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Agency
- Narrated by: Lorelei King
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
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The Peripheral
- Written by: William Gibson
- Narrated by: Lorelei King
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Where Flynne and her brother, Burton, live, jobs outside the drug business are rare. Fortunately, Burton has his veteran's benefits, for neural damage he suffered from implants during his time in the USMC's elite Haptic Recon force. Then one night Burton has to go out, but there's a job he's supposed to do - a job Flynne didn't know he had. Beta-testing part of a new game, he tells her.
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I can't finish this
- By Aleef on 2022-12-20
Written by: William Gibson
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Spook Country
- Written by: William Gibson
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Bobby Chombo is a "producer" and an enigma. In his day job, Bobby is a troubleshooter for manufacturers of military navigation equipment. He refuses to sleep in the same place twice. He meets no one. Hollis Henry, an investigative journalist, has been told to find him.
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So great. Imagery which stupefies
- By Chris Marlowe on 2023-02-01
Written by: William Gibson
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Neuromancer
- Written by: William Gibson
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Twenty years ago, it was as if someone turned on a light. The future blazed into existence with each deliberate word that William Gibson laid down. The winner of Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards, Neuromancer didn't just explode onto the science fiction scene - it permeated into the collective consciousness, culture, science, and technology.Today, there is only one science fiction masterpiece to thank for the term "cyberpunk," for easing the way into the information age and Internet society.
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Narration was dreadful, book was excellent.
- By WarriorsDawn on 2018-12-06
Written by: William Gibson
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Termination Shock
- A Novel
- Written by: Neal Stephenson
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 22 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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One man—visionary billionaire restaurant chain magnate T. R. Schmidt, Ph.D.—has a Big Idea for reversing global warming, a master plan perhaps best described as “elemental.” But will it work? Ranging from the Texas heartland to the Dutch royal palace in the Hague, from the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas to the sunbaked Chihuahuan Desert, Termination Shock brings together a disparate group of characters from different cultures and continents who grapple with the real-life repercussions of global warming.
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more than meets the eye? nope
- By Scott Fox on 2022-07-29
Written by: Neal Stephenson
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The Grace of Kings
- The Dandelion Dynasty
- Written by: Ken Liu
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 21 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Wily, charming Kuni Garu, a bandit, and stern, fearless Mata Zyndu, the son of a deposed duke, seem like polar opposites. Yet in the uprising against the emperor, the two quickly become the best of friends after a series of adventures fighting against vast conscripted armies, silk-draped airships, and shapeshifting gods.
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Gave it a serious try... but no.
- By CFB on 2023-03-10
Written by: Ken Liu
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The Difference Engine
- Written by: William Gibson, Bruce Sterling
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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The Difference Engine is an alternate history novel by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. It is a prime example of the steampunk sub-genre; It posits a Victorian Britain in which great technological and social change has occurred after entrepreneurial inventor Charles Babbage succeeded in his ambition to build a mechanical computer called Engines. The fierce summer heat and pollution have driven the ruling class out of London and the resulting anarchy allows technology-hating Luddites to challenge the intellectual elite.
Written by: William Gibson, and others
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The Peripheral
- Written by: William Gibson
- Narrated by: Lorelei King
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Where Flynne and her brother, Burton, live, jobs outside the drug business are rare. Fortunately, Burton has his veteran's benefits, for neural damage he suffered from implants during his time in the USMC's elite Haptic Recon force. Then one night Burton has to go out, but there's a job he's supposed to do - a job Flynne didn't know he had. Beta-testing part of a new game, he tells her.
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I can't finish this
- By Aleef on 2022-12-20
Written by: William Gibson
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Spook Country
- Written by: William Gibson
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Bobby Chombo is a "producer" and an enigma. In his day job, Bobby is a troubleshooter for manufacturers of military navigation equipment. He refuses to sleep in the same place twice. He meets no one. Hollis Henry, an investigative journalist, has been told to find him.
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So great. Imagery which stupefies
- By Chris Marlowe on 2023-02-01
Written by: William Gibson
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Neuromancer
- Written by: William Gibson
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Twenty years ago, it was as if someone turned on a light. The future blazed into existence with each deliberate word that William Gibson laid down. The winner of Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards, Neuromancer didn't just explode onto the science fiction scene - it permeated into the collective consciousness, culture, science, and technology.Today, there is only one science fiction masterpiece to thank for the term "cyberpunk," for easing the way into the information age and Internet society.
