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.