibson's strength but he's added a fair bit of Sterling's tech acumen. Truth is, he's done this all before but it is well done. That's what I read his books for, along with his quirky insights about people and things.

The problem is that Peripheral, as a whole, is hung up on the flimsiest of backstory.

There is an exciting action sequence at the end. But once that is done, we get a very pedestrian conclusion, with a justification for the plot that he is semi-recycling from one of his earlier books. The synopsis could fit in one paragraph and in fact Gibson barely bothers to make it any longer than that.

All this journey, to find out the whole fuss was about this??? Doesn't throw the reader much of a bone.

Frustrating to say the least. The time travel aspect had a lot more meat to it and is very inventively done. This is Gibson after all, he coined terms like 'cyberspace' and 'virtual reality'.

To put it differently, there were three elements to Pattern Recognition's success. The protagonist, Cayce, the recurring narrative about coolhunting, and the conclusion (which was also somewhat weaker).

Flynn has potential, sure, but, as written, is not as compelling as Cayce (Logo-phobia? Genius). Netherton starts out brilliantly when shown manipulating Daedra, but then kinda simmers down to be the anchorpoint in futureland.

The time travel angle, while clever, is nowhere as developed as coolhunting. More exactly we, the readers, got coolhunting. It was a super clever idea, but once it explained we could run with it. The time travel bit deserves a lot more attention than it gets in Peripheral. Or else it can't be passed as the main subject and there is no other main subject.

The scenes that make up the book are individually situationally clever writing but lack an overall soul. And the explanation for everything at the end is flimsier than Pattern's.

There's a human core here, and, like Gibson's earlier novels, a lot to wrap your mind around. Like a deft magician, the author gets you to swallow an unusual premise, then another follows from the first, and before you know it, you're a spectator in a dizzying world so different from the one we come from, and yet made up of things we know, take for granted, and accept with a certainty that perhaps they don't merit. Really fine heroine, very sympathetic, tough, smart, and somehow vulnerable at the same time. Highly recommended.

My patience was strained during the first few dozen pages of William Gibson’s novel titled, The Peripheral. I found myself constantly asking myself: “What’s going on here?” and receiving no clear answer. After I turned off that questioning in my mind, and just kept reading, the pieces came together and I was both entertained and intrigued by this complicated tale of different connected futures. I was delighted by Gibson’s dialogue, and found myself thinking a little more deeply about the consequences of technological change on our humanity. Here’s my advice: pick this book up, start reading a little. If you think you have the patience to keep at, chances are you’ll be richly rewarded.

Rating: Four-star (I like it)

I was ready to put this book down and forget about it until chapter 20. That's how long it takes to start to get a hint as to what is going on. This is one of those books where you are put into an alternate reality with no introduction or background presented. It is very frustrating at first, but once the reader starts to learn a bit about wtf anything means, it gets interesting. Some things are never explained, some thing are only explained down the line. If you are ready for that kind of frustration (or enjoy it), the story is pretty good. This book is not really about character development, but about the world that has been built for it.

When I started reading "The Peripheral", I had the feeling for the first few chapters that the book was confused and not going to be an easy read. I even went as far as to google Haptics and a couple of other terms found in the book to figure out if they were future manifestations of current technology, terms from previous Gibson CyberPunk novels or something new. It turned out all of these were true - it just depended on the term and its usage in the book.

By the time I was about a quarter of the way through the book, I realized I was fully engulfed in the plot lines and really enjoying the story. About that time I began to understand how the author was weaving the plot, the book became much easier to both read and to understand. The closer I got to the end, the harder it was for me to put it down. I spent several evenings up rather late to finish it because I was so engrossed in the story.

I have read a few of Gibson's earliest works over the years and I am pleased with the way his writing style has grown since those early novels. "The Peripheral" is an interesting mystery with some fresh twists on some Sci-Fi themes. After reading the book, it seems as if the author has the opportunity to write sequels or other stories which involve the same world or characters in this book. Honestly, I hope he does.

But he is. If you've ever loved a good science fiction story, a beautifully crafted work that bumps you back to consciousness with awkwardness; if you've ever enjoyed being just a bit lost and just a bit stretched; if you've ever been grateful to be reminded of what humans are capable of, good and evil; read this book. Right away. Don't put it off like I did, just read it. You can thank me later.

I made the mistake of getting this as an audiobook. Gibson's writing style occasionally requires the reader to reread a sentence or paragraph just to figure out what he is talking about. In the audiobook format, after about 45 min., I had no idea what was going on. It is like Gibson decided to splice his style in with China Mieville's (which actually sounds kinda awesome, but not in that format). Luckily, Audible is liberal with their returns and I was able to switch it out for something else. I'll get back to this book when I have a free spot on a Kindle.

(From Robert L. Cole) I really wanted to give this a 5 star rating. Nevertheless, while I loved The Peripheral, objectively I did have some problems with the future time(slip?), and with the ending.

My reading experience went through several phases. Initially, I would be confused by the introduction of a new character, with little or no background. Thank goodness for online sites offering who/what/where/when details. Next, I became so involved that I read the first half of the story without stopping. It was so good that I put it aside so as not finish it too fast. Then, a few weeks later, I found that I had to start over again, not necessarily a bad thing as this is one of the few novels I will reread. Finally, at the end I went back and reread the last 50 or so pages trying to get a better understanding of the whole patcher/Daedra/evil corporation thing.

More details: First, let me count the ways I loved the story. The characters in present time: I grew up in the rural south. Gibson nailed the way they communicated and thought. Yet, for all the simplicity of dialogue, there was a poetic flow to the lines these characters spoke. I developed a crush on Flynne, and felt that I knew Burton and Conner (I could even see Conner's tricked out ride). I often found myself smiling at some of the exchanges (more so than in Gibson's earlier novels). I loved the way Gibson made the technology in the present so believable (yeah, we don't currently have that but we may soon). Even the whole timeslip/peripheral thing seemed much more possible than in many time travel scenarios.

Problems: I didn't connect as easily or as well with the characters in the future. Eventually I found myself understanding Netherton and Lowbeer better. I felt that a number of the other characters were introduced almost randomly and late, with no real contribution to the story line. I assume that Gibson intended these characters to have less immediate depth and less personality, living as they did in a somewhat grey, semi deserted world. Elements of the future timeline seemed vague. I didn't feel that the jackpot event was fully developed, nor did the he/she/different timelines character add anything to the story. Finally, the wrap up was not fully fleshed out, more like an outline of the ending.

Nevertheless, I loved the story. Ah well, such fun!

First, it helps to be somewhat familiar with quantum theory before reading this book. Suffice it to say there is no such thing as time or space. Everything is dependent on the observer's consciousness and reference frame. Then go to the bible and read Luke 4:5 and the temptation of Christ.
You don't have to do all of this of course but if you don't, the premise of the book will just seem like a lot of unrelated nonsense. Just remember there is only the Now, no past or future........ just causality..

the only complaint that I have is that I don't think it was ever explained why characters from 70 years ago are needed to monitor a murder 70 years later. Other than that it makes for an interesting story line.

