A decent cyber romp

As in a typical Gibson story there is an AI. Also as is typical in a Gibson story, the AI is nominally female. I always wondered why he never just made them gender-less. I could never fathom why an AI would care one way or another, and if it did, it would probably a gender distinction far removed from what we understand as gender. At least in this book he gives a reason why the AI is nominally female.

Eunice is the AI. She is the commercial offspring of a military project. Verity is an app whisperer hired to test Eunice. There are some people from another timeline, various shady entities who are trying to disable Eunice and those that know about her, and the group that is protecting Verity from those people.

The story starts off very well. Eunice gaining sentience works well. The side plot of the background of the people from another timeline is interesting. Eunice being female plays into the narrator's voice. Lorelei King turns in a good performance and does well with the material. I would have given this book five stars but about a third of the way through the main protagonist, Verity, becomes less of a participant and more of a fragile, inanimate object to be protected. A lot of things happen around her, which although she is the focus of, she is not a real participant in. It is too bad Gibson couldn't find something for her to do, not even necessarily action, but even analysis, coding, anything.

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William Gibson does it again!!!

I’m a long-time fan of William Gibson’s work. As always, I don’t want to reach the end of the book, but i also can’t wait for the ending!!!. I listened to ‘Agency’ as a stand alone audio book and then again after I reread ‘The Perpheral.’ What a lovely ride! A side note: Gibson’s earlier works were read by Robertson Dean, but I much prefer Lorelei Dean....

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A fitting continuance from the peripheral

William Gibson doing what he does best. Entertaining thought provoking all I could of asked for is more!

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If you can’t wait for season 2

I listened after watching Season 1 of the Peripheral. It works without having read the first book, but looking up the characters again really helped— there are a ton! A little hard to keep track of. Definitely recommend if you liked the Peripheral. Looking forward to the end of the trilogy.

Top notch!

Having been captured by the first book,(The Peripheral), I had to re-enter this world , so well animated by Lorelei King. Another engrossing tale performed by an exceptional talent. The performance canters along telling a story of depth and imagination, leaving me looking for the next...

loved it but it's flawed

Loved it, but it was a bit of a struggle to finish. The reader was clear and skillful but her accents and voices were artificial and too similar to each other. William Gibson's writing was brilliant but the unconventional format he chose made the narrative hard to follow at times.

Not what I expected story-wise

The performance is great and it's a good concept but the way the story evolves was very lukewarm.

I didn't realize its a sequel so maybe reading the previous one helps get more engaged, but it wasn't legendary at all

Perfect near future sci-fi

‘Pattern recognition’ has been one of my favourite books, and I think this matches it. Interesting characters with complex motivations, and lots of small, almost throwaway details that place it in a believable world almost (but not quite) exactly like our own.
Manages to be an engaging cerebral thriller without a lot actually happening - which I would normally find quite tedious - but here it seems to work, like it did in ‘Pattern recognition’.
One of the few fiction books that’s ambivalent about AI - not shown as good or bad, apocalyptic or a saviour, but something that could be either (or both). Also includes one spectacular dig at US and UK politics that I did NOT see coming.
Highly recommended.

Didn't finish it.

I started and stopped listening to this book twice and still have not finished it.

Found I had trouble paying attention and that led to confusion about the plot. Maybe it was the style/genre wasn't for me but I wouldn't recommend it.

The only positive comment I can give is that I liked the narration. That's the only reason I stuck with this as long as I did.

pretty good, not his best

still, happy to have a timely instalment of the good stuff

felt like a lot more blocking and precise movement than ideas or plot