Burning Chrome
1986 • 7 pages

Ratings1

Average rating3

15

Executive Summary: An anthology of 10 short stories mostly related to or set in Mr. Gibson's Sprawl world. I enjoyed some, but not all of the stories. Only worth picking up if you really like the Sprawl books in my opinion.Audio book: 10 stories. 10 different narrators. None of them stand out one way or another. Nobody was excellent and nobody was terrible. A few did occasional voices or accents, but none of them struck as particularly memorable. Full Review[b:Neuromancer 22328 Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1) William Gibson https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1285017005s/22328.jpg 909457] is one of those books that has stuck with me 20 years later. I had the fortune of reading it before the Matrix movie came out in the early days of the internet when many of his concepts still seemed fresh.With this anthology you can see the building blocks of that book. Megacorporations, cyberspace, keyboard cowboys, black ice. The elements are there.But for the most part these stories just weren't very good in my opinion. My favorite story, Dogfight seems like it could be set in the Sprawl, but could just as easily be set in a completely different sci-fi setting.Some of the stories are “near-future” which when read 30 years later don't feel very futuristic at all any more.The other story I really enjoyed was Johnny Nuemonic. I guess it's a lot different from the movie, but it's been so many years since I've seen it I don't really remember. This again is one of those stories that could be at home in some generic sci-fi future as it could in the sprawl.The only story that is directly related to the sprawl is Burning Chrome, which I found to be OK, but not great. From a literary point of view, this anthology is interesting to read and see how Mr. Gibson was putting together elements of his previous works to come out with [b:Neuromancer 22328 Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1) William Gibson https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1285017005s/22328.jpg 909457], but in my opinion most of these stories can be skipped.3 Stars overall.Story RatingsJohnny Nuemonic - 4The Gernsback Continuum - 2Fragments of a Hologram Rose - 2.5The Belonging Kind - 3Hinterlands - 3.5Red Star, Winter Orbit - 3New Rose Hotel - 2The Winter Market - 2.5Dogfight - 4.5Burning Chrome - 3

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