Agency
Ratings48
Average rating3.7
It would have been a vastly superior book if Gibson had spent less time on Twitter and Google Maps as he was writing it.
I am a Gibson loyalist. I have read almost everything he has ever written and will plough through his most meandering stories but The Agency was too much. Gibson tried to cram too many disparate ideas into one book. The first quarter of the book with the super-intelligent AI was fascinating. Then, the story turns abruptly back to the time traveling rigamarole that started in the Peripheral and about 47 characters from the current time and the future are introduced. And the slog begins.
Gibson, I love your writing style and ideas but too much got crammed into this book to the point that I had to ask “what is the point? Where is this story going?” At a certain point, I was just waiting for it to be over. How sad is that?
This is a fantastic sequel to Gibson's The Peripheral.
Set in a different time period but with some of the same characters showing back up in this one.
These books are a little bit difficult to follow because you're just thrown in with no explanation of anything, but once you get to know the characters and the general concepts the characters are dealing with (alternate reality “stubs”, peripherals, and the like).
Really looking forward to #3 in the series.
So far, this is my favorite WGibson work since the Sprawl series, which I re-read just a couple of years ago.
Yeah, shrugging, I don't know. Not bad, not super great either. A solid read, with a nice story and that's it. Very likely I will forget everything in a view months I like I completely forgot about the first book.
If there is nothing else to read, then yes, else put it back for some other time
Breakneck thriller pace, as Gibson does, nobody knows quite what's going on but goes with it. Time travelish, fancy AI, hipster coffee, motorcycle rides, and saving the world - obliquely.