The Peripheral

Executive Summary: A good, but not great techno-thriller of sorts. 3.5 Stars.Audio book: I really didn't like Lorelei King at the start. But she grew on me. I'm not sure if she got better as the book went on, or I just needed some distance from my previous book. She's clear and easy to hear. She did a few voices, but they weren't very memorable to me.I will say I started off pretty confused. I'm not sure if that would have been solved with some rereading of the early chapters, or if I just needed to get my bearings. Once I did though, I found it easier to follow. Audio is probably not the best choice though if you often distracted when doing audio books.Full ReviewWilliam Gibson is one of those authors I keep meaning to read more of. I'm ashamed to say I've only read [b:Neuromancer 22328 Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1) William Gibson https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1285017005s/22328.jpg 909457], [b:Count Zero 22200 Count Zero (Sprawl, #2) William Gibson https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1390358225s/22200.jpg 879764], and [b:Burning Chrome 22323 Burning Chrome William Gibson https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1349075772s/22323.jpg 2457086]. I've had [b:Mona Lisa Overdrive 154091 Mona Lisa Overdrive (Sprawl, #3) William Gibson https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1374778887s/154091.jpg 1263322] sitting unread on my shelves for a few years now.So I can't say how this really stacks up against his other works too well. It reminds me more of [a:Daniel Suarez 1956402 Daniel Suarez https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1265394868p2/1956402.jpg] than the stuff of his I have read. If nothing else this book renews my desire to read some more of his work.This one is hard to categorize. I'd guess techo-thriller is maybe the best? It's also a time travel book. Sort of. The time stuff definitely falls into the Back to the Future 2 category (altering the past forks it to a new future).I think both protagonists are pretty good, though Flynne is easily the better of the two. She keeps herself together way better than I would under the circumstances she faces. Netherton is much less interesting, and took me a bit to warm up to, but by the end, I enjoyed his chapters almost as much as Flynne's. Though that may simply be due to the amount of overlap of the two.The world building could have been a little better. There is this mysterious Jackpot, that while explained eventually, wasn't really explained in a lot of detail. I guess it was to move the plot along more than anything. We get glimpses of both Flynne's and Netherton's worlds, though not as much as I'd have liked.There is a bunch of technology in this one. Some of it looks familiar like tablets and drones. The rest of it sounds familiar like robots, advanced haptic controls, and embedded phones. There is no big dreaming here. Everything Mr. Gibson writes seems feasible, and some of it probably not too far off.At it's core though, this is really just a thriller. There are shady characters and a mysterious murder drives the plot. I probably would have preferred something more cyberpunk, but I have no idea if still writes those kinds of books anymore.I found it a quick listen, at just over fourteen hours I did most of it over a busy weekend of chores and bike riding. Not a bad choice if you're looking for something shorter to fit in between other reads like I was.