Right from the start, I wanted to climb inside of it and never come out. Like wandering into some spectral record shop and discovering an undiscovered pre-first-album Ramones demo bright with all that antique rage and pain and anarchic joy. Digging into The Peripheral is a little like a sneak trip to the past, remembering that first, sweet shock of the new. Back to his old tricks: From page one, The Peripheral ticks and sings with the same controlled, dark energy and effortless grace of language. And I don't mean just with a new book, but back to his old stomping ground (the near future, though London and Appalachia this time, not California and Japan). Why? Because William Gibson said it would be.Īnd now he's back. Of course the future was going to be filled with mirrorshades and black leather jackets and the film of blood on a wet razor. Granted, he wore those black and chrome and rain-colored crayons down to a goddamn nub, but we didn't care. Like Asimov or Heinlein or Bradbury once did, his vision carved the scope of our progress, and the big box of Crayolas in his head gave shading and color to a coming time that seemed tantalizingly close. When, to readers of certain tastes and a certain (reasonably innocent) age, his futures were the ones that got woven into our DNA. When, if you were talking about science fiction, you couldn't have a conversation that didn't invoke his name. There was a time when William Gibson was the man. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title The Peripheral Author William Gibson
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