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Publisher Description
William Gibson, called “one of the most visionary, original, and quietly influential writers currently working” (Boston Globe) returns with a sharply imagined follow-up to the New York Times bestselling novel The Peripheral.
William Gibson has trained his eye on the future for decades, ever since coining the term “cyberspace” and then popularizing it in his classic speculative novel Neuromancer in the early 1980s. Cory Doctorow raved that The Peripheral is “spectacular, a piece of trenchant, far-future speculation that features all the eyeball kicks of Neuromancer.” Now Gibson is back with Agency—a science fiction thriller heavily influenced by our most current events.
Verity Jane, gifted app whisperer, takes a job as the beta tester for a new product: a digital assistant, accessed through a pair of ordinary-looking glasses. “Eunice,” the disarmingly human AI in the glasses, manifests a face, a fragmentary past, and a canny grasp of combat strategy. Realizing that her cryptic new employers don’t yet know how powerful and valuable Eunice is, Verity instinctively decides that it’s best they don’t.
Meanwhile, a century ahead in London, in a different time line entirely, Wilf Netherton works amid plutocrats and plunderers, survivors of the slow and steady apocalypse known as the jackpot. His boss, the enigmatic Ainsley Lowbeer, can look into alternate pasts and nudge their ultimate directions. Verity and Eunice are her current project. Wilf can see what Verity and Eunice can’t: their own version of the jackpot, just around the corner, and the roles they both may play in it.
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“Narrator Lorelei King had her job cut out for her while performing an audiobook with many unfamiliar futuristic concepts…but she makes it sound easy, not even pausing at the strange words, confident they will be understood in context. She is equally comfortable with slang from some not-too-distant future…She is perfect as heroine Verity Jane.”
— AudioFile
Quotes
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“An immersive thriller…Gibson brings contemporary San Francisco, future London, and their inhabitants to tangible life.”
— Boston Globe -
“Engaging, thought-provoking, and delightful…Strong co-starring characters unique to this tale interact with returning old favorites.”
— Washington Post -
“Superb…Each sentence is a hand-turned marvel of compact characterization, world-building and sardonic wit, all used to illuminate his vivid milieus.”
— Los Angeles Times -
“[An] uncannily plausible imaginings of near-future life and technology…With Gibson’s trademark panache, the story rattles along with great pace and suspense.”
— Sunday Times (London) -
“His language is all about friction and the gray spaces where disparate ideas intersect. His game is living in those spaces, checking out the view, telling us about it.”
— NPR -
“The genius of Gibson’s work in this novel is to show how human persons can become affectively attached to AI, not at the level of intimacy necessarily, but at the level of practical know-how.”
— Los Angeles Review of Books -
“The writing is packed with intriguing concepts and characters…Cyberpunk fans looking to dive into the ‘what-if’s’ of an alternate time line will be as enraptured as ever by Gibson’s imagination.”
— Publishers Weekly -
“Gibson blurs the line between real and speculative technology in a fast-paced thriller.”
— Booklist
Awards
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A Gizmodo Pick of the Month
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An Amazon Editor’s Top Pick of the Month
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A Washington Post Pick for January
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New York Times bestseller
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A CBC Pick of Most Anticipated Books for Spring
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About William Gibson
William Gibson is the highly acclaimed, multiaward-winning author of science fiction novels, with six books reaching the New York Times bestsellers list. His first novel, Neuromancer, won the 1984 Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the Philip K. Dick Award. In 2019, he was named the 35th Damon Knight Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
About Lorelei King
Lorelei King is an award-winning narrator and an actress of stage, film, and television. She also works extensively in radio, including award-winning voiceover work. She has narrated more than eighty audiobooks, earning eleven AudioFile Earphones Awards and twice winning the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration.