citizen of now

Hard to collect my thoughts on this one. Took a really long time to get going. The 2nd half was better and more connected. The world was cool, a high tech low life corporate America ad absurdum. The central idea of a latent root language in the brain, that if mastered can be used to program people, is interesting but its expression in this novel is layered in a tonne of religious-historical discourse which at times both hampers the action and labours the point. The full extent of the philosophy of language behind the idea wasn't really brought out. Then again, it's not a philosophy essay.

The book could be cut down a lot and not lose anything. A tonne of the novel is just building up the mafia, building up YT, building up Raven. Does the final confrontation pay off? Not..really. The ending is fine enough, a little rushed, the baddies get their comeuppance, the heroes poon off into the sunset (... I never did get over that word). If you're already sold on how cool the world is by the first few chapters, which I was, you'll slog through a lot of the book like “yeah I get it, get on with it now”.

But there's a world changing, understanding-of-humanity changing idea at the core here. A reimagining of the reasons behind the evolution of all language, culture, and religion. So despite it being a bit bloated, it's still a 4 star book in my mind. Slimmed down and streamlined it could have been a 5, there's plenty to think about here.

The 17 year old me who downloaded hack/phreak text files over dialup really wanted to read it, and I know he wouldn't have been ready for it back then. The 38 year old me who just finished it for the first time... he got it, but maybe he's too old to get excited about it any more.

Maybe it's the right book at the wrong time. But I'm glad I read it.

A really beautiful book, it takes us on a tour through the history of London by way of the objects found on the Thames foreshore, unearthing fascinating little stories about everyone from royals to paupers. Truly enchanting, it gives a sense of the sometimes meditative sometimes exciting and always unexpected nature of mudlarking, and also reveals the unique history and character of each different location along the river. While there is a lot of the author's own personal experience laid out in the book, it never feels self indulgent or affected, there's a truth and honesty to the book that's very endearing. I've read books by others where I wished the author would get out of the way of the story and disappear into the background, but this author's presence was never intrusive and just naturally blended into the story of the river. In terms of genre, the author has found a special sweet spot here, not trying to be a history book or forcing anything, but just letting the story of each found object trickle through the pages and settle where it wants to. I really enjoyed it :)

It's been a while since I've read short SF stories. Decades ago I read a bunch of short story collections from the 70s - they were filled with idealistic futurism or abstract visions so fantastic as to be removed from anything relatable. Fun, but ultimately pure escapism concerned more with the science than the fiction.

What Gibson creates here, behind all the chrome and neon, are stories rooted in humanity, not tech. Characters with desires, drives, flaws, and pain. The stories in Burning Chrome, for all the superficially slick brightness of their settings, are dark, lonely, tech-noir tales of hubris, love, lust, betrayal, and failure. That's not to say they're wholly bleak. There is a feeling that self actualisation is the ultimate goal of his characters, and indeed that they believe it to be within their reach, which I think is why I'm left with a feeling of hope from the worlds presented here, if not from the stories themselves.

And, yes, the highest of tech is present too. Minds merging with the net, holographic firewalls, augmented reality, trading hot data for cold hard cash and dodging vastly powerful corporations who'll stop at nothing to get it back. Gibson coined the term “cyberspace” within these pages and even though the tech is presented in a quaintly physical way - with cartridges, disks, tapes, and wires - it somehow doesn't feel outdated. You're experiencing a hallucination of an alternate future that we've already sidestepped, but it doesn't matter because it's the concept and characters that matter here. It's not how a personality is transferred into cyberspace that matters, it's the questions that raises, and where it leaves the people who loved them. That kind of philosophy of personal identity is timeless. It's because Gibson's so grounded in the human experience and implications that he gets away with slamming data cartridges into your protagonist's arms without it feeling cheesy.

Every one of the 10 stories here is excellent. I tried to pick my favourites and ended up with a shortlist of 8. I could write paragraphs in praise of each one. If you really push me, I'd say my favourites were New Rose Hotel, The Winter Market, and Burning Chrome but man it was tough to pick just 3. How could I leave off Johnny Mnemonic or The Belonging Kind?

When I was a kid I would spend ages on dialup downloading hacker text files to read offline. One of them recommended Neuromancer and Snow Crash and while I didn't take the advice at the time something stuck and the names bounced around in my head for about 20 years. Finally taking the advice and discovering these authors after all that time, it's rekindled a sense of wonder and love for the web in me. A technological frontier with a feeling that it makes anything possible. That it's an important thing for humanity. Somehow the web had become mundane to me. Reading Gibson is changing that, making me realise that, perhaps, there's still time for it to change the world again.

If you want to read a book about an idiot wandering aimlessly around a giant, mostly empty, statue museum then boy do I have a recommendation for you!

Ok so idiot is unfair. Piranesi's childlike naivety is at once endearing and frustrating. But what is this book? It feels like a concept piece, as in abstract and metaphorical and not fleshed out at all. That's the problem with allegories. They're all too often paper thin.

Let's assume the House is a metaphor (if it's not, then it really is just a book about an idiot trapped in a house). Once you get that, or begin to suspect it, what else does the book offer? Really, nothing. Nothing much else happens. Piranesi eats some seaweed. Pieces together at last the idea that Other is abusive. Uses the word Vestibule twelve million times. Gets rescued. The end.

And even now, I'm not sure it really is an allegory because, and I cannot stress this enough, nothing happens. There's a whiff of an idea that it could be about exiting an abusive relationship, and the half-broken, half-free way you might continue to exist after that. But the House is benevolent and actually somewhat yearned-for by the people who've visited it. So I think it's a metaphor for a life-changing enlightenment from which you can't return to normality, such as a religious or philosophical awakening that at the same time traps you within its world view and whisks you away from reality.

But it's only a hint! Only a possible interpretation, if you squint. Maybe it's just about a guy trapped in a House.

edit: Oh, wow, I've just read a review that suggests the House is a metaphor for drumroll the worlds you enter when you read books. So. It's worse than I thought.


I've given worse books 2 stars, I didn't hate it like some of them, it just passed through me without leaving much impression.

Other reviews have praised the ‘world building'. What world building? It's just endless halls full of statues. The occasional bird. What have I missed? Was there a chapter I skipped where something other than birds, water, and marble existed in the world?

I enjoyed this, there were a lot of nice reflective moments when the author philosophises on the nature of passion in all its forms. The book is in many ways a love letter to passion, however self-referential that might seem. I can see why some people would give it 5 stars, it's written with a keen observation of human, well, passions that are just the sort of mysterious forces we seek to understand in ourselves. For many I'm sure it could be a special, moving book. Life-changing maybe! It has that potential so I would recommend reading it, just in case it touches you like that. I'm not sure why it didn't quite move me. Maybe too understated, gentle, ethereal? In those qualities lie beauty, yes, but also a lack of a kind of solid, satisfying, substance. I'll probably read it again, and I wouldn't be surprised if I fell entirely in love with it next time - but for the moment at least it's just OK. It's like looking at a great painting that still yet just doesn't quite strike you.