This book is a continuous stream of nonsensical babble written in a way that almost implies the author was trying to convey something, but not quite. It's pure drudgery to wade through. Words are thrown together in ways that make no sense and techno babble thrown about without explanation and by the time he gets around to explaining it six chapters later you've lost all interest in what it actually meant. I am a quarter of the way through the book and I have no f'ing clue what's going on or what it's about and I feel like the author has no idea either, he's just banging at the keyboard trying to use every word in his vocabulary. Perhaps if he wasn't trying to be so intellectual and actually got to the point the story might be interesting. I have since stopped reading this book and gone on to something more palatable. I read around two or three books a week, mostly sci fi, and rarely if ever stop one unless it's utterly dreadful. I guess this one qualifies.

This is Neuromancer good.

I've appreciated everything Gibson has ever written. Not many sentences get as carefully crafted and beautifully framed as do whole pages of Gibson. He is a word artist without peer today. His forays into near-future with the Pattern trilogy have been a welcome glimpse of a master craftsman working out his trade in a new place and time, but The Peripheral is the master doing what he does best.

Gibson has built a world entire from whole cloth and then done the unthinkable. He rips back the curtain and shows you how he did it. The magic should be dead. And somehow it isn't. Knowing how Wilf lives and why he does would be enough for must writers to spend a career on. Gibson completes the task with a few miraculous paragraphs and then goes on to tell the entire ripping yarn he set out to do in the first place.

It's as deconstructed as mediaeval tapestry- with its own language of symbols and heraldry. As soon as I finish this review I'm going back and reading it again. I know there is more there than meets the eye and I want to keep discovering it. I can't wait until 2039 when we live in a world shaped by this imagining and Bill Gibson pens the foreword to the 25th anniversary edition of this book and tells us all how we got it wrong.

Buy this book. Buy it for your friends. If you can't afford extra copies,shoplift it from the Hefty Mart.

The Jackpot is Nigh.

The rating is a compromise between a 0-1 for the first hundred pages and a 3-4 for the rest of the book. Once Gibson bothered to make clear what was going on, the plot was scientifically intricate, compelling and reasonably exciting. However, the beginning was an incomprehensible mess and I almost gave a couple of times. Its a toss-up whether the rest of the book made slogging through the beginning worthwhile. I understand that the author wanted to place the reader in an alternative world without much explanation, but this went way too far and indicates a lack of respect for the reader.

You'd think from the general drift of reviews of this that depending on your perspective, The Peripheral is Gibson returning to his futuristic roots with a sharp new sci-fi noir, or Gibson reworking an old formula in a way that is polished but does little to surprise.

I didn't find it be either of those things. I'm a dedicated fan of his early works and the later Blue Ant series. What I enjoyed about those books was the quality of writing and observation. Gibson really found his voice again after the slightly unsatisfying Virtual Light sequence, where at times he seemed to be becoming a pastiche of himself - Gibson impersonating an earlier incarnation of Gibson. Then with Pattern Recognition he reinvented himself, stopped being so self-conscious, and renewed his commitment to texture and atmosphere in his writing, delivering some interesting and sometimes quirky characters along with writing I loved.

The Peripheral is something different again. It feels as if Gibson has fully integrated the voice of his early works into his newer one, rediscovering old joys but refracting them through years more hard work and polished craft. He deals with issues that others have dealt with before, but it doesn't matter at all. Sure, Stross and Stephenson have worked this ground already, Reynolds too if you look hard enough; they didn't do it the way Gibson does.

Dan Simmons may have taken possession of the post-human sci-fi genre by force majeure with Ilium and Olympos, but Gibson shows us another vision entirely. You can see the similarities with Stross's post-human robots of Saturn's Children and Neptune's brood, or the resonances with Stephenson's Anathem as seemingly-alien technology and cultures clash. All those similarities do is leave you wishing that Stross or Stephenson could write with a voice as fresh and powerful as Gibson's.

The plot is where things feel weakest, certainly nothing wrong with it, but anyone who has read a few Gibson novels won't be too surprised when things pace out the way they do. It's a good-enough plot, and it has enough hooks to keep you strongly engaged. I felt it took second place to the ideas about time and culture that it supports. Not really a problem because The Peripheral is a book you read for the writing - a book that delivers some intriguing ideas that you certainly won't forget - not a book built around character and mystery.

Speaking of the characters, they hold up well. If there was a problem it's that I wanted more. I would have loved to see more detail of Flynne's journey through the post-human future, more of discovering the similarities and differences. The idea of the Peripheral itself isn't quite sufficiently developed either. I definitely wanted to hear more of her inner monologue in the Peripheral scenes and know more about her experience in detail.

Still, it's always best to leave people wanting more. Over delivery so often disappoints. I can't fault Gibson here. I couldn't read through those scenes fast enough. When I'd finished the book, the next thing I did was start reading it again from the start. (Then I read The Hunger Games). And then I read it again.

What makes this book so eminently re-readable, is that good writing is always a joy to read. On top of that, it's so easy to read. The chapters are short, and every one drags you on to the next. I enjoyed it for the world, the atmosphere, the characters, even the wish-fulfilment story, but I re-read it simply for the quality of description/narration/inner voice. There's no clunky narrative distance here and it isn't overdone, over-punchy or dumbed down either. It makes you laugh when it intends to, never by accident.

On the first reading, sometimes Gibson's characters speak or think in terms of constructions that need a double-take to follow correctly. I'm prepared to re-read the occasional sentence when the standard is this high. Some readers may find it a little hard going, particularly if they aren't used to reading books unafraid to adopt a distinctive style.

Some of the criticisms I've heard about The Peripheral compare it unfavourably against hardcore "art" novels, and find it no more than good fun. I don't think anyone should let that put them off. Being found less-arty than niche literature is hardly a deficiency in a modern sci-fi novel that is intended to be accessible and enjoyable, rather than the literary equivalent of a zen koan. That The Peripheral reaches the artistic level it does is an achievement, not a weakness. It blurs the lines between sci-fi and 'proper' literature without ever becoming tedious, and that's nothing to complain about. If it doesn't quite achieve the depth of characterisation of the greatest writing of the last two centuries, that's no reason to condemn it. It's still an incredibly well written novel with some interesting things to say about both the world we find ourselves in today, the world we might be in tomorrow, and the constants of human experience.

Whether you want a good fun read that's hard to put down, or a piece of writing to love just for the craft of it, or perhaps even if you're looking for 'art', The Peripheral is definitely worthy of the time it takes to read. Personally, I will almost certainly read it again, probably more than once.

First things first, I suppose - despite my love of sci-fi, I've never read any of Gibson's work. Not that I was avoiding it, by any means; I just never got around to checking his stuff out. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed most of "The Peripheral". Emphasis on most.
First, the positives. The world-building in this story is excellent, in my opinion. Gibson manages to take familiar objects from our current world (Wal-Mart, drones, Homeland Security, Makerbots), and twist the image of them, like a fun-house mirror, into leering, sinister reflections of themselves, in a world that can best be described as a dystopian backwoods ghetto. At the same time, he shows us a potential future where our current route of celebrity worship and twitchy high-tech boredom have dead-ended into a barely-recognizable kleptocracy. The story moves best when the similarities and differences of these two worlds, seemingly connected, approach each other, like masses swirling around a drain, or a black hole - constantly circling both each other and a powerful center, inching closer to collision, and destruction.
Unfortunately, those two worlds do meet, and it's there that the story falters. At it's heart, this is supposed to be a "murder-mystery", implying that there is eventually a powerful climax whereupon we discover "whodunit", why, how - all the particulars. But it feels like the book ends with a whimper, not a bang, sighing softly towards a conclusion that feels unsatisfactory, especially when contrasted with the layered world-building that occupies the majority of the story.
Ultimately, I enjoyed "The Peripheral", although I would caution people considering purchasing this book, that their view of what this book is supposed to be will go a great way towards determining how much they enjoy it. If you see it strictly as a murder-mystery? You're going to come away disappointed. As an exercise in sci-fi world-building? Fantastic, and highly enjoyable.

