IN 2016, WILLIAM GIBSON WAS AT WORK ON THE novel that would become Agency. It was set in “a sort of contemporary Silicon Valley moneyland”. He was happy with how the manuscript was going. Then, in June, came the Brexit referendum.
“I woke up and saw how that vote had gone, and for the first time believed it might actually be possible for Donald Trump to be elected president, because stupid was obviously more powerful in the world than I’d ever imagined,” he says. The presidential election followed in November, bringing the defeat of Hillary Clinton. Gibson was stumped: “I saw that the manuscript no longer made any sense emotionally as a contemporary story.”
Deadlines came and went, until he suddenly realised that some of the action in Agency, a novel featuring “stubs” – different timelines – could take place in a world very like our own, but where Britain voted Remain and the keys to the White House were never handed to Donald Trump. He was up and running again.
Agency is centred on the relationship between a paranoid AI, Eunice, and an “app whisperer”, Verity, and also draws in characters from Gibson’s 2014 novel The Peripheral. It fizzes with ideas, yet it’s plotted with the breakneck pace of an airport thriller.
NOT COMING UP TRUMP ’S
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ANCER MAHAGEMENT
WITH A NEW TRILOGY IN SIGHT, WE SPEAK TO THE DIRECTOR OF 28 WEEKS LATER THE ORIGINAL CHILLING SEQUEL TO DANNY BOYLE'S SEMINAL SURVIVAL HORROR
WHO YA CONNA CALL?
BEHIND THE SCENES AT HALLOWEEN HORROR NIGHTS FOR GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE
SPEAK OF THE DEVIL
THE DEVIL'S HOUR STRIKES TWICE AS THE GENREDEFYING DRAMA RETURNS
SCARRY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK
FROM THE RETURN OF EC COMICS TO SCREAM!, THIS YEAR'S HALLOWEEN OFFERS UP HORROR COMICS FOR ALL THE AGES
UNDEADS REFLECTIONS
NEIL JORDAN ON BRINGING ANNE RICE'S MODERN VAMPIRE CLASSIC TO SCREEN, 30 YEARS ON
MUNSTER MASH!
PRODUCTION HELL, SHOCK RECASTING AND HOTLY CONTESTED AUTHORSHIP. AS THE MUNSTERS CELEBRATE THEIR 60TH ANNIVERSARY, WE UNCOVER HOW THE SPOOKY SITCOM WAS ALMOST DEAD ON ARRIVAL
COMING TO AMERICA
THE MOGWAI LIVE THE AMERICAN DREAM IN THEIR SECOND CHAPTER, GREMLINS: THE WILD BATCH
BEING HUMAN EVOLUTION
IT MAY HAVE BEEN AN INSTANT HIT, BUT BBC THREE'S DARKLY COMIC DRAMA ABOUT A HOUSE-SHARING VAMPIRE/WEREWOLF/GHOST TRIO HAD A STRANGE JOURNEY TO THE SCREEN, SERIES CREATOR TOBY WHITHOUSE TELLS SFX
THE MAINE EVENT
THE DARK IS RISING IN SALEM'S LOT AS STEPHEN KING'S DEATHLESS TALE RETURNS TO THE SCREEN
WHY DON'T YOU STAY FOR A BITE?
THE VAMPIRE COMES HOME AS DIRECTOR EUROS LYN WELCOMES SFX TO HIS NEW DARK COMEDY THE RADLEYS
