Opening in the shadows of a future Japanese metropolis called Chiba City, Neuromancer is mostly focused on the exploits of Henry Dorsett Case, a hacker who is sometimes called a “cowboy.” As the novel begins, Case has hit the skids and takes a job from Molly Millions, a mercenary-for-hire who needs Case for a cyberheist. “I had loved science fiction and cyberpunk, and I loved Neuromancer, but I had never read The Peripheral before getting this part. “It’s the purest form of speculative fiction I’ve ever read,” Jack Reynor, co-star of The Peripheral, tells Esquire. As with other Gibson books, none of this technology will save humanity, but the tech isn’t the enemy either. However, these systems will allow for time travel, just not the kind you’ve seen before. While Ready Player One imagined interconnected gaming as a literal oasis in the midst of real-world slums, The Peripheral takes a more realistic approach: massive virtual reality systems and games won’t unite humanity, because the problems of poverty and brutal classism are still crushingly pervasive.

Initially focusing on brother-and-sister gamers-for-hire, Burton (Jack Reynor) and Flynne Fisher (Chloë Grace Moretz), The Peripheral partially takes place in a very near-future America, with only slightly more advanced 3-D printers, e-bikes, and hyper-realistic virtual reality gaming. The latest proof of cyberpunk’s lasting impact on science fiction is in the new Amazon Prime series, The Peripheral, not coincidentally based on William Gibson’s 2014 novel of the same name. Why Anthony Horowitz's Bond Novels Are Must-Reads.

The peripheral book series in order