Status Updates From Burning Chrome (Sprawl, #0)

Johnny Mnemonic was better as a book than a movie.

The Belonging Kind at first makes me think of the girl who becomes a dog story I tell, but this story is about finding your people, where you fit in. Was he always one of them and didn’t realize it, or did he become one of them?

Fragments of a Hologram Rose is Gibson’s first published piece. The story features a man whose girlfriend has left him and a simstim technology called Apparent Sensory Perception (ASP). He posits these glimpses into someone’s life as showing the entire life, but from its own perspective.

The Gernsback Continuum is the story of a photographer on assignment to capture the 30’s idea of the future, evidenced in decaying architecture, when the veil is pulled back and he sees the “80s that never was”. It’s a juxtaposition of how America has envisioned the future, and the reality of that future. I think this is Gibson justifying gritty sci-fi over the utopia of authors that came before him.

Johnny Mnemonic didn’t follow the same plot from the movie, but many of the main characters are there, and the big ideas are the same. The story moves along quickly, not explaining much, but referencing elements of the world in an as-matter-of-fact manner that can feel alien. I can see that I might benefit from reading the story again in the future.