I finished reading William Gibson’s The Peripheral about a day ago. As an avowed Gibson fanboy, I’ve oddly got some pretty mixed feelings about the book.
First off, I did this weird thing of pre-ordering from Amazon, so I had the book on the first day of availability. October 28th, 2014. Six. Months. Ago. For whatever reason, I parked the hardcover and never got started. Maybe it was the dread of hauling the hefty tome around.
So taking advantage of some vacation time, I jumped in and devoured it promptly. Ticked all of my Gibson check boxes. But in the end I felt a bit unsatisfied.
Can’t quite put my finger on it, but I really didn’t get a rush. Since Cayce Pollard, I haven’t really felt like a Gibson protagonist has been in much peril. Just a matter of waiting to see how they get out of it. Yeah, Flynne got kidnapped and threatened, but everybody came out clean in the end.
And the Chinese server explanation I found lacking.
Maybe this one just needs to grow on me like the Blue Ant Trilogy.