Ten brilliant, seminal, hard-edged, nerve-enhancing stories from the most influential science fiction writer of our time. With a hard-edged, gloomy passion and intensely realized detail, these stories are a synthesis of pop culture, high tech and advanced literary technique. In them Gibson charts the unchecked rise of multinational corporations and the addictively transcendent potential of cyberspace. Since they were first published in the 1980s, Gibson's vision has become a universal touchstone. His lapidary prose seethes with buzz-phrases newly minted yet destined to be current well in to the future. Lowlife characters, ghosts and hallucinations mingle to their mutual peril in the malls and plazas of an intensely realized holographic name-brand society. Cloned Ninja bodyguards and retro fashions, voodoo and deadly cyber criminals: here is a heady mix of imagery delivered with exaggerated clarity against a constant subliminal hum of high tech.
A mixed bag, as early-short-story collections often are, and it took me a while to get through the first few - I kept picking up other things to read in the meantime. However, it's worth reading for "Hinterlands" alone, which was totally fascinating and creepy and left me dying to know more. "The Winter Market" was a close second.
Reading updates
-
Started reading
-
31 March, 2011:
Finished reading
-
31 March, 2011:
Reviewed