Scan barcode
A review by obnorthrup
Agency by William Gibson
2.0
Usually a Gibson fan, but this was disappointing. It offers a buffet of interesting scifi ideas, but it's hard to plate an appetizing meal from a buffet. Some examples:
1) There's a strong start, with Verity and Eunice building rapport and Eunice growing in ability (agency), which gets largely thrown away when Eunice disappears for the majority of the book.
2) The promise of a headless AI network built around Verity results in monotonous chapters of characters in transit.
3) The post-jackpot characters co-piloting the Spongebob drone answers the age-old question, "What if this conference call speaker had a body?" Answer: Everyone still spends half their time asking who's on the line.
Finally, the writing overuses Gibson's style for character dialogue, reaching the point of self-parody. Everyone speaks in clipped cyphers (pro-drop and jargon), which results in conversations where the characters must ask one another to clarify who and what they are talking about. My impression is that the style is supposed to make the characters sound like competent profesionals, but it becomes tedious, and reads as though the characters are all too absorbed in what they're doing to be cooperative interlocutors.
1) There's a strong start, with Verity and Eunice building rapport and Eunice growing in ability (agency), which gets largely thrown away when Eunice disappears for the majority of the book.
2) The promise of a headless AI network built around Verity results in monotonous chapters of characters in transit.
3) The post-jackpot characters co-piloting the Spongebob drone answers the age-old question, "What if this conference call speaker had a body?" Answer: Everyone still spends half their time asking who's on the line.
Finally, the writing overuses Gibson's style for character dialogue, reaching the point of self-parody. Everyone speaks in clipped cyphers (pro-drop and jargon), which results in conversations where the characters must ask one another to clarify who and what they are talking about. My impression is that the style is supposed to make the characters sound like competent profesionals, but it becomes tedious, and reads as though the characters are all too absorbed in what they're doing to be cooperative interlocutors.