Confused, disorientated and yet entertained. This is the only way to describe how I felt when finishing William Gibson’s new book The Peripheral.
Set in two different futures and following two converging storylines, the book’s 124 chapters (yes, that’s right, 124 chapters) tell the stories of Flynne Fisher, scraping a living in a poor American town in the near-future, and Wilf Netherton, a wealthy publicist living 70 years after Flynne in post-apocalyptic London. Stomach all of that- if you can – and you’ll be doing much better than I was by the time I had finished the first 10 chapters.
Essentially, Flynne and Wilf’s worlds meet through the virtual world of gaming, where humans from different pasts, or ‘stubs’ as they are called, play in what they believe to be a game world, but is actually a version of the future. Well, different forms of different futures as there are multiple pasts all altered by multiple futures. I think. Don’t quote me on it. Ask William Gibson. In fact, don’t, as I’d be pretty willing to bet that he didn’t give it much thought.
That’s one of the challenges I encountered when reading this book; it feels like Gibson is deliberately making a complicated subject matter more difficult to read. He changes narratives without indicating who is speaking, uses unexplained technical terms to the point that reading becomes an uphill battle and has important action scenes taking place in only a few short sentences, making the joy of fiction feel more like a close reading exercise. All in all, a rather frustrating experience.
That said, for fans of cyber-fiction and dystopian futures, this book will undoubtedly deliver. It has complex and yet charming characters, such as brave ex-gamer Flynne, disabled army veterans Conner and Burton and the mysterious detective Lowbeer, whose allegiance is left untold. While resembling in some parts a futuristic Gotham City gone wrong, several clever plot-twists aid Gibson in constructing a frighteningly feasible fate by weaving into the storyline contemporary controversies such as drones, spiralling consumerism and the rise of smartphones. These references make it an overall more thought-provoking and digestible book, especially for outsiders to this isolated genre.
That’s because, in spite of the heavy jargon, the book does pose some compelling questions about the addictive nature of gaming and the potential escalation of avatar technology from using digitised figures to real people. The plight of both the past and future worlds, and the mysterious apocalypse known as the ‘Jackpot’, add human elements to these otherwise unimaginable realms, leaving us to question whether we would talk of history so coldly if we could interact with the past.
The Peripheral is definitely worth a read if you’re a fan of cyber-fiction or of Gibson’s previous award-winning books. It won’t be an easy read by any means, but if you can get past the confusing structure and the technical jargon, you’ll find a story that is at heart as human as it is virtual.
Natalie Cherry