What a glorious ride' GuardianIn the near future in a broken down rural America, Flynne Fisher scrapes a living as a gamer for rich players. Even the most dedicated gamer would be frustrated at that.The Peripheral by William Gibson is a thrilling new novel about two intertwined futures, from the bestselling author of Neuromancer'Wild, richly satisfying. Unfortunately, these strengths, much like “Westworld’s,” are too often lost in a commitment to mysteries that crowds out coherence, mistaking the challenge of deciphering what’s happening for the joys of solving the puzzle of why. If only the rest of the series were as clear and intentional as its vision of capitalism’s collapse and a VR game gone terribly wrong. And they reside in a brilliant depiction of a near-future America, where there’s finally broadband in town and trailer and where big business fleeces the working class in the discomfort of their own homes under the guise of connectivity and modernism. Bright spots in “The Peripheral” include excellent performances by Moretz and Eli Goree as Conner Penske, a struggling, demoralized vet who finds purpose in the battle. I was left in the dark most of the time, wondering whether someone could at least activate their iPhone flashlight for some clarity. Drones, hackers, invisible cars and all manner of digital surveillance are deployed to win the fight.īut just why they’re being targeted is the question, among dozens of other riddles that compound together into an exhaustive labyrinth of digital paranoia and time travel. Luckily, Burton is locked and loaded: He’s a war veteran from an elite Haptics unit of Marines, all of whom are school friends that were recruited together and witnessed the horrors of war. Worlds collide when the siblings’ involvement in the sim results in a physical bounty being placed on Flynne and her family.

One example of the last? Forcibly having an eye removed during anesthesia-free surgery - and, yes, because it’s disgusting and hard to watch the series spends an inordinate amount of time on the operation. The first-person shooter experience includes feeling physical pain when their character is hit, shot or tortured.

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