Gibson's fiction is tersely written. Do not look to be hand held and walked down some primrose path into a story line draped with filler and festooned with adjectives. Gibson's methodology is to air drop you into the action and sprint you, boots on the ground, from action to action. Information is on a need-to-know basis and often left to the reader's imagination to fill in. Who cares what a "squidsuit"
really looks like? Fill in the blanks from what he tells you it does. Fab most often refers to fabricated goods of one kind or another. The core of this novel deals with intellectual properties and economic shifts in a not too far flung future.
One way of reading this novel is with the movie: "winter's bone" in mind. Flynne and her brother are similar to that family.Tommy is that police guy.
This is so far the most demanding read produced by Gibson and therefore a much slower read than his previous works. Anyone looking to start reading his works at this juncture will be put off so best start with anything else and work up. The cast in this is not as sympathetically rendered as in previous works so that there is some distance between the reader and almost everyone involved but it supports the futuristic tone overall and works to the book's advantage. Well worth the read and hopefully his next work will come sooner than later.

I've read some of William Gibson's older works and didn't have any problems understanding the story and characters from the start. The Peripheral was quite different. It seems like he tries to plunge the reader in media res (although not really told through flashbacks) with a bunch of new characters, names, events, and weird jargon/slang to the point I had no idea what was going on, and couldn't visualize the characters. I plodded along and sometime around chapters 20-30, things clicked and I began to visualize and understand the characters and why things were occurring the way they were. I also felt Netherton's character was almost an imbecile, especially for asking a lot of idiotic questions when other characters were speaking. The copious use of slang and jargon was difficult to follow. The best way to describe getting started with the book is if you took someone who wasn't familiar or a fan of science fiction, tripped him/her on a lot of acid, and had them watch 1 obscure episode of Farscape mid-season without explaining any of the characters/plot and expect the person to catch on in about 5-10 minutes.

Overall: 4/5 stars, hard to get started and to visualize the characters, jargon/slang gets in the way.

The first 20 chapters or so are completely incomprehensible. Characters are going around doing things and having long conversations, but you'll have no idea what they're up to or what they're talking about. It's a mystery, and not in a good sense. It's as frustrating as reading Vogon poetry.

At this point I was about to give up. I even started writing an angry 1-star review, calling the book "unreadable, disjointed gibberish". But I decided to give it a few more chapters.

Then, at around pages 80-100, something happenes. The fog lifts. Gibson actually explains a few things, and the intro chapters make sense in retrospect.

The rest is an exciting, but not terribly original, techno thriller. Gibson's English still takes some effort to penetrate (at least for non-native speakers like myself), but it's definitely a page-turner. I haven't enjoyed a Gibson novel this much since the Sprawl trilogy.

So, I love William Gibson as an author. Unlike so many authors who pander to readers, expecting them not to be smart enough to grasp interstitial concepts, Gibson gives you enough detail to pull you through, but lets you apply your own mind to the rest. I always feel adrift in his world when I start his books, a tourist in a country that speaks another language and has completely foreign cultural context. As I read, I am indoctrinated into the world and its nuances, not so much that I can claim to be a native, but enough that I feel like I have enough of an idea about what's going on to predict when the neophyte will arrive on the train and be shanked by the shadows lurking nearby.

The Peripheral delivers in the same way. A near future exploration of some of the more terrifying aspects of our world, it was easier to relate to on the outset than the average novel from Gibson. I admit, I had a little trouble with some parts, initially. The concept of John 4:5 continued to confuse me, for example. And the connection between Netherton and Flynn is not immediately obvious or clear. But, in true form, he delivers in the end. But, the overbearing presence of Homeland Security, a rural economy driven almost exclusively by bribery-sustained drug trade, the use of 3D printing changing everything... It's delicious.

Kleptocracy. I love the introduction to this concept.

I will say that Flynn did not draw me in as much as Cayce or Case in previous books. But, the family-style interdependence of small communities, and the redneck/ex-military humor and interaction between Connor and Burton feels so genuine that it makes up the difference.

Then, the addition of the use of Peripherals and the use of technology to make manipulations of entire worlds a playful past time of the extremely rich makes the concept even more unique.

Long time readers of Gibson's works will not be disappointed by this book. Newer readers will be confused at first, but will find this more approachable than many of his other works. Readers who enjoy real-world set thrillers can enjoy this as a gentle touch upon science fiction. Science Fiction readers can enjoy this as an exploration of our potential near future that should provoke some introspection.

Essential William Gibson. Love this new title, love it. The "further-future" sequences are more alien than any other he's painted for us yet, but still totally compelling. It's a dark book, very dark, and very sad, as far as the vision it foretells. There's a sequence where one of the main characters voices how much he hates the world in which he finds himself, and it literally brought tears to my eyes -- for don't all thinking/feeling people find themselves thinking the same thing about our own world?

In any case, this sure as heck better be another trilogy, and my gut tells me that it's going to be, as I think there are definitely more interesting stories to be told in the world(s) he's painted for us in The Peripheral. I consumed the eBook within a couple days, re-read the beginning, and then bought the hard copy last night just because this is a book I want to own in hard copy.

William Gibson has literally shaped my mind and worldview and very personality since I was a teenager in the early 1990s. He is by far the most influential author I've read. He's my favorite. Thank you, William Gibson, for another amazing experience.

wow. I've been a bill gibson fan for decades but this book is soooo disappointing. i'm on page 60 or so but i doubt i can finish it. I never do that. No matter how bad a book is I almost always flog myself to finish it. The worse book I've read in the last 50 years is Atlas Shrugged but I forced myself to finish it. I don't think I can suffer that much again with this book

Gibson is a true master of this genre, whatever you want to call it. He's a true innovator and the father of the "cyberpunk" literary tradition, "Neuromancer" being the first and best example of his immense talent. The Peripheral does not disappoint on most fronts--an interesting protagonist, strong female characters, compelling, "could-this-really-happen" plot details, innovative premise. Where it falls down for me, and this is nit-picking at this point, is the very tidy ending. Another issue I have is that Gibson's descriptive power fails him periodically throughout the book, requiring multiple reads of key passages to understand the action. Lastly, the "villains" are underdeveloped and I'm not sure I ever understood their motivations. Could be me.

The book is intentionally obscure, convoluted, and difficult to follow. Apparently many readers have the time and energy and want to sort through page after page of deliberately confusing text in order to ultimately figure out what is going on. Unfortunately the payoff in terms of new insights and big ideas is limited.

Gibson's last three have been ho-hum hit-and-miss techno-thrillers with a few interesting ideas but far too sparse for my liking. This is a welcome return to classic sci-fi, with shades of the dark and alien nanotech of "Idoru", a very apt dysotpian near-future USA, and warm and generous characterisation. Amid all this richness, his characteristically shaky plotting isn't nearly so glaring.
I generally dislike time-travel stories, but this is one of the most plausible and coherent I've read - avoiding paradox through branching continua, and only allowing the flow of information.
Highly recommended, especially to fans (like myself) who were disillusioned with his most recent books.

