My own pleasure as a reader of that type of fiction is being left in the dark, confused, gradually putting it together.
That's exactly the kind of reader you have to be to enjoy William Gibson's new novel.
Peripheral drops you into two separate futures, one near, one distant, without so much as a guide in either, much less some kind of portable universal translator. Nope, you're on your own. And it gets bewildering at times.
I do love a good perplexing story though. One that has to be puzzled through. Where the sense of mystery isn't confined to the whodunnit, but pervades everything. Peripheral begins with an ordinary person witnessing a crime. A familiar enough beginning, something we've seen a hundred times before – even if this time the technology is slightly out of reach. But the story soon leaves such footholds behind.
Still, if you're like me, you'll appreciate the novel's concept (more intriguing, I think, than anything Gibson has come up with before) more than its execution. His writing has a certain poetry to it, so it may come down to having a taste for his particular style. I have to say, my favorite Gibson novel is Pattern Recognition, which avoids the heavy neologizing of Peripheral and his original cyberpunk novels for plainer prose, putting a greater premium on character and story.
But if you're like me, you'll appreciate Peripheral all the same. It was both fun and frustrating trying to decipher Gibson's invented jargon. I built an index to it as I went along. A glossary. A key. More for the pleasure of cataloging my own discoveries than as an aid to others. But it occurred to me that it might help some readers sort through things, as they read, or after they've finished. So I've dropped my list into this post. If I ever go back in for a second reading, I'll be taking it with me.
I've tried to exclude details that might act as spoilers. Hopefully none have slipped through. I don't recommend reading this before starting the book; wait til you get frustrated yourself, or even better, til after you're done. Then tell me about any mistakes or omissions!
Hefty: utterly dominant retail chain, Walmart + Starbucks?