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
This story is from the February 2020 edition of SFX.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the February 2020 edition of SFX.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Spooks Ghouls & Freaks Fools
WITH ITS ECLECTIC cast, broad comedy and supernatural farce, Rentaghost was a mainstay of BBC children’s TV from the late ’70s to the mid-’80s and like nothing else.
LOST IN THE SHADOWS
THE EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS OF INTERDIEW WITH THE DAMPIRE DISCUSS THE FUTURE OF LESTAT, LOUIS, CLAUDIA AND WHERE THE ANNE RICE UNIVERSE IS HEADING
NINE LIVES
ON SET FOR THE FINAL SERIES OF INSIDE NO 9. STEVE PEMBERTON AND REECE SHEARSMITH REFLECT ON THE TYRANNY OF THE TWIST
NOA'S ARC
CAESAR'S STORY MAY BE DONE AND DUSTED, BUT AS HIS CREATORS RICK JAFFA AND AMANDA SILVER TELL US, THERE'S STILL PLENTY OF TERRAIN TO EXPLORE IN - KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
TICKET TO RIDE
DIRECTOR BEN CHESSELL TAKES THE TARDIS BACK IN TIME IN HIS TWO EPISODES
SERVING FACE
HAIR AND MAKE-UP DESIGNER CLAIRE WILLIAMS ON NEW LOOKS
BABY BOOM
The TARDIS lands on a spaceship. It was very, very hard to shoot. We used real babies! I like to do things that I’ve never done before and sometimes that’s quite hard, with such a long career as mine.
BOXING CLEVER
DOCTOR WHO IS BACK AND THIS TIME IT'S TAKING OVER THE PLANET
WELCOME HOME
THE CREATIVE MINDS BEHIND THE LIVE-ACTION ADAPTATION OF THE FALLOUT GAME SERIES EXPLAIN THEIR ORIGINAL TAKE ON BETHESDA'S POST-APOCALYPTIC WORLD
MONSTERS INC
THE TITANS UNITE IN HOT COLLAB GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE