His entry begins:
Virtual Light, by William GibsonAbout The Survivor, from the publisher:
The first book in Gibson’s Bridge Trilogy, Virtual Light is - at its heart - exactly the kind of plot you would anticipate in an early-90s thriller: a piece of extremely sophisticated technology falls into the hands of a humble but extremely hip bicycle courier. With her on the run, it’s up to a down-on-his luck detective to find her before a more powerful and distinctly less merciful rogue’s gallery of villains do. The meat of it, however, is so much more.
Gibson earned his place in the modern cultural canon with his 1984 debut, Neuromancer. A science fiction heist novel about an augmented-human hacker strong-armed into hacking an AI so powerful that just interfacing with it can kill you, the book remains a cornerstone of the cyberpunk genre. The Bridge Trilogy, which Virtual Light opens, feels like an attempt to shed some of the weight of expectation that might have come with that accolade. The scope is less broad; instead of a globe-trotting romp that showcases the glittering peaks, it is set in a shanty town district that has sprung up in the aftermath of an earthquake that devastates San Francisco.
I have been working through Gibson’s backlist over the past year or so, and I am always struck by...[read on]
A hijacked New York subway train, an anonymous killer, and a young man trapped by his hidden past converge in a breathless, breathtaking thrillerFollow Andrew Reid on Instagram and Threads.
Do not turn off your phone
Do not get off the train
I know who you really are
Fired and walked out by security on his first day at his new job in New York City, Ben Cross thought his day couldn't get worse. But he couldn't be more wrong.Getting on the 1 train headed uptown, Ben starts receiving text messages from an anonymous killer, showing that they've already killed someone, then pointedly killing another as they got off the train to prove they aren't bluffing and to ensure Ben follows orders. But Ben wasn't picked at random—he has a history that no one is supposed to know.
At the same time, A NYPD detective, Kelly Hendricks, is on punishment duty with the transit police. The first one on the scene after the first murder, she gets on the train to find out what is really going on.
Switching rapidly between Cross and Hendricks, as the hijacked 1 train heads from South Ferry to 181st, the secret to the killer lies in Ben's own history—why he's been targeted and punished.
Writers Read: Andrew Reid.
--Marshal Zeringue