Honestly, this would have been 3 stars, except the beginning REALLY did a good job of hooking me. I loved the concept and the execution, I loved the way the plot went from 0-100 in the first part of the book, and I loved the characters.

After the first half, I feel like it got a little aimless, though. It's very much a cyberpunk counter-espionage thriller, but includes all the really boring parts of what that entails. There's a lot of moving around, shaking tails, and a lot of waiting. Honestly, it could have been shorter, except I think Gibson sort of wanted to fill out the world of "the big stub". Unfortunately, the slow-moving (and often off-screen) London beauracracy of the future isn't exactly thrilling.

But then you get through that, and there's a pretty good ending that really made me want a third book. I like what Gibson built on to the setting he established in The Peripheral, and I like that he didn't feel the need to revisit that exact setting. You get a better idea of what the stakes are outside of one timeline.

I feel like this is a bridge to the third book, but it could have been better. That said, I'm hoping the last book wraps everything up in a satisfactory way, but there were definitely moments where I felt like I was just getting through the story to see what happened.