I'm 11 chapters and 31 pages into the hardcover ($5 sale at b&n). I don't get it. Just way too confusing.

After reading other reviews I read neuromancer first. That was pretty good. This I just don't get. Donating to the library.

William Gibson's novel The Peripheral reimagines the science fiction novel in subtle and inspiring ways. Much as his neuromancer cycle did, he pays scant attention to the hows and whys of his technological breakthroughs; instead, he focuses on the economic and social implications of time travel and virtualization.

That alone is neither groundbreaking nor unique. His innovation lies in positing a seamless manner of time travel and disruption of possible outcomes by reimagining the effect on the future of a past already meddled with adverse consequences.

By flooding the market of a hick town seventy years in the past, hobbyists and law enforcement officers collude to reimagine presidential regimes and social orders. This doesn't sound huge, but it slowly dawns on the reader that Gibson has gotten at the very essence of social evolution through sly and inspired storytelling.

I've been a William Gibson fan for years, although hadn't read anything by him in quite a while. This novel had many of his trademark elements -- futuristic, human-technology interfaces, etc. All in all, it had much of what made me like his writing originally. The shortcoming here was that it took WAAAYYY too long to make the start of the novel comprehensible. I nearly gave up several times, but out of loyalty to those other novels, kept plugging. This one needed an easier entry -- the first pages were incomprehensible. I've spoken with a couple of other people who gave up for that reason. You had to make the decision to stay with it, despite not enjoying the beginning much. In fact, I was over a third through the book before it began to make much sense. It was like watching a TV show being aired in a different language and trying to make sense of the plot. You could catch some of it, but it took too much work.

Having said all that, once the novel got going, the plotline was interesting. It had a nice twist on time travel that I hadn't considered. The major question for me was whether I'd read it again -- or read a sequel. (And this one is ripe for a sequel...) That answer is "no". The characters didn't grip me enough and a continuation seems like it would be more of the same here.

I'm glad I stuck with it to finish. And I'll read more Gibson novels in the future. This one, however, wasn't his best. Way too much effort in the start, not enough reward for your persistence.

To me, Gibson is god. This book, however, I fear may presage his decline. I decided to try it in audiobook form, and had to restart it 3 times after several hours each time, because my interest waned and my mind wandered. It feels like he is squeezing drops from the dregs of his imagination. Pretty much heart-breaking. I managed to finish it, though I started to give up many times. I should have. It never amounted to anything, and I toughed it out from sheer loyalty.

I believe I have read everything William Gibson has ever published, going back 30+years. Over time, he has consistently been my 2nd favorite author. When I started out with Peripheral, I have to admit, 50 pages in I almost put it aside. It was so fragmented with so many bit players, it was a frustrating read. Then, in typical Gibson fashion, be brought it all together and finished with an excellent cadence...it became hard to put down.

Not his best work, but if you are a fan, hang in there. You will enjoy it.

This book has lots to like. I haven't read any Gibson prior to this, but I would definitely read some more. It took a while for the plot mechanism to sink in for me: People from a distant future contact people from a not-so-distant future, thereby divorcing the present of the distant future from the future of the not-so-distant future. Once I understood this, I was on board. Lots of cyberpunk and cli-fi themes with a little crazy make-em-up fantasy.

The Peripheral is at its heart a time travel story, a genre I generally dislike because there's no way to resolve the plot contradictions they invariably raise. Some authors go to great lengths to explain why paradoxes don't occur. Others skip over the issue entirely. But for me neither solution ever really works. Gibson tries to split the difference, waving away the technology behind his sort-of-time-travel entirely, but explaining the absence of paradox in some detail.

He unfortunately doesn't do so well explaining the shocking amount of coincidence in the book, the familiarity of different characters with each other in different timelines, even the reason the main characters get involved in the first place. Gibson seems to trust that he can plot quickly enough that we won't notice these issues, and he is in part correct. The story is a lot of fun to read, and much more rapidly paced than some of his early work.

The story contains many characters in two different time periods. Their personalities tend to be perfunctory, however, and with maybe a couple of exceptions they're memorable only for their job titles and the bits of plot they're assigned to execute.

Those who expect Gibson to predict the future, as he did in Neuromancer, will be disappointed. Much of the technology in the near-future portion of the book is torn from the headlines -- dark nets, 3d fabrication, online gaming, drones, etc. And in the far-future portion, technology is so advanced as to be basically magic.

Lest this sound only like complaints, I found the book fun to read and Gibson used some great turns of phrase. I particularly liked one character's comment that she disliked a group of people so much it made her do "hate Kegels."

If you're already a fan of William Gibson, you're going to enjoy this book. I certainly had fun reading it, and was engrossed.

Afterwards, however, I felt a certain emptiness, and here's why: it seems like all of the characters were preternaturally competent, in both of the main settings of the novel. They seem to adapt to new settings and situations with nary a hiccup, fighting and outthinking their adversaries with remarkable ease. No-one falls short on technical ability, fighting prowess or business savvy. Given the complexity of the situation, and the exhaustion that many of the characters face, they don't make mistakes, react angrily, hurt or betray each other.

I was a bit surprised that this was the case, since I could see a lot of the main characters being set up as screw-ups. I kept waiting for the mistake, the critical setback, but it never happened. Anytime the main character is in any kind of peril, they are rescued by a combination of god-like technology and hyper competence. You end up feeling almost sorry for the various hapless hitmen that keep getting swatted like flies before they get anywhere near their targets.

That said, the setting is hugely inventive and well drawn. There is innovative thinking and extrapolation on every page. The future(s) portrayed are coherent and logical (though not spoon-fed to the reader).

I have eagerly read all of Gibson's earlier work. He is a master of literary speculative fiction, for he renders both his universes and his characters in fine detail. He gives them attitude, in the best sense of the word. If things are tied up a bit too neatly and predictably, it may be that I was just sorry to see the novel end. The dystopean nature of his work is always tempered by the ingenuity and spine his characters share in rising above adversity. If you are a fan, buy this book and read it. I was delighted that he has pleased himself by going beyond earlier work: extending the form for himself. I hope that Mr. Gibson continues to write, for I will continue to read.

Phenomenal characters, dazzling technology, a story that will reward repeated readings--this is Gibson returning with an energy I wouldn't have expected. Probably his most coherent and well-rounded book, as well, with as much emotional depth as great action. Prediction: this will be the first good movie made from one of his works. But don't miss out on reading it first, because this is smooth, polished, professional-grade stuff. Hard to believe it isn't getting a Hugo this year.

World was interesting and a clever view of time travel but weak character development and a lacking a strong plot to bring the world together keep this book back. It was very slow for me to get into because of the constant chapter, character bounce.

I am an avid reader of William Gibsons works. But this one has me stumped. His writing style can make it difficult to know what's going on, at least for a short time, in most of his books. This book is the worst for that. I'm half-way through and still struggling to get to grips with who certain people are (he refers to people by first name sometimes, and second names other times) , and sometimes I can't tell who's speaking in a conversation between only two people! I get the whole time displacement thing, that's fine. I don't know, it's just too slow, and the detail which I normally enjoy in his work seems to be too mundane to be enjoyable.

