Who was William Gibson, the visionary author of the ‘Peripherals’ series

Almost forty years ago, a story about neural implants that would simulate a realistic virtual world in the human mind would have sounded laughable and, of course, absurd. In the middle of 2022, it is still difficult, but not impossible, to envision the plot conceived by the author William Gibson for the book neuromancer, from 1984, his masterpiece. The 74-year-old Canadian writer has joined the hall of rare and inventive names in literature that uses science fiction to see beyond – while sounding screaming warnings about the dangers of technological evolution. As the irony of today says, “that’s too much Black Mirror“, except for the detail: Black Mirror is that it’s very William Gibson. In recent months, the author has seen his name gain new prominence with the launch of the series Peripherals (available on Amazon Prime Video), starring actress Chloë Grace Moretz.

The series is based on Gibson’s eponymous book and is faithful to the premise: brothers Flynne (Chloë) and Burton (Jack Reynor) earn money playing virtual reality games, and eventually are invited to test a new hyper-realistic simulation, set in London in the future. The plot soon develops into an action-adventure mystery. Considered unadaptable, Gibson’s work often serves as an inspiration. case of Matrix (1999) who drinks directly from neuromancer🇧🇷 In it, a hacker is banished from the Matrix, a virtual environment where all social relations take place, after trying to rob the boss. It was in this work that the term cyberpunk was popularized, used to designate anarchic futuristic stories, where technology did not improve anyone’s life, on the contrary, it only made it worse.

In addition to his influence on pop culture and literature, Gibson has become something of a prophet of modern times. His texts, for example, anticipated what the internet, reality shows, the ubiquity of security cameras would be like, and also the importance that video games would gain in people’s lives and also in the market. It is worth remembering, for example, that the games market currently moves more money than Hollywood. A visionary who, these days, ironically, runs away from technology.