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Cover of Agency by William Gibson

Agency

  • 416 pages · about 7 hours
  • First published 2020
  • 9 editions

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1 About this book

Agency is a science fiction novel by American-Canadian writer William Gibson, released on January 21, 2020.

It is a 'sequel and a prequel' to his previous novel The Peripheral (2014), reusing the technology from the novel to explore an alternative 2017 where Hillary Clinton won the 2016 Presidential Election. The story line further explores the concept of "the jackpot", a back-story element of The Peripheral.

One plot is set in the alternative 2017, with a young woman named Verity testing a new form of avatar software developed by the military, for a start-up in San Francisco. A second plot line involves people in a post-apocalyptic 22nd century meddling with 2017.

CBC Books listed Agency on its list of Canadian fiction to watch for in spring 2020. It had originally been planned to be published in January 2018.

Summary adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Good for readers who want: science fiction, artificial intelligence, and time travel.

  • Science fiction
  • Thrillers, technological
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Technological
  • Time travel
  • New business enterprises
  • The Future

2 About William Gibson

Born 1948

William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American and Canadian speculative fiction writer and essayist widely credited with pioneering the science fiction subgenre known as cyberpunk, a category from which he has repeatedly distanced himself.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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