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Narration was dreadful, book was excellent.
- By WarriorsDawn on 2018-12-06
Written by: William Gibson
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Termination Shock
- A Novel
- Written by: Neal Stephenson
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 22 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One man—visionary billionaire restaurant chain magnate T. R. Schmidt, Ph.D.—has a Big Idea for reversing global warming, a master plan perhaps best described as “elemental.” But will it work? Ranging from the Texas heartland to the Dutch royal palace in the Hague, from the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas to the sunbaked Chihuahuan Desert, Termination Shock brings together a disparate group of characters from different cultures and continents who grapple with the real-life repercussions of global warming.
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more than meets the eye? nope
- By Scott Fox on 2022-07-29
Written by: Neal Stephenson
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The Grace of Kings
- The Dandelion Dynasty
- Written by: Ken Liu
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 21 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wily, charming Kuni Garu, a bandit, and stern, fearless Mata Zyndu, the son of a deposed duke, seem like polar opposites. Yet in the uprising against the emperor, the two quickly become the best of friends after a series of adventures fighting against vast conscripted armies, silk-draped airships, and shapeshifting gods.
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Gave it a serious try... but no.
- By CFB on 2023-03-10
Written by: Ken Liu
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The Difference Engine
- Written by: William Gibson, Bruce Sterling
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
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Performance
-
Story
The Difference Engine is an alternate history novel by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. It is a prime example of the steampunk sub-genre; It posits a Victorian Britain in which great technological and social change has occurred after entrepreneurial inventor Charles Babbage succeeded in his ambition to build a mechanical computer called Engines. The fierce summer heat and pollution have driven the ruling class out of London and the resulting anarchy allows technology-hating Luddites to challenge the intellectual elite.
Written by: William Gibson, and others
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Quicksilver
- Book One of The Baroque Cycle
- Written by: Neal Stephenson
- Narrated by: Neal Stephenson (introduction), Kevin Pariseau, Simon Prebble
- Length: 14 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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In which Daniel Waterhouse, fearless thinker and courageous Puritan, pursues knowledge in the company of the greatest minds of Baroque-era Europe -- in a chaotic world where reason wars with the bloody ambitions of the mighty, and where catastrophe, natural or otherwise, can alter the political landscape overnight.
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I don't get it
- By WazzyBingBang on 2018-03-28
Written by: Neal Stephenson
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Idoru
- Written by: William Gibson
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Colin Laney is here looking for work. He is an intuitive fisher for patterns of information. But Laney knows how to sift for the dangerous bits. Which makes him useful - to certain people. Chia McKenzie is here on a rescue mission. Her idol is the singer Rez, of the band Lo,Rez. When the Seattle chapter of the Lo,Rez fan club decided that he might be in trouble in Tokyo, they sent Chia to check it out. Rei Toei is the idoru - the beautiful, entirely virtual media star adored by all Japan. Rez has declared that he will marry her. This is the rumor that has brought Chia to Tokyo.
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Great book Narator didn't do it justice.
- By corey on 2019-12-31
Written by: William Gibson
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The Goblin Emperor
- Written by: Katherine Addison
- Narrated by: Kyle McCarley
- Length: 17 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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The youngest, half-goblin son of the Emperor has lived his entire life in exile, distant from the Imperial Court and the deadly intrigue that suffuses it. But when his father and three sons in line for the throne are killed in an "accident", he has no choice but to take his place as the only surviving rightful heir. Entirely unschooled in the art of court politics, he has no friends, no advisors, and the sure knowledge that whoever assassinated his father and brothers could make an attempt on his life at any moment.
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Deliciously Deep Geek
- By Patricia on 2022-11-27
Written by: Katherine Addison
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Machinehood
- Written by: S.B. Divya
- Narrated by: Inés del Castillo, Deepti Gupta
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Welga Ramirez, executive bodyguard and ex-special forces, is about to retire early when her client is killed in front of her. It’s, 2095 and people don’t usually die from violence. Humanity is entirely dependent on pills that not only help them stay alive but allow them to compete with artificial intelligence in an increasingly competitive gig economy. Daily doses protect against designer diseases, flow enhances focus, zips and buffs enhance physical strength and speed, and juvers speed the healing process.