I haven't read all of Mr. Gibson's books. I read through a bunch of them in the early oughts, as he might write. Back-to-back-back. Each one better, richer, more satisfying than its predecessor. I topped it off with ...

Now comes this book, The Peripheral. He's at the top of his game. reading it is so pleasurable, it delivers the best of the experience I had when reading the others. That is like a hybrid dream and waking state, floating back and forth between real and tangible and effervescent and possible, sometime in the future, not sure when. Doesn't matter.

Often after the first 3-4 sentences I sense I'm falling, losing track of the narrative and characters and technology. I used to scramble back up those lines, read 'em again. Now, I just keep reading, keep floating, keep smiling. Mr. Gibson though guides me through this dream state, circling back, placing those details where I can gather them again, all in the proper order and at the right time, so the story continues while the dreamy pleasant reading experience deepens.

Very nice.

The front blurb refers to ...'and quietly influential writers currently working" Our world seems to be going quietly insane, and this book may be a reflection of that. More than a reflection, a contributor. Charles Dickens did very well at describing the human condition. Would that this writer did as well.

I have read several other works by Gibson, and this is an acquired taste. He seems to like to start you off somewhat in the dark and then reveal the details as you go. That is true here. I did not like the ending, but won't reveal it. Very much different from most other authors I read. If there is another, I'll read that also.

I've read a ton of books over the years and this rates as one of the very best. William Gibson creates characters in The Peripheral that capture the reader as few other books achieve. This is an outstanding book not just because of the story but more importantly because I came to care deeply about what happens to Flynne, Burton and Connor. The scene with Connor in the garage is profoundly moving. The supporting characters are also very engaging. This book is simply a masterpiece. I hope that Mr. Gibson holds true to form and continues this story as a trilogy.

I have read quite a few of Gibson's books and as of late, they seem to have moved toward Neal Stephenson...too wordy, too long.

Story was ok, i had to work to get thru it. But if you have the time, give it a shot

Gibson is one of those rare writers who doesn't sacrifice good prose for imagination. This bifurcated story shifts back and forth between the near future and a distant (not really dystopian) one. His characters are interesting and I found myself wanting to get back to the book to see what happens. One last observation: I thought I noticed a trace, an homage, to Elmore in the writing style. Maybe I imagined it. I hope that he keeps writing like this. Really entertaining.

Reading this book reacquainted me with some of the thoughts and feelings I had over 25 years ago when I read Neuromancer for the first time. Gibson has an unbelievable way with words -- I love what he did with the chapter titles and I found myself highlighting passages that weren't all that special other than his narrative. The story was fantastic and very much a Gibsonian "dump you in the middle of the story and let you figure out what's going on along the way". Definitely one of the top 5 books I've read in the past ten years.

This science Fiction novel has a fascinating premise, with communications possible to and from a shared past. Thanks to technology in the future, the past can participate in the future using humanoid robots that can be controlled from the past with thought, known as Peripherals, using borrowed technology from the future.

The concept is great and well handled for a while. The book builds and builds. Unfortunately, some obvious implications of Peripherals in the commission of crimes are completely ignored, the McGuffin under investigation ends up as unimportant, there's Deus Ex Machina up the wazoo and the ending is rushed and out of character with the rest of the book.

Gibson is an author I learned about recently, and I love his style, story telling, and futuristic descriptions in Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive. However an author can use too much of a good thing.

It took me several attempts to get through The Peripheral, as its inconsistent and disjointed story telling was very confusing to me. Gibson's earlier works pushed the envelop in future descriptions of technology. In Peripheral it seemed more like science-babble rather than progressively leading readers to grasp and follow the vision. Couple that with alternating shifts in time frame, and no wonder many have difficulty even finishing this book. The degree to which this was done reminded me of authors who ignore all punctuation, capitalization, and grammar rules in order to unbalance readers and to get them to really think. Sometimes that works, sometimes not. This book's seemed like a step backward in story telling by the author.

I do not recommend this book, and if others have recommended Gibson to you consider reading only his earlier works.

Gibson is famous for taking the reader "down the rabbit-hole". This novels excursion, though, is faster, deeper, and seems utterly out of control. I consider it his most visionary novel to date. It's completely arresting. You can't put it down. Always a fan of William Boroughs, "The Peripheral" reaches the full-up hallucinatory power of his spiritual mentor. He just keeps getting better with every book.

It's not often I throw a book away after about 40-50 pages, but that's what I did with this. It starts with the same concept that Russians, their names and their patronyms, and there's no guarantee that they're similar to each other. Peripheral starts with gamers (with "proper"names) and that all have nicknames. Then he starts using shortened versions for words that me doesn't explain (at least not in 40-50 pages). One that he DID was polts. I kept thinking, what the hell are these? Then suddenly he refers to spirits that can make things move. Aha, he means poltergeists. However, I never did get an explanation for what a Moby was.

At this stage, I gave up.

One of his best in years. The unique conceit and the sympathetic characters help to overcome what I had started to see as stereotypical William Gibson tropes--the obsessions with surveillance, the terse dialog, the endless future-shock tech and its human casualties. A great return to the wide-screen ideas and the people who have to live with their existence from Gibson. Highly recommended.

I am a huge William Gibson fan, and have read everything else he's written, so this book was a complete disappointment. I found it so tedious that I only read to page 250 and then gave up. At one point the protagonist, Flynne goes from the future that is not hers to the past that is hers, just so that her real body can pee; this takes three pages and the event that occurred upon her return could have been described in the previous or following scene in about three or four sentences. There were many passages describing everyday events, such as walking up or down stairways that were completely unnecessary to the story and its settings. The premise was very good, so perhaps the book just needed an editor, or the contract to produce was due. I am going to presume that the book could have been shorter about 100 pages with proper editing.

Having not been able to get into Spook Country (guess I’ll have to revisit it), I was pleasantly surprised at how good this was. Gibson still has a unique way with words, and a style that packs maximum content into minimum phraseology. This mind bending book will leave you thinking about it’s myriad of technology possibilities. And a little about how to avoid pitfalls of today.

I read Neuromancer when it first came out, and thought it was very good. Thirty years later I read my second Gibson novel, The Peripheral, which I found overlong and somewhat drab. After finishing it, I immediately re-read Neuromancer, and wow, what a contrast! While Neuromancer is bubbling with cool ideas and style, The Peripheral is mundane in terms of ideas and technology, and forgettable in terms of characters and plot. Also, it's really incredible how many ideas introduced in Neuromancer later showed up in real life. In retrospect, it was an amazing visionary achievement.

In both books GIbson invents slang and deliberately doesn't spell out any meaning for it, leaving it up to the reader. But The Peripheral jacks it up beyond reason, since every character talks in a clipped, terse style, and a lot of the conversations are simply alternating lines of speech, not attributed. It's so opaque that it caused a real drop in my sense of involvement. "I don't know what they're talking about, and I don't care" isn't a great thought about a book.

Count Zero is my next read, so that should be interesting.

As is often the case for me, it takes some time to acclimate to the world Gibson has created. But once I'm in, there's no stopping. The people in the near-future may look different, but we still recognize them as fully realized characters.

Gibson fan for life here, but I made it only half way through this. Started strong, but I just don't care about the characters, story, worlds. Nothing. Poorest showing since IDORU. Oh well, can't wait till the next one.

