Oh yes! So tonight I've finished up the first book of a trilogy by William Gibson titled "The Peripheral"! And it's been a long while since I've read anything by him.
In it I've follow three individuals. First up we have Flynne Fisher, who lives down a county road in a rural area of a near future America where jobs have become scarce. But not unless you would count the illegal drug manufacturing. And her brother Burton who lives–or at least tries to–on the money from the Veteran Administration. Flynne tries to earn what she can through assembling products at a local 3D printshop. She initially made more by being a combat scout in an online game, playing for a wealthy man, only to let shooter games go.
And seventy years later we meet Wilf Nehterton who lives in London, and on the far side of an apocalypse in slow motion. Things seem pretty good for the haves, with not very much have-nots left. He is a high powered and celebrity minder, and sees himself as a romantic misfit, in a society where reaching right into the past is just only a hobby.
Flynne's brother has been moonlighting online working secretly as security in some kind of a game prototype, a virtual reality world that somewhat looks like London, only much more weirder. And he's got her working shifts, promising that the game is not a shooter. But still the crime she ends up witnessing was plenty bad.
Now both Flynne and Wilf will meet. With Flynne's world about to be altered irrevocably. And for Wilf, with all of his decadence and power, will come to learn that some third world types from the past can be quite the badass!
This book is a mind bender! Switching from the past to the future multiple from chapter to chapter, with some moments that seem to be just so trippy! This is a cross between the cyberpunk scifi, that Gibson is known for, with heavy influences of crime thrillers. And of course I do really love crime thrillers!
Really like this first book of the trilogy that Gibson has been working called The Jackpot Trilogy, there's a second book of this trilogy, "Agency", that's been out for a while that I might also check out. There's a third one titled "Jackpot" that hasn't been released yet, but when it does I'll certainly be gunning for that one! (And I still haven't gotten my hands on the second book of Gibson's Sprawl trilogy "Count Zero"! Really have to get that one!)
by i-the-muso-1968