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Beautifully written!
- By Ed Johnson on 2021-03-15
Written by: S.B. Divya
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Snow Crash
- Written by: Neal Stephenson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 17 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Neal Stephenson is a blazing new force on the sci-fi scene. With the groundbreaking cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, he has "vaulted onto the literary stage." It weaves virtual reality, Sumerian myth, and just about everything in between with a cool, hip cybersensibility - in short, it is the gigathriller of the information age.
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Rambling and incoherent
- By Jeff on 2019-06-06
Written by: Neal Stephenson
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Human Compatible
- Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control
- Written by: Stuart Russell
- Narrated by: Raphael Corkhill
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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In the popular imagination, superhuman artificial intelligence is an approaching tidal wave that threatens not just jobs and human relationships, but civilization itself. Conflict between humans and machines is seen as inevitable and its outcome all too predictable. In this groundbreaking audiobook, distinguished AI researcher Stuart Russell argues that this scenario can be avoided, but only if we rethink AI from the ground up. Russell begins by exploring the idea of intelligence in humans and in machines.
Written by: Stuart Russell
Publisher's Summary
An instant New York Times best seller
"One of the most visionary, original, and quietly influential writers currently working" (The Boston Globe) returns with a sharply imagined follow-up to the New York Times best-selling The Peripheral.
William Gibson has trained his eye on the future for decades, ever since coining the term "cyberspace" and then popularizing it in his classic speculative novel Neuromancer in the early 1980s. Cory Doctorow raved that The Peripheral is "spectacular, a piece of trenchant, far-future speculation that features all the eyeball kicks of Neuromancer." Now, Gibson is back with Agency - a science-fiction thriller heavily influenced by our most current events.
Verity Jane, gifted app whisperer, takes a job as the beta tester for a new product: a digital assistant, accessed through a pair of ordinary-looking glasses. "Eunice", the disarmingly human AI in the glasses, manifests a face, a fragmentary past, and a canny grasp of combat strategy. Realizing that her cryptic new employers don’t yet know how powerful and valuable Eunice is, Verity instinctively decides that it’s best they don’t.
Meanwhile, a century ahead in London, in a different time line entirely, Wilf Netherton works amid plutocrats and plunderers, survivors of the slow and steady apocalypse known as the jackpot. His boss, the enigmatic Ainsley Lowbeer, can look into alternate pasts and nudge their ultimate directions. Verity and Eunice are her current project. Wilf can see what Verity and Eunice can’t: their own version of the jackpot, just around the corner, and the roles they both may play in it.
What the critics say
“His eye for the eerie in the everyday still lends events an otherworldly sheen.” (The New Yorker)
“William Gibson can craft sentences of uncanny beauty, and is our great poet of crowds.” (San Francisco Chronicle Book Review)
“Like Pynchon and DeLillo, Gibson excels at pinpointing the hidden forces that shape our world.” (Details)
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What listeners say about Agency
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Mike Reiter
- 2020-06-15
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.
1 person found this helpful
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- Jersey
- 2020-03-05
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....
1 person found this helpful
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- corey
- 2020-02-05
A fitting continuance from the peripheral
William Gibson doing what he does best. Entertaining thought provoking all I could of asked for is more!
1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 2023-02-18
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.
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- Mark Harcourt
- 2022-12-02
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...
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- Werdna Bancam
- 2020-07-28
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.
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- Sergeminator
- 2020-05-08
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
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- Mr
- 2020-04-30
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.
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- Mharr84
- 2020-02-24
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.
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- Clear Menser
- 2020-02-06
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
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- Ronke
- 2020-02-10
reads like a treatment for a bad movie
I am stunned how bad this book is. I am currently in chemo and have been using my enforced down time to read or reread all of Gibson (somehow missed a few like Mona Lisa Overdrive when they came out).
Having adored The Peripheral, I immediately put this on Pre-Order and just finished it, despite increasing reluctance to pick it up at any given point. When yet another incredibly stupid and unnecessary character (Manuela) appeared in the final chapters, I was about ready to throw the book and my Galaxy across the room.
