Burning Chrome
1986
- american science fiction
- science fiction, american
- long now manual for civilization
- american literature
- fiction, science fiction, short stories
- fiction, science fiction, collections & anthologies
- virtual reality
- fiction
- cyberspace
The story
Burning Chrome collects Gibson's early short fiction from the late 70's and early 80's. Contents: Preface / by Bruce Sterling -- Johnny Mnemonic -- The Gernsback continuum -- Fragments of a hologram rose -- The belonging kind / by John Shirley and William Gibson -- Hinterlands -- Red star, winter orbit / by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson -- New Rose Hotel -- The winter market -- Dogfight / by Michael Swanwick and William Gibson -- Burning chrome.
What it’s like
Hard-edged and grimy, with a cool, neon-lit melancholy running through every story. Gibson's prose is dense and clipped, packed with street slang, brand names and the hum of machines, so the reading feels like being dropped into a rain-slick city at night with no map. Sensory detail is plentiful: sodium-lit alleys, sweat and cheap synthetic fabric, the flat static of a jacked-in console, the sick lurch of a body left behind when the mind drifts into cyberspace. The collection moves quickly, most pieces running short enough to finish in one sitting, and its register swings between tense caper and wistful noir, with grim, unsentimental endings. Violence is present and sometimes sudden, including beatings, stabbings and body horror, though rarely lingered on for shock. Sexuality appears in frank, adult form. It suits a late-night read alone, a long train ride, or anyone craving cool, cynical urban science fiction, for readers who want loners and fixers navigating a world that is more tech than hope.
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