Agency: Sequel to The Peripheral, now a major new TV series with Amazon Prime

In this second installment in the Jackpot trilogy(?) Gibson manages to strip even more of the superficial "chrome" his older cyberpunk stories were covered in, leaving the underlying extrapolation and critique of the impact on technology on the modern world bare... because this time the story is actually set in the PAST: 2017 in a slightly different timeline. At least in part. Once the events are set in motion, it's hard to put down: very short chapters give the story a fast-paced feel, swiping you away like the story does to Verity, the protagonist. The return of Wilf and Lowbeer was very welcome, as is the glimpse into more of how the post-jackpot world works (or doesn't). Can't wait for the sequel.

After Amazon cancelling the second season of the show, I had to get the books to complete the story. A little slow to get started but really got into the story around chapter 20.

William Gibson (@greatdismal) back in excellent form with a twisty and propulsive novel. The model of super short chapters which has been used at least since the Blue Ant trilogy works brilliantly as crises unfold in separate timelines. Very now, very future. Great characters. Read.

Agency is pure classic William Gibson in one way and looks at a new Gibson in another. On the one hand, the futurism, the wry insights into the way we interact with and integrate technology into our lifestyles, is wonderfully intact. Gibson's language is as dense, precise, and striking as ever. On the other, this is a strict alternating viewpoint novel with small chapters--over 100!--that deliberately, unapologetically whiplashes from an alternate universe, present-day San Francisco, to a futuristic London post-"Jackpot" that was featured in the previous novel, The Peripheral. Agency is mostly a standalone novel about Verity Jane, a widely regarded "app whisperer" who is commissioned to beta test some new software that is a radical evolution of the digital assistants like Siri and Alexa we are slowly grappling with today. At the same time, 22nd-century characters from The Peripheral, such as Wilf Netherton and Lowbeer, are interacting with her timeline--and her--to head off a coming catastrophe that could devastate her timeline. This is despite the fact that Trump lost the election in this "stub" and the UK voted to remain in the EU. The book moves at a breathless pace, with a fascinating mix of cutting edge present-day technology interacting with some genuinely spooky examples of information warfare, and how vulnerable systems can be to an AI willing to accomplish goals by any means necessary. I was surprised at how fast the book moved but equally surprised at the accessibility. It may just be my familiarity, but I found this easier as a First Read than Neuromancer, or past novels, like the Blue Ant trilogy. It's fascinating to see how William Gibson had increasingly come to place more hope in the ability of people to do the right things with technology and find ways to subvert oppressive systems, than in his early 80s cyberpunk days, when dystopia seemed unavoidable. For people new to William Gibson, The Peripheral, and now Agency, may be a good place to start. For fans, this is a fast, surprisingly accessible read.

William Gibson's The Peripheral introduced a great concept for a series, one in which a world slowly rebuilding itself after a cascading series of disasters called "the Jackpot" finds a way to tap into alternate timelines, seeing what could have been - and maybe intervening along the way. But even Gibson was worried about how that series could just be there for its own sake, and that he didn't want to just tell a series of stories about alternate worlds. So it's no surprise that Agency, the second book in the series, feels like a wholly realized idea that happens to take place in the same story rather than a sequel that's just rehashing the same ideas as its predecessors. At its core, Agency is about a new evolution in artificial intelligence, one whose nature is a little unclear at first - indeed, that's part of the story here - but which unleashes the beginnings of a massive panic, as well as the chances among lots of people to take credit for it or cash in. But as the AI comes to the attention of our cast of manipulators from The Peripheral, the story gets more complex, unfolding through multiple "stubs" and timelines simultaneously, all while also unfolding a plot thread for most of our main characters. All of this could be too complicated and labyrinthine, but somehow, it's not; it's to Gibson's credit that this all mainly unfolds as a fantastic thriller/mystery, one in which everyone is playing their own game and a lot of motivations are a little hazy. But that's all to the good here, especially as the question of why our manipulators care about this world that's not their own becomes more and more critical to understanding what's going on, and why they should care about a nuclear disaster that could be looming for another world entirely. All of it also allows Gibson to play some meta games with our own world, mainly about the outcome of a couple of key elections, but while those bits of dramatic irony could easily become too much, he somehow lays it on just the proper amount to add text to the story - especially given that the nature of the series is so constantly about "what could have been." But for all of the big ideas and themes, as ever with Gibson, the story works because of great characters, strong plotting, a breakneck pace, and a refusal to let subtext run the show. I liked The Peripheral a lot, but I really loved Agency - with the complicated setup done in book 1, Gibson was free to tell a whole new tale here, and man, does it ever work.