Burning Chrome

In a very short time William Gibson has become widely recognized as the leading writer of a new kind of science fiction, extrapolating contemporary technology (particularly computer technology) into a future of urban decay and the social mores of a post-punk generation. This first collection of his short stories shows his talents in full flower in a variety of settings. Among them are the title story—set in the same world as Neuromancer and Count Zero —a tale of sophisticated computer fraud tied in with a bittersweet, Chandleresque love story; “New Rose Hotel,” which takes us into the “skull wars”—high-stakes games of industrial espionage played between the industrial super-corporations of the 21st century; “Hinterlands,” which describes a form of interstellar travel which only a few people can make—and then only with the likelihood of returning psychotic; and “Red Sun, Winter Orbit” (a collaboration with Bruce Sterling), which is set in a future where the USA has abandoned its space programme and retreated into isolationism, leaving the high frontier to the Russians. Whether you view Gibson as a new phenomenon in sf, or as the latest and most modern exponent of a tradition stretching back to H. G. Wells, Burning Chrome is essential reading.