The book is somewhat complex and gets better upon the second reading. It is an engaging premise that doesn't get bogged down in the details. Conner is probably an under appreciated character in the book, but actually is my favorite. The book reminds me of the first time I read neuromancer and had to read it again to digest it.

This book gives an intriguing glimpse into a possible near-future and is aftermath through the device of information time travel. Part commentary on the current dystopian state of the world and part wild speculation on how it might resolve, Gibson's imagination and vivid prose made this a great read.

Another fascinating book, set in an indeterminate future, by William Gibson. It was hard for me to get into this in the first chapters, which are all short, and seem disconnected until a few relationships became apparent. But once I started to understand the characters and get a sense of the various plot lines (as far as Gibson will allow), then it became progressively harder to put down. Four stars because of the slow start.

I’m familiar with the legendary-like reputation of William Gibson, but, somehow, “The Peripheral” is only the first book I’ve read by him.

Imagine how 3D printers, virtual reality, Google Glass, and drones will be used in -- I don’t know -- a hundred years. We don’t know when this book takes place, only that it’s in the future.

I don’t think these things are all that interesting now, to be perfectly blunt, and this book doesn’t make them any more interesting to me. But that might be part of the point. The two future time periods the action of this book takes place in are far enough forward that the accessibility and ease of use of these devices is so ingrained in daily life, that they are simply taken for granted and used the way we use a phone.

The first 75 pages of “The Peripheral” were a difficult chore to read. I was thrown into the future and wasn’t given any assistance in deciphering the slangy technical vocabulary or just what was going on. Eventually things loosen up and we’re told enough through context and eventually exposition to start getting by. At this point, when mysteries become less mysterious, you’re supposed to be enjoying the book. Supposed to be. I wasn’t.

I could not get into the book at all. And I know that most Gibson fans will find that insulting and/or a confirmation of my ineptitude, but that’s nothing I can help. If you’re not familiar with Gibson, this is not the place to start. I fully intend to read more of his works (and if you’re a fan, please suggest something of his to start with in the comments while you vote down my review), because while I can’t say that reading this particular book was an enjoyable, entertaining or rewarding experience for me, it is very clear that Gibson is a unique, talented, and visionary writer.

Hang tough through his typically dense prose. He is simply telling the story through the eyes and slang of the characters. They wouldn't sit there explaining every detail in 2015 American English if they were real, and so he doesn't have them do that. The result, once you've acclimated, is a wonderfully immersive and compelling story. I did feel he could have moved the plot along a bit faster, but thoroughly enjoyed the ride nonetheless.

While I enjoyed The Peripheral, I'll admit it was hard to get into. After the first 80 or so pages I was wondering if I really wanted to plod through the rest of the story. Thankfully, once you start to piece together the information and can place each character in their proper time and element, the story flows much better. Basically it's the story of Flynne and how she inadvertently views a murder. The twist comes in that the murder doesn't take place in her time, let alone her timeline. Much of the story is Flynne and her family/friends dealing with the fallout and how it affects their lives and their town. The rest of the story is Flynne's not-future and how the actions of the people in that timeline affect and change Flynne's world as they try to solve the murder. I was glad to see Gibson address the time paradox and in a manner that made sense with the story. Although I enjoyed the story, it felt a little Gibson-light. I think if you're fan of the author, you'll most likely like this story. If you're new to his work, you might want to start with some of his older works.

Okay. Here's what everybody knows:
William Gibson is one of the few living authors to have invented a genre ("Cyberpunk")
William Gibson is INCAPABLE of writing anything that isn't, at the very least, interesting.
THIS William Gibson is NOT the William Gibson who wrote "The Miracle Worker" (although THAT William Gibson is also a great writer)
And 15 minutes can save you 15% on your... oh, wait, that's something else entirely.

Oh, and one other thing everybody knows is that while his plots are always unique (e.g. the "peripheral" of the title is NOT a position or a description, but a character) his style CAN be a bit off-putting.

This is the opening sentence of "The Peripheral": "They didn't think Flynne's brother had PTSD, but that sometimes the haptics glitched him."

Putting aside what I had to do with my "auto-correct" just to write the above, there are only a few reactions one can have to that sentence.

A) "Oh, wow, Gibson's at it again. I've gotta find out what THAT means!"

B) "Oh, wow, Gibson's at it again. I have no time for this nonsense!"

C) "Oh, wow, look at the time. I'm going to be late feeding the cat, and she'll be pussed!"

If your reaction is B) or C), may I suggest a quiet bath and a good dose of Dan Brown

If, like most of us, it's A) \, welcome to the club.

(And no, I'm not going to tell you the plot... you KNOW better than to ask!)

Just finished the Audiobook and found it one of the more engaging stories I have heard in awhile...A couple of hours from the end of the book, I was wondering how on earth this weird/wyrrd story would/could ever come to a close

This is classic William Gibson, rich in its depiction of the near future. Dialog driven, Gibson injects the reader directly into the action with little scaffolding or explanation that can be disconcerting, particularly to people who are not used to reading this type of book. I can tell you that its well worth the effort as the characters reveal themselves rather than begin told about them.

By just jumping in, it takes some time to get a feel for the book. Things clear up around page 83 as you build context around the characters and the settings. Without giving too much away, The Peripheral is a story of multiple worlds, situations and timelines creating a rich background and exploration of very interesting ideas concerning the near future.

Not quite as dark as Gibson's other works but not a light work either. Few authors can inform the reader about a possible future via character dialog rather than long descriptive prose. Gibson is a master at this and The Peripheral reflects that mastery.

It is a tough read at the start, but well worth the investment. Something that needs to be read, every word as they all have meaning and its easy to miss something. So don't plan to skim it, sample it or read a few pages then put it down for a week. Take some time and enjoy.

This book is fantastic. Narratives that intersect across eras. Simulated worlds (simulated epochs?). It's an engaging tale with in a future that feels frustratingly possible. Like the best of Sci-fi Gibson shows us a possible path(s) for our future.

In the interest of full disclosure, I received a free copy of an uncorrected advance proof through the Vine program. As a raving Gibson fan, I jumped at the chance and will brag to my kids that I got to read the advance copy of a William Gibson novel. My biases laid bare, I enjoyed "The Peripheral" even though it's not my favorite Gibson novel. To the review ....

It begins with Burton. His pride and temper get the better of him when he asks his sister, Flynne, to sub for him in a well-paying online game so he can drive to the next town and pick a fight with a group of pseudo-religious protesters.
It begins with Daedra, an artist-emissary-reality show star skydiving into the midst of an isolated and improbable place, her motives unclear but the interest keen and tensions high. Her visit goes badly, blood is shed, her producers panic ...
Flynne sees something jarring, disturbing, but the predictable result of unlimited imagination in the virtual world of gaming. Now Burton is told that his life is in danger...

Fans of Gibson will see his classic plot elements here - multiple story lines all related through an imbalance of power, the idle obsessions of the privileged, the interface of technology with humanity and the changes it wreaks upon our lives, our relationships and ourselves. This is one of the most interesting parts of the novel, the use of drones - familiar hobby models in Mississippi, as well as the eponymous devices more familiar to the oligarchs.

