Agency

by Gibson, William, 1948-

Format: Print Book 2020
Availability: Available at 18 Libraries 19 of 23 copies
Available (19)
Location Collection Call #
Andrew Carnegie Free Library Fiction FIC GIBSON
Location  Andrew Carnegie Free Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  FIC GIBSON
 
 
Bethel Park Public Library Fiction FIC GIBSON William
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Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  FIC GIBSON William
 
 
CLP - Downtown First Floor - Science Fiction FICTION Gibson
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CLP - Main Library First Floor - Fiction Stacks FICTION Gibson
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CLP - Squirrel Hill Science Fiction FICTION Gibson
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Collection  Science Fiction
 
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Carnegie Library of McKeesport Fiction F GIB
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Collection  Fiction
 
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Community Library of Castle Shannon Fiction Fic Gibson
Location  Community Library of Castle Shannon
 
Collection  Fiction
 
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Cooper-Siegel Community Library Science Fiction/Fantasy FIC GIB sci-fan
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Collection  Science Fiction/Fantasy
 
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Monroeville Public Library Fiction GIBSON WILLIAM
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Mt. Lebanon Public Library Fiction GIBSON William
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Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  GIBSON William
 
 
North Versailles Public Library Fiction FIC GIBS
Location  North Versailles Public Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
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Northland Public Library Science Fiction & Fantasy FIC GIBSON SF
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Collection  Science Fiction & Fantasy
 
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Oakmont Carnegie Library Fiction GIB
Location  Oakmont Carnegie Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
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Oakmont Carnegie Library Fiction BEST SELLER GIB
Location  Oakmont Carnegie Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  BEST SELLER GIB
 
 
Penn Hills Library Science Fiction GIB SF
Location  Penn Hills Library
 
Collection  Science Fiction
 
Call Number  GIB SF
 
 
Pleasant Hills Public Library Science Fiction Fic SF Gibson
Location  Pleasant Hills Public Library
 
Collection  Science Fiction
 
Call Number  Fic SF Gibson
 
 
Sewickley Public Library Fiction F GIB
Location  Sewickley Public Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
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South Park Library Fiction F GIBSON WILLIAM PERIPHER v.2
Location  South Park Library
 
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Upper St. Clair Township Library Science Fiction SCIENCE FICTION GIBSON William
Location  Upper St. Clair Township Library
 
Collection  Science Fiction
 
Call Number  SCIENCE FICTION GIBSON William
 
 
 
Unavailable (4)
Location Collection Status
CLP - East Liberty Science Fiction CHECKED OUT
Location  CLP - East Liberty
 
Collection  Science Fiction
 
Status  CHECKED OUT
 
 
Shaler North Hills Library Science Fiction CHECKED OUT
Location  Shaler North Hills Library
 
Collection  Science Fiction
 
Status  CHECKED OUT
 
 
Shaler North Hills Library Fiction CHECKED OUT
Location  Shaler North Hills Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Status  CHECKED OUT
 
 
Western Allegheny Community Library Fiction Science Fiction CHECKED OUT
Location  Western Allegheny Community Library
 
Collection  Fiction Science Fiction
 
Status  CHECKED OUT
 
 
Summary
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"ONE OF THE MOST VISIONARY, ORIGINAL, AND QUIETLY INFLUENTIAL WRITERS CURRENTLY WORKING"* returns with a sharply imagined follow-up to the New York Times bestselling The Peripheral .

William Gibson has trained his eye on the future for decades, ever since coining the term "cyberspace" and then popularizing it in his classic speculative novel Neuromancer in the early 1980s. Cory Doctorow raved that The Peripheral is "spectacular, a piece of trenchant, far-future speculation that features all the eyeball kicks of Neuromancer ." Now Gibson is back with Agency --a science fiction thriller heavily influenced by our most current events.

Verity Jane, gifted app whisperer, takes a job as the beta tester for a new product: a digital assistant, accessed through a pair of ordinary-looking glasses. "Eunice," the disarmingly human AI in the glasses, manifests a face, a fragmentary past, and a canny grasp of combat strategy. Realizing that her cryptic new employers don't yet know how powerful and valuable Eunice is, Verity instinctively decides that it's best they don't.

Meanwhile, a century ahead in London, in a different time line entirely, Wilf Netherton works amid plutocrats and plunderers, survivors of the slow and steady apocalypse known as the jackpot. His boss, the enigmatic Ainsley Lowbeer, can look into alternate pasts and nudge their ultimate directions. Verity and Eunice are her current project. Wilf can see what Verity and Eunice can't: their own version of the jackpot, just around the corner, and the roles they both may play in it.

* The Boston Globe
Published Reviews
Booklist Review: "Hired to beta test a new AI called Eunice (think a cross between Alexa and Google Glass on steroids), app whisperer Verity realizes that she is working with some bleeding-edge tech. Eunice, instantly capable of face recognition, orders coffee at the local cafe and pays for it from Verity's PayPal account. But that is just the beginning of what she is capable of. Eunice is an autonomous, self-learning agent, a cross-platform, individually user-based, autonomous avatar . . . digital mini-self. She is sentient, self-aware, and from the future. Eunice has different plans for Verity, and the two go off the grid where they eventually are contacted by Wilf Netherton (last seen in The Peripheral, 2014) from an alternate-future London. Gibson delayed Agency's publication following the results of the U.S. presidential election, envisioning a recent past where, owing to meddlers from the future, the president is a woman, and the Brexit vote failed, but nuclear war is probable. Netherton, now sober and happily married, is hired to assist Verity to avert disaster. Gibson blurs the line between real and speculative technology in a fast-paced thriller that will affirm to readers that it was well worth the wait. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Gibson wrote about the internet before there was an internet; plenty of readers will be anxious for his take on AI.--Ben Segedin Copyright 2019 Booklist"
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Publisher's Weekly Review: "Cyberpunk pioneer Gibson disappoints with this inventive but jumbled prequel to The Periphery. In 2017, gifted "app whisperer" Verity Jane is hired to beta test a pair of eye-glasses that double as an artificial intelligence assistant named Eunice. As Eunice's personality and capabilities grow, Verity decides to hide the AI's rapid development from her mysterious new employers. She can't keep the secret for long, however, as agents from a century into the future descend to make sure that Eunice­--a misplaced technology from their time--doesn't start a nuclear war. Though the writing is packed with intriguing concepts and characters, the scrambled timelines and shifting narrative perspective make an already complicated plot even harder to follow. The characters from the future fall flat, especially in comparison to the dynamic, fully-realized personalities of Verity and Eunice. Cyberpunk fans looking to dive into the "what-if's" of an alternate timeline will be as enraptured as ever by Gibson's imagination, but they'll be left with more questions than answers. (Jan.)"
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Additional Information
Series Peripheral series
#1 - The Peripheral
#2 - Agency
Subjects New business enterprises -- Fiction.
Artificial intelligence -- Fiction.
Science fiction.
Thrillers (Fiction)
Publisher New York :Berkley,2020
Edition First edition.
Language English
Description 402 pages ; 24 cm
ISBN 9781101986936
110198693X
Other Classic View