Burning Chrome is a selection of short stories by esteemed science fiction author William Gibson. Most people see science fiction as some sort of “lesser” genre that deals only with robots, space travel, and aliens; has no real literary value, and appeals primarily to geeks and Star Trek fans, but Gibson’s work is nothing like that. While he may use typical “sci-fi” objects and settings as backdrops for his stories, his writing is superb and his messages are just as relevant as any great author’s. Some of my personal favorites are “The Gernsback Continuum,” a story about a photographer who has strange hallucinations of a “future” that never existed, and “Hinterlands,” a story of a strange portal in space that has given humanity the cure for cancer, but every person who passes through it returns dead or insane.
William Gibson is a genius and a master. Many of his books are literature, pure and simple. Classifying them as strictly science fiction doesn’t do them justice. Neuromancer is one of the best novels, period, ever written. His later work like Idoru, Spook Country, and Pattern Recognition are equally as fine.
This reminds me, I never read The Difference Engine – I’m off to stacks to get it now!
Yes he does! I haven’t gotten around to reading any of his books yet, but I know two of his best were Neuromancer and Pattern Recognition. You should check them out!
Even though it’s science fiction (which doesn’t normally appeal to me), this book sounds really cool! Maybe I’ll read it some time. Does Gibson write things besides short stories?