Though Gibson is known for technology, I especially enjoyed his sense of the human side of his characters. They are a doomed people in many ways, they begin without opportunities beyond the military or the drug "building" trade. They are on the dole. The incremental, but substantial, funds they earn for playing online games is at once a boon and dehumanization as their potential is reduced to satisfying the idle pleasures of those with true wealth. Their humanity, no matter how removed by distance, technology and the mediated reality it brings, nonetheless shines through and this
makes it one of the most satisfying aspects of the plot.

Even so, there were some faults. Gibson's narrative style is, as always, bare and fluid in that you are thrust into the action without explanation. At its best (which it often was), the reader becomes the observer, and there's never even an approach to the Fourth Wall - the story remains always intact. This is the art which I so enjoy about Gibson. There are a handful of times, though, when the style becomes difficult to comprehend, in particular during a breakfast while one character is also having a flashback to events prior to the story, and attempting to recount all that has happened since. It's a confusing section that forced me to re-read several times, but fortunately Gibson is brutally efficient with his words so that it didn't slow me down much.

What I actually found detracting was the level of deus ex machine used here, which approached excessive. I'm used to Gibson relying upon uber-wealthy Russian/British/Japanese interests' money driving otherwise incomprehensible actions, but I don't mind because it tends to play so well into his characters' being exploited by their own desperation for money and their inability to comprehend why someone would spend such extravagant sums for them to hack a database/fly to a space station/chase down a social media message/find a pair of jeans. In "The Peripheral", however, it goes to an extreme point where the President of the United States happens to be accessible to a small group of Mississippians who were on welfare or VA funds until the very start of the novel. I know this is meant to illustrate the incredible power shown by the oligarchs, and the callousness with which they throw knowledge and money around, but it taxes my willing suspension of disbelief too heavily. I don't think Gibson needed to go to such lengths in order to make his point .... which again leads me to think that he's already planned for these events to be relevant in future books.

Then there's a maddeningly unexplained motivator from the get-go. The entire story is driven by an assassination - but we never find out who or
why. Perhaps this is to be revealed in later books, but for now it's a painful hole nagging at me.

Conclusion: I enjoyed this read and you probably will as well, even if it's not his best, and despite some of the plot issues. I'm think this is really a 3.5 star novel but I'm more comfortable leaning into 4 stars than collapsing into 3.

I have been a sometime fan of science fiction for decades, having cut my teeth on various collections of stories by Ray Bradbury when I was a pre-teen. Nothing I read as a kid could have prepared me for the kind of stories that William Gibson weaves.

I have previously read Gibson's Idoru but I haven't read anything else he's penned. The Peripheral left me feeling lost at sea for quite awhile, with disparate characters doing things both in reality and virtual reality, frequently described with neo-slang vocabulary in brief chapters swinging back and forth between characters that don't seem connected at first. It took a lot of effort to pull things together enough to navigate the story. I almost gave up, but I'm glad I didn't. This is one of the more suspenseful novels I've read, and Gibson keeps things moving quickly. It's a wild ride, and he's an inventive writer who doesn't waste many words.

Overall, I'd recommend this one if you're a fan of science fiction/cyberpunk.

I thought for a long while about how to rate this book. I had been initially intrigued by the premise, and there were a few strong scenes in the first half which while reading gave me hope of an enjoyable read. in the end however I found Gibson's The Peripheral disappointing.

My first difficulty with the book was the overdose of concept. Certainly Gibson would have wanted his futuristic novel to have a certain degree of jargon and new technical terms (and no-one wants to bog their book down explaining every one) but i found the book to be overwhelmed with terminology and assumed future concepts that for me did not gel well with a smooth story. I even went so far as to purposefully slow my reading speed down and try and comprehend better what was going on. Honestly the exercise only served to provide evidence that the action and description in this novel were poorly balanced.

Second on my list of justifications - the characters. Aside from their esoteric names, Macon, Wilf, Netherton, I honestly could not tell you anything about the people in this book. I couldn't even tell you who was the protagonist and who were secondary characters. Sure there was a bit of action and drama, I challenge any reader to tell me a personality trait or characteristic of any of the players in this novel, as everyone seemed more present to discuss futuristic politics than have genuine personalities.

My final beef (final I promise) is that the general presentation of the prose was sporadic at best. With chapters ranging from short to very-short the pacing was jerky. The overall one of the novel started as quite serious and dark, and somehow by the end of the novel was almost comedic (particularly the chapter titles) Of course often sci-fi has elements of satire and humor, in this case however it left me wondering whether I was reading a thriller or a black comedy.

It was a shame to not enjoy The Peripheral, I respected the concept, and there were some definitely strong scenes in the book. Ultimately I felt like I was reading a draft that needed 3 more editorial sweeps and rewrites before it became marketable.

I have been a longtime fan, but felt disappointed after Zero History and Spook Country. In the Peripheral though, he is back on his game! It is not as sci-fi as his cyberpunk works, but certainly more sci-fi then the Pattern Recognition trilogy, I think this book holds great promise for people who liked either. I highly recomend.

Some numnutz gave this book 1 star after only making it 50 pages. Funny enough, that's right around where the different narrative elements come together and you, as reader, pass through an incredible moment of cognitive dissonance where what is "really happening" is revealed to you the reader, and to the main character (Flynne) at the same time. I won't spoil it for you, you'll have to read it, but it involves a "time travel" mechanism that is not only F*CK*NG clever, it's totally Gibsonesque at the same time. That same mechanism allows for all sorts of possibilities that haven't never been explored in literature before (and it's also so clever that I can't imagine Gibson not returning for another book or two to play with it again).

Aside from that really cool idea, there are ways in which this book moves Gibson forward as a writer and even part-time hobby philosopher/futurist. In previous William Gibson books, the entire book is centered around the "big reveal" but, in this case, the big reveal (as I mentioned above) comes early and the characters then spend the rest of the book coming to terms with that, from both a plot perspective as well as a human/character perspective.

So don't listen to One-star Guy: This is not only William Gibson's best book, it's highly entertaining and will likely blow your mind a bit too.

The defining voice in science fiction. Truly prescient. Gibson builds impossibly ornate imaginative structures and then strips them down, conveying them in taut minimal language, instead of ogling, gushing description, Gibson creates a world where the wildest concepts seem absolutely real, because he focuses on Characters, their perception and experience. he makes the wildest, most outre concepts seem utterly real.

I could only manage 50 pages of this book, er, puzzle, before giving up. I was reading a hard copy, and therefore didn't have access to the added information a Kindle version might have had. This book requires some hard work by the reader, because it throws you into an unidentified future, with hard-to-understand storylines, and multiple unidentified characters, most of whom use language containing unexplained words. And as of page 50, that was all it was. If I had a Kindle, I would've been able to click on all the characters and words that made no sense, and maybe get some explanations. But without that access, it was basically being put into a room where people you don't know are talking about a scenario you don't understand, using language that includes words you don't understand. I read for relaxation, and just didn't have any motivation to expend energy on trying to decipher this book any further. I might come back to it later when I can get my hands on a Kindle version at my library.

Why doesn't William Gibson age like the rest of us? I had enough trouble keeping up with his plots when I was younger. The saving grace for those of us who have been reading him from the start is that his books are still about that good old standby - people. And, though what they do has changed, why they do them hasn't. The greed, lust, love, power, meanness and whatever are left over from Shakespeare and those who wrote before him. We just read about those same people in future settings (and faster speeds!).

