The Peripheral: Now a major new TV series with Amazon Prime Paperback – 27 Oct. 2022

I love sci-fi and I love William Gibson. I'm not sure how I missed this book when it was published in 2014, but here we are: a tv show brought it to my attention.If you're new to Gibson's books, then whoa, you're in for a ride. He's quite hardcore punk sci-fi and unapologetically doesn't explain things to the reader - you'll eventually pick things up by nuance. Or not.If you've chosen to read this book because of the tv show, then you should know that the book is about 75% completely different from the show (at least up to episode 6). While the show is mostly about Flynne, her brother, Netherton and Nuland, the book's main heroes are Lowbeer (who's not even in the show until episode 6), Conner, Flynne, Netherton and to some extent Macon.So, it's best to treat the tv show and the book as two separate entities who just happen to share a few characters and some events in the same locations. There's no point comparing them because they're both good, just in different ways.So, is the book any good? If, like me, you're a Gibson fan, then yes, it's absolutely brilliant. He drops the reader into worlds, ideas, concepts and morals that are fresh and so perfectly described but barely explained, that it really feels as though you're exploring it alongside Flynne and Conner. If you dislike ambiguity, then it could be a bit frustrating.I'm having a hard time understanding the motivations for all the characters (unlike the tv show where some of them are just power-hungry and bad); and occasionally the internal logic doesn't make sense: how is Wilf an alcoholic in a world where all medical problems are fixed instantly by a Medici device? How exactly are the people in the future able to connect to the past? A 'secret Chinese server' is right up there with 'Somehow he came back' when it comes to plastering over gaping plotholes.Overall it's a great read; mind bending and creative. It works well as a companion-piece to the tv series as well.

I found the overall story interesting but a lot of the tech stuff and 'sort of' time travel was confusing even for someone like me who enjoys all that sort of thing.My mistake was probably in watching the streaming series at the same time as reading the book and that made it extremely confusing because it's totally different and a lot of the details in the book were completely wrong in the TV series so I'm not sure which version I prefer.

No spoilers as the discovery of this gem is too precious to dilute.Intelligent, original, surprising, credible, fast paced, perceptive, complex, gripping, with a large cast of well drawn and engaging characters. Like 'Sicario' the shock is largely because the surpise is so well done it is credible!Saw the TV series (from Amazon prime) after reading the book and thought it even better: Which is unusual. The TV series is different and less detailed in many ways, as you'd expect, but still wow's with the same essential ingredients and impact.HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

This book is shockingly badly written, perhaps the worst I have ever come across.Actually would benefit from rewriting.Such a pity because it has the potential to be a great story , being full of amazing concepts. Hence 3 stars rather than 1.The writers of the Amazon film series have done a fantastic job in eliciting the story and presenting it in a most entertaining way.I bought this book as a companion to the filmbut have found it bewildering and disappointing .

Imagine that an eighties band you used to like released a 35-year reunion album, and it turned out not to be entirely terrible.“The Peripheral” is a hybrid cyberpunk/time travel story told from two (mostly) alternating third-person-limited points of view looking at each other from either end of an unspecified period of future history.The content is pure William Gibson fan service and almost criticism-proof. You knew what to expect when you bought your ticket, so for the most part you just have to put up and shut up.It’s a chaotic exercise in nano tech, stealth tech, cyber-displaced consciousness, guns-and-ammo fetishism, and Black Ops mumbo jumbo. There’s probably only one character – an actual cop – who isn’t a creatively dysfunctional but, like, toterly kewl, loner.It takes a while to get going, but once all the pieces are on the board and your reading ear tunes in to the slightly forced writing style it hops along enjoyably enough.The real weakness is in the structure.The plot is a bad day for air traffic control at Deus Ex Machina Airlines.It’s told in a a hundred-odd, pointlessly tiny, supposedly smartly titled, chapters.One of the reasons it’s slow to start is because it’s trying to get away with delivering two future worlds at either end of a “look but don’t touch” Google Hangout, without info-dumps, and just ends up being oblique.One of the pair of PoV voices has a yoof-full, edgy, broken “street” quality that’s not entirely successful, partly because it’s trying to leverage the benefits of first and third person and ends up neither fish nor fowl, and partly because that voice bleeds inappropriately all over the other PoV who isn’t either yoof or “street”.There’s a climax without a real nailed-down conclusion. Despite striking down upon the eventually revealed panto villain with great vengeance and furious anger, at least one key dark side character escapes with just a stern telling off. When I reached the last couple of chapters and had to keep being careful not to tap the “buy the next-in-series” banner in the Kindle app, I realised with a sinking heart that it’s because it’s not the standalone I thought it was.All that said, if it comes up again at a 99p deal, there are way worse ways to send yourself to sleep for a week.

If you like this genre. I do, so five stars.

Al di là del bellissimo libro, c'è il solito problema dell'uso di neologismi che solo dopo un po' si riescono a decifrare.La lettura in lingua originale dà più sapore alla storia.Raccomandatissimo!

Mondes parallèles entremêlés histriquement et vus par les 2 bouts, personnages attachants, background a la fois proche et tordu (twisted), ....J'ai pris ce livre suite à la série TV et ne le regrette pas : il est aussi bon que la série et différentGoodyear stuff comme disent les Anglais

Gibson does what he does best and that is high octane cyberadventure that makes the reader enjoy the whole adventure

Haven't start reading. But I received the book with damaged edges and creased corner.Seems like it was used or on display.