William Gibson The Peripheral

Flynne Fisher lives in rural near-future America where jobs are scarce and veterans from the wars are finding it hard to recover. She scrapes a living doing some freelance online game-playing, participating in some pretty weird stuff. Wilf Netherton lives in London, seventy-some years later, on the far side of decades of slow-motion apocalypse.

The Peripheral by William Gibson is a thrilling new novel about two intertwined futures, from the bestselling author of Neuromancer

'Wild, richly satisfying . . . big-screen, popcorn-chewing thrills. What a glorious ride' Guardian

In the near future in a broken down rural America, Flynne Fisher scrapes a living as a gamer for rich players. One night, working a game set in a futuristic but puzzlingly empty London, she sees a death that's unnervingly vivid. Soon after she gets word that it isn't a game after all - the future she saw is all too real, she's the only witness to a murder and someone from that unreal tomorrow now wants her dead.

The story of a young woman caught between two worlds, The Peripheral interweaves two futures - pre-apocalypse USA and post-apocalypse London - to tell a story which gets right to heart of the way we live now.

'A tightly plotted, tautly paced novel that unfolds with the dream logic of a fairy tale' The Times Literary Supplement

'Frightening plausible. Not just a unique and brilliantly talented SF novelist but a social and psychological visionary. A wonderful addition to a brilliant oeuvre' The Times

'Superb . . . frantic with imagination' Ned Beauman, Observer

'Fast-moving, accessible, instantly gripping, so laden with cliffhangers you become afraid he'll run out of cliffs' SFX

According to the Guardian, in terms of influence Gibson is 'probably the most important novelist of the past two decades'. The Peripheral, which marks a return to the futurism of Neuromancer, will be adored by Gibson readers and will also appeal to fans of Ender's Game, Looper and Source Code.