Since this is Gibson, we get to deal with a lot of stuff very quickly and in quantity. We know we are no longer in Kansas, but we aren't sure Kansas ever existed in Gibson's world. Confused? Pay your dues and join the club. It is difficult to determine who the good guys are or if there is such a thing. It's usually easier to identify the bad guys. The key word in that sentence is: usually.

Not surprisingly, this goes on for lots and lots of pages. There are several key characters and fortunately many short chapters. Sometimes there is only one breath taken in a chapter, so I'm sure that it's for the readers' survival that they were kept short. I remember with early, then later and now current Gibson that his books should come with flow charts.

If you imagine the wonders of science fiction from days gone by that you wanted to actually experience, then you still don't get to but you get to see even more people experience them in your stead. I was jealous of too many of the characters, though I didn't want to experience everything they did. As always, though, it is interesting to spend time in other times and places. As in our everyday world, these characters have their own everydays in their worlds.

So, what is a "Peripheral"? Do you want one? Are you one? Would you recognize one if you saw it? Where can you get one? Do the good guys win? Do the bad guys lose? Are there no winners or losers? And, why is it easier to imagine that everyone loses than the everyone wins?

Except for a side trip that really served no purpose, this was a mad dash from A to Z. Glad I read it.

THE ONE THING I WOULD MOST STRONGLY SUGGEST BEFORE STARTING THIS BOOK (AND, I'M NOT JOKING) IS THAT YOU GET A LARGE BLANK SHEET OF PAPER, AND WITH EVERY NEW CHARACTER YOU WRITE DOWN THAT CHARACTER'S NAME AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER CHARACTERS YOU HAVE ALREADY MET. OTHERWISE YOU WILL SOON GET CONFUSED. TRUST ME ON THIS, I'VE BEEN READING GIBSON FOR MANY YEARS AND THIS IS A FIRST FOR ME. (ALTHOUGH IT IS PROBABLY DUE TO THE PLOT ((ALTERNATE REALITIES AND TIME TRAVEL)), IT CAN GET QUITE CONFUSING AS TO WHO'S WHO AND WHEN'S WHEN. NUFF SAID, I STILL RECOMMEND IT HIGHLY!

Strange book. Took months to read because it lacks a compelling narrative. Too many characters with little in the way of a common thread. If author wanted to make an anti-global warming statement he should have written a 500 word easy instead of this overly complicated tome. The dialog is nearly indecipherable. Gibson is sorely in need of an editor. I own and have read everything he has written. Sorry to say, this one is a bust. Not recommended.

"The Peripheral" is not an easy read but it's also not as difficult as it appears. Gibson is having fun playing with temporal juxtapositions (not only in the main story but also in how he describes a scene) and words. He is a thoughtful and intelligent writer so what may appear obscure in his words is actually concrete ... but you'll have to have a very big vocabulary or have a dictionary nearby.

This book is plain fun to read. And I haven't even talked about the story.

I’m in a quandary about this book. There were things I loved about it. For instance the writing is unusual which creates a unique mood and the characters are original and the setting close to stunning, in fact the setting might be the most striking thing about “The Peripheral” along with the main character Flynne. Flynne is a feisty young woman that embodies ‘girl power’. As just about the only sensible person in the book she’ll challenge your imagination. Then there’s the time travel motif which is also engaging. The problem is I never quite felt like I could sink into the action. I felt like I was on the outside looking in. This was alienating but there’s still so much to admire in the book. I’ll be reading more from Gibson.

If you have any interest in near-future speculations on security state scope creep, homeland security, ubiquitous surveillance, drones, and telepresence, you should read this book. Fair warning, though, that it rewards careful reading and consideration as you move through the plot. Very little is spoon-fed, but the world is well-envisioned and the story elegantly-composed. Really a fantastic read.

I now suspect that Gibson is akin to Tom Robbins as a writer. He is only an attractive read to people in their 20's maybe into early 30's. After those ages, no one has the time to piece together his junk.

I tried to get into this novel. I did like Gibson's past few books. But this new one was torture. It keeps hopping about, juggling main story and numerous sub plots. After getting almost midway through the book, with the characters still mulling over the "mystery" with no attempt to resolve the mystery and get the story moving...I gave up. I cry Uncle.

Its a shame because the premise is really interesting. And the time travel concept using quantum computing is really original. But you can only take so many scenes of people sitting on their tooshies talking and not taking action.

William Gibson isn't always an "easy read" but once you get through a few chapters, it's always satisfying and he keeps getting better! He has a knack for writing "near-future" speculative science fiction with a wonderful mix of high tech and mystery. And it's fun to watch new technologies and world situations occur over time which mirror his writing. The Peripheral is one of his best.

I have read on more than several occasions that reviewers have said that The Peripheral is like a mashup of Neuromancer and Spook Country. Well, I have to agree with them there. If I had a better description I would use it but this one fits pretty good. However I would say that the mashup mixer probably goes 70% into Spook Country, which is just fine by me. I liked this one better than Spook Country because of the injection of a little future eye candy. Nice job William!

Let me start by saying I'm a huge fan of Neuromancer. It's one of my favorite books. It's the only Gibson book I've read though, so maybe a lack of experience with his style is the reason I make the next claim.

Peripheral is completely unreadable to me. He makes up words constantly while barely or not at all explaining what they are, and honestly, I knew that was going to happen. Neuromancer had that problem too. The major problem I have is that his writing style is dense and overly descriptive. It's impossible for me to figure out what he is describing while also trying to remember or figure out what his fake words mean, without rereading passages a few times. It's too much work when I'm simply trying to enjoy a story.

I can appreciate his style. It's very unique. However, if you are looking for a fairly easy read, you will NOT find it here.

If you like William Gibson you won't be disappointed. Always a bit of dystopia tainted with hope for mankind. The future gadgets and tech he congers up always amaze me yet somehow sadden me that I won't witness them, though I suppose there is always the chance someone just may send them back from "there". Good read

_The Peripheral_ is a subgenre-destroying novel by speculative fiction author William Gibson. It is also extremely hard to describe, other than to say that I consider it the pinnacle of Gibson's work thus far. Take the speculation and edge of of his novel Neuromancer, add the style and flow of the Bridge Trilogy, give it the relevance and polish of his more recent works like Zero History, mix them all together with some lightning and you get _The Peripheral_. It has elements of action, cyberpunk, biopunk, spy fiction, far future SciFi, and more merged into it. Parts are difficult to read (similar to Gibson's earlier works), others flow almost too smoothly; together, it creates an experience beyond the simple reading of a story.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars. It is the next science fiction novel you should read.

The plot took a back seat to the concept and imagery. I coudn't help feeling this would make a good special effects movie with a weak story line. It required reading several chapters before I got an inkling of what the plot was....lots of reading for a marginal payoff.

Gibson has made yet another densely detailed futuristic world, with tech of all kinds in all kinds of places. But instead of making it immersive, he made it impenetrable. I know he can do better, because he used to. Heck, the man has even written short stories full of novel tech. If he can introduce a dozen or so unique devices or methods or bodymods in the whopping 22 mass market paperback pages it took to tell the story of Johnny Mnemonic, why at page 75 of Peripheral was i still wonder what the heck a Polt is?

Neuromancer, generally held to be one of the best cyberpunk novels written, clocks in at a whopping 276 pages in paperback. Peripheral is just shy of 500. It's a bloated mess. I'd rather read All Tomorrow's Parties again than this one.