Agency
Agency by William Gibson, published by Penguin on January 26, 2021, is a first edition novel comprising 416 pages in English. This science fiction thriller follows Verity Jane, a skilled app whisperer who becomes a beta tester for a groundbreaking digital assistant accessed through glasses. As she interacts with the AI named Eunice, Verity discovers the potential power and value of this technology, while her employers remain unaware of its true capabilities. The narrative intertwines with a parallel storyline set a century later in London, where Wilf Netherton navigates a world shaped by a slow apocalypse known as the jackpot.
Readers will find a richly imagined exploration of technological themes and the implications of artificial intelligence within Agency. The book delves into the complexities of Verity’s relationship with Eunice and the unfolding events that connect their lives across timelines. With elements of thrill and speculative fiction, Gibson’s work presents a thought-provoking look at the future, influenced by contemporary issues. This edition invites readers to engage with the intricate plot and the characters’ roles in a rapidly evolving world.
Official synopsis Publisher
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“ONE OF THE MOST VISIONARY, ORIGINAL, AND QUIETLY INFLUENTIAL WRITERS CURRENTLY WORKING”* returns with a sharply imagined follow-up to the New York Times bestselling The Peripheral.
William Gibson has trained his eye on the future for decades, ever since coining the term “cyberspace” and then popularizing it in his classic speculative novel Neuromancer in the early 1980s. Cory Doctorow raved that The Peripheral is “spectacular, a piece of trenchant, far-future speculation that features all the eyeball kicks of Neuromancer.” Now Gibson is back with Agency—a science fiction thriller heavily influenced by our most current events.
Verity Jane, gifted app whisperer, takes a job as the beta tester for a new product: a digital assistant, accessed through a pair of ordinary-looking glasses. “Eunice,” the disarmingly human AI in the glasses, manifests a face, a fragmentary past, and a canny grasp of combat strategy. Realizing that her cryptic new employers don’t yet know how powerful and valuable Eunice is, Verity instinctively decides that it’s best they don’t.
Meanwhile, a century ahead in London, in a different time line entirely, Wilf Netherton works amid plutocrats and plunderers, survivors of the slow and steady apocalypse known as the jackpot. His boss, the enigmatic Ainsley Lowbeer, can look into alternate pasts and nudge their ultimate directions. Verity and Eunice are her current project. Wilf can see what Verity and Eunice can’t: their own version of the jackpot, just around the corner, and the roles they both may play in it.
*The Boston Globe
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