The narrator is as excellent as always, accomplishing an astonishing range of voices and accents... or non accents. But even she cannot endow the main human character with anything but a sort of whiny simple mindednes, while the narrative is full of ridiculously detailed and meaningless descriptions of physical movements: sliding across a car seat, washing a face and putting on shoes (yes, many more times than once) . The brilliant internal monologues, characters and connections for which Gibson is famous are totally lacking. I have returned in relief to Pattern Recognition and am hoping the future will bring some return to form.
20 people found this helpful
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- Queequeg
- 2020-01-31
Mediocre and Forgettable
This feels as if it were written by someone who had never been to the Bay Area. There is no sense of place, but then the characters are just as shallow. It almost feels as if written by second-rate AI. Another complete waste of time.
14 people found this helpful
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- Doghouse Reilly
- 2020-03-02
Sadly, the worst Gibson has ever been.
I've been reading and been enthralled by Gibson for over 10 years, and eagerly await each new piece. Usually, he's the undisputed champion of writing timeless works that nevertheless perfectly encapsulate the moment in they are written.
Not here. There is barely any story, what there is trods old ground, there is one interesting character (recycled from an older novel), the thematics are the shallowest political tripe, (whoa, Trump is bad! What a hot take) and the zeitgeist inserts might have been edgy just after his last book (William Gibson is pushing Boston Dynamics? My aunts will feel so edgy, after sending those chain email vids).
I hope this is just a fluke, and not a sign that he's washed up. It's possible that I'm being overly harsh, but this one hurts. I'd prefer to live in a world where Gibson moves past this and innovates again.
12 people found this helpful
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- LifestyleSimply
- 2020-01-27
Science Fashion?
Obsessive descriptions of clothing and everything else doesn't build interest. How many times do you need to know a character's pants are too baggy to accommodate a knee brace? This sequel to The Peripheral moves monotonously to a ho-hum ending where the bad guys are sent packing, and somehow the avoidance of any major calamity in the present-day stub is never fully explained.
12 people found this helpful
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- Kevin S.
- 2020-02-04
Interesting concept, now just overdone
Overall, I didn't get what made this any different than Peripheral. Gibson actually pushed the envelope with things like Neuromancer, implying a truly viable high tech future. Now, the tech is here and nothing really new - I kept thinking along the lines of "drone of the week" at this point and the twist of the time travel is now stale - as well as repeatedly demonstrating there's no real stakes as the future we always see doesn't get impacted by those essentially just playing around with rich west coast D listers in the past. What exactly do the people in the future do for real work, anyway? I felt the (tired, overdone as every recent Stephenson 'hero' is) heroine came across as very flat, almost ignorant valley girl in voice acting - and it's awfully weird when the female narrator has better male voices than female. Finally, as in Overall, this just came across as Peripheral Part 2: Dry and Tired.. that's my opinion of the story. It seemed awfully woke and kind of gratuitous that the stolen military AI featured in the story never come across as African American female even though it identifies as one later - queue the wokeness, and way to pretty much steal a minor character from CBS SEAL Team - a translator no less (and yes, it's said the basis for the AI was a black girl translator associated with Navy Special Forces) and not even the kind of strategist that would pull off all the magic techno stunts and basically bank robbery inundated throughout.
9 people found this helpful
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- Ocean State Prime
- 2020-02-02
enjoyable romp lacking significance
I'd give this story an additional star for a first time author. One does expect an old master of science fiction to produce something of significance. This is not such.
King did a great job with the narration.
9 people found this helpful
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- Pie
- 2020-03-24
who wrote this?
This does not really read like one of William Gibson's stories. Not.... really. Superficially... yes. Did he really write this one?
8 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 2020-04-23
Don’t judge this book by its cover
The Black woman depicted on the cover has a small sometimes insignificant role in this sporadic, incoherent plot is alternative time line and political plots. Please don’t waste your time on this one
7 people found this helpful
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- N.J
- 2020-01-26
Low quality SciFi
This is the type of SciFi that doesn’t take you deep into the story or caricatures. It’s more like a long short story. But, the story idea was very interesting.
6 people found this helpful
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- Edward
- 2020-01-25
Agency. Well done follow up to The Peripheral
Awesome story. Great characters. Hillary Clinton as a heroic figure was laughable. Excellent use of alternate history
6 people found this helpful