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Best-known for his seminal sf novel Neuromancer, William Gibson is actually best when writing short fiction. Tautly-written and suspenseful, Burning Chrome collects 10 of his best short stories with a preface from Bruce Sterling, now available for the first time in trade paperback. These brilliant, high-resolution stories show Gibson's characters and intensely-realized worlds at his absolute best, from the chip-enhanced couriers of "Johnny Mnemonic" to the street-tech melancholy of "Burning Chrome.".… (more)
Fantastic collection of (mostly) cyberpunk from one of the masters of the genre. You can really see Gibson developing a lot of the foundations of the genre here in a variety of different stories. Individual story ratings below.
Short stories with a common thread of neuro-jacked interface with computers in a multinational scene. Some focus on fictional Russian space program. Some with underdog protagonists fighting (or trying to make it in) the system. Not my usual choice, but interesting concepts. Maybe I'll see if my grandson going into cybersecurity would like to read it next. ( )
Saw this on a forgotton bookshelf and gave it a go after twenty-odd years. Still holds up, even if it is rather grounded in the 80s (landlines, cassettes, discs). Dogfight used to be my favorite story in here, now I'm leaning more towards Winter's Market or Belonging Kind. ( )
Information from the German Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
To Otey Williams Gibson, my mother, and to Mildred Barnitz, her true dear friend and mine, with love.
First words
Johnny Mnemonic: I put the shot gun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks, not my style at all, but that was what I was aiking for: If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude.
The Gernsback Continuum: Mercifully, the whole thing is starting to fade, to become an episode.
Fragments of a hologram rose: That summer Parker had trouble sleeping.
The belonging kid: It might have been in Club Justine, or Jimbo's, or Sad Jack's, or the Rafters; Coretti could never be sure where he'd first seen her.
Hinterlands: When Hiro hit the switch, I was dreaming of Paris, dreaming of wet, dark streets in winter.
Fragments of a hologram rose: But each fragment reveals the rose from a different angle, he remembered, but delta swept over him before he could ask himself what that might mean.
Hinterlands: And Saint Olga smiles out at us from the walls; yxou can feel her, all those prints from the same publicity shot, torn and taped across the walls of night, her white smile, forever.
Burning chrome: And sometimes late at night I'll pass a window with posters of simstim stars, all those beautiful, identical eyes staring back at me out of faces that are nearly identical, and sometimes the eyes are hers, but none of the faces are, none of them ever are, and I see her far out on the edge of all this sprawl of night and cities, and then she waves goodbye.
Best-known for his seminal sf novel Neuromancer, William Gibson is actually best when writing short fiction. Tautly-written and suspenseful, Burning Chrome collects 10 of his best short stories with a preface from Bruce Sterling, now available for the first time in trade paperback. These brilliant, high-resolution stories show Gibson's characters and intensely-realized worlds at his absolute best, from the chip-enhanced couriers of "Johnny Mnemonic" to the street-tech melancholy of "Burning Chrome.".
Johnny Mnemonic: 4/5
The Gernsback Continuum: 2/5
Fragments of a Hologram Rose: 3.5/5
The Belonging Kind: 3/5
Hinterlands: 5/5
Red Star, Winter Orbit: 5/5
New Rose Hotel: 4/5
The Winter Market: 4/5
Dogfight: 5/5
Burning Chrome: 4.5/5 (