Zatoichi_Jones t1_j9rzxlb wrote on February 24, 2023 at 3:23 AM

I've always felt the POV characters in a Gibson book are not the main drivers of the plot. They almost are always someone caught up in bigger events that operates, for the most part, in the background. Gibson's characters just try to hold on for dear life, while bigger and more powerful people pull the strings. I'm fine with that, because when he does it well, it's a great time.

But I have to agree that Agency didn't pull this off very well. So much of the book is the main character traveling to someplace, then asking questions about why she had to travel to that place, then traveling to another place and asking more questions. The modern day stuff was pretty dull. I only really enjoyed the stuff in the future world, but I think that had more to do with loving the characters from The Peripheral.

Still, I'm looking forward to his last book in the series. The setting, if nothing else, should be pretty dynamic.

Napoleon64 t1_j9s743y wrote on February 24, 2023 at 4:22 AM

>I've always felt the POV characters in a Gibson book are not the main drivers of the plot. They almost are always someone caught up in bigger events that operates, for the most part, in the background. Gibson's characters just try to hold on for dear life, while bigger and more powerful people pull the strings. I'm fine with that, because when he does it well, it's a great time.

Agreed. His characters often seem like passengers to the story, sat by the window watching things happen, but never in the driver's seat directing them. I don't say that as a complaint because I love his work, but it very much clashes with the dominant narrative philosophy that the protagonist should always be active and never passive.

Even in Neuromancer, Case is mostly pulled along by Molly. I'm not sure if I'm just more aware of it now, or if his later works don't hide it so well. Personally, I think Pattern Recognition was last the truly great book he wrote, but I enjoyed The Peripheral well enough.