The peripheral

485 pages

English language

Published Nov. 6, 2014 by G.P. Putnam's Sons.

ISBN:
978-0-399-15844-5
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
870919306

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (89 reviews)

Depending on her veteran brother's benefits in a city where jobs outside the drug trade are rare, Flynne assists her brother's latest beta-test tech assignment only to uncover an elaborate murder scheme.

"William Gibson returns with his first novel since 2010's New York Times-bestselling Zero History. 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. The job seems to be simple: work a perimeter around the image of a tower building. Little buglike things turn up. He's supposed to get in their way, edge them back. That's all there is to …

14 editions

A halting creaky ride through a fascinating world

3 stars

A pile of very interesting ideas, strung together with badly paced and incoherent plotting. The sci Fi concepts are fun and the writing is spare and engaging, but neither the plot nor the characters quite come together enough.

Compared to the TV show, this book has better sci fi coherence but its representation of the near-future Appalachia is a lot worse and less fun.

Interesting ideas, but disappointing execution

3 stars

Content warning Spoilers for the plot of The Peripheral (novel)

Review of 'The Peripheral' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Reading out of order sometime has benefits. Finding out more about Flynne and Wilf from the original sources was quite satisfying actually. As with The Agency, this book also ended with far too much an unsatisfactory rush after an intricate build up. There’s a feeling almost that together they form the foundation for what the story is going to end up being; what’s going on with Lowbeer and who are the Aunties?

Review of 'The peripheral' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

A novel set in two different timelines; main characters being Flynne and her brother Burton some unspecified time in our future where things are falling apart even further, and Netherton and Rainey 70 years into the future, after some kind of serious societal collapse that has resulted in a huge population drop and essentially only the very rich or very lucky surviving.

Flynne's brother and his friend Connor, former army vets, now run a company called Haptic Recon where they perform surveillance via drone and similar security tasks. They get a surveillance job they think is beta testing a game using similar drone surveillance systems, but when Flynne fills in for one of her brother's shifts, she witnesses (via drone) an event that turns out to be a real murder. This puts her and her brother in danger as well as in demand.

Things become more complicated when it turns …

Review of 'The peripheral' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I re-read the beginning--which really was more solid than I thought originally. The animated tattoos are a very futuristic-but-plausible idea from this one. Gibson continues the idea of video games being a very substantial part of the future economy.

Still not sure why Peripherals themselves were supposed to be interesting?

I liked the character of Ash--she was just steampunk enough for me without going too far. The birdsong double-encoded language was cool.

Review of 'The Peripheral' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

I tried to like this book, I wanted to like this book, I really did. As someone who likes technology, and is interested in ideas related to the future of technology, I liked Neuromancer. But this one... I just couldn't get into the story. The concepts he was trying to get across got in the way for me. I couldn't really relate to the characters, I didn't get to really feel like I cared about them because there was too much other stuff in the way. The world didn't really come alive for me.

I do appreciate that he wrote a strong woman protagonist really well, so I added a star for that.

Review of 'The Peripheral' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

The first time I read this book I only gave it 3 stars. Maybe I found it confusing and thus unsatisfying? This time round I saw what he was doing, and I admired his craft much more. This is maybe a 4.5 star book, since there is some confusing stuff in there that I think narratively could be drawn out, furthermore the pacing is unbalanced and I wanted to know more about what happens after the story (a good sign I suppose — leave them wanting more — and potentially a good setup for a sequel). Speaking of sequels, I am moving on to [b:Agency|34943643|Agency|William Gibson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1493829667l/34943643.SY75.jpg|56213188] next.

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Subjects

  • Drug traffic
  • Murder
  • Brothers and sisters
  • Video games
  • Veterans
  • Fiction

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