Customer Reviews

Burning Chrome

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I think William Gibson is probably the best pure *writer* that I have read for years. I don't think, on the other hand, that his fiction is the best that SF has produced--but his deliverance of the stories is his strong point. His prose has been polished to the point that it sparkles and contains more than a good deal of poetry. Not only is his language poetic, but also are his images, especially his depiction of cyberspace with all its colorful towers of data.

As far as Gibson's fiction is concerned it is always interesting, often relevant, and on occasion cathartic. Most of his stories seem to take on the same sort of tone, that stemming from the "hard-boiled" tradition. Stories like "Johnny Mnemonic" and "Burning Chrome" best exemplify this particular brand of story. But Gibson also pulls a few surprizes out of his hat and delivers stories that are highly experimental and center around character study rather than high-tempo, action-packed adventure stories. "The Winter Market" in particular struck me as especially brilliant. His focus in the story was not the neat gadgetry that was represented by the "exoskeleton" worn by one of the characters, it was how this shaped this character and effected her life. But Gibson doesn't stop there, he gives us a cast of strong characters and plenty of interaction between them. And this is what really made the story interesting for me. The sf elements are there, but the story has a great deal of universality in its portrayol of real people in situations we can relate to.

I also thought that "Hinterlands" and "The Gernsback Continuum" were very interesting stories. "Hinterlands", like "The Winter Market", tells a real character oriented story, and "The Gernsback Continuum" is unlike any other story I've ever read. All of Gibson's stories are well written, but these stories in particular established his reputation in my mind.

A lot of people who read Gibson bash his writing because of the superficial nature of his characters. They're missing the point. One of the overarching themes of cyberpunk is the idea that technology, while revolutionizing our world, is also slowly stripping us of many of the things that make us human. Cyberpunk is a dystopia, not a Star Trek style utopia. The people living in the Sprawl, in Gibson's world, are superficial, because that's all that they have. It's professionalism taken to an unhealthy degree, and it mirrors many people that I know. Not everyone in the world has a deep, complex personality. I dare say a significant number of them don't.

That being said, Gibson truly shines as a short story writer. As a fan and practicioner of the short story, the sparseness of plot and space in general is one of the strong points in cyberpunk. The genre is about impact and style, and the shorter the story, the stronger the impact has to be to justify the experience.

Burning Chrome is a book with ten such impacts. The first story, Johnny Mnemonic, probably has the best chance to be known by the general public, and has the hardest reputation to overcome. It's great scifi, albeit far from the best story in the book. As other reviewers have said, it does introduce Molly and gives a great taste of the Sprawl. The killing floor is also one of the best examples of culture in Gibson's world.

The Gernsback Continuum is one of those stories that border on the incredibly bizzare. I didn't care for this story as much as the other (it's probably my least favorite), but ti's still bizzare enough to be entertaining.

Fragments of a Hologram Rose if I remember correctly is one of Gibson's first short stories, and it sets the stage beautifully for his style of writing. Short, sweet, and encapturing a moment in life, it may not have the depth of impact of the sprawl stories, but it's still high quality. Gibson deals with emotion, and the avoiding thereof in a painfully human manner. Namely, the characters avoid it at all costs.

The Belonging Kind is another story, sci fi in it's premise, but not so much in it's execution. Refreshing in how alien (litterally) socially popular people can be.

Hinterlands is my second favorite story in the book. It's what I call "classic" scifi- it's set in space, on a space station, and involves man's exploration of the unknown. But instead of a star trek slant, it plumbs into the desperation of wanting to know, the craving from the tree of knowledge for more. I identified with the desire to Know that which is unknown, even at the cost of your own life. A very strong story.

Red Star, Winter Orbit is another "classic" scifi tale, about a decaying russian space station at the end of an era of war. Probably ranks in my 3 least favorite of the book, but that's like saying that cake is a little dry.

New Rose Hotel is another personal favorite, about corporate espionage and the art of the double cross. This is linked to the sprawl stories, although it's hard to tell (certain companies are involved, and their outcome seems to be reflected and alluded to in the sprawl trilogy). Powerfully narrorated by a man about to die, it's light on the sci fi, but strong on Gibson's style.

The Winter Market is an eerie tale about desire and raw drive. The interesting thing about this story is that a few people, including myself, have written stories before ever reading Gibson that share many of the same ideas and themes of this story.

Dogfight is another one that's different. A story about desires, values, and passions, between a convict with a mental block and the college girl he meets with an equally strong mental block. Dogfight refers to a holographic game that the main character is obsessed with.

Burning Chrome. We finally get to the namesake of this book, and we find Gibson in full stride, in lyrical command of his genre. Like Molly from Neuromancer, everything is right in place for Burning Chrome. His moves are down pat, his style oozes, and the delivery of the mood and atmosphere hit you like a jackhammer. Basic plot? Boy meets girl, boy goes on hacking job for girl so he can retire, girl falls for boy's chum and assistant, girl splits as boy & assistant strike it rich. Simple plot, but oh-so-powerful in it's delivery.

Overall, Burning Chrome is worth the investment. Don't read Gibson to have intriguing, incredibly developed plot and characters, read it for the mood and style of the writing. Each page is like a work of art, carefully crafted to leave an emotion, an impression. In a fictional world where life is fragile, the easiest way to achieve immortality is to leave a lasting impression. This is the goal of all the arcane grammar, the lyrical prose, the point-blank blast of imagry that Gibson throws up. Don't try to analyze the plot, analyze the mood. It drips in each of the Sprawl stories.

Featuring stories by the "father of cyberpunk", William Gibson, as well as collaberations with many other important figures in the genre, BURNING CHROME, is as good a collection of cyberpunk short fiction as can be found (short of Bruce Sterling's MIRRORSHADES, which has been out of print for some time). First and foremost, the first story in the anthology, "Johnny Mnemonic", will, no doubt, garner the most interest. (Readers of Gibson's NEUROMANCER will easily make the correlation between Molly and Johnny.) Gritty and imaginative, "Johnny Mnemonic" is worth the price of admission alone, spinning the story (made into the movie of the same name), of Johnny Mnemonic, a data courier, and his gal Molly Millions. "Burning Chrome" and "Dogfight" are considered to be two of Gibson's best short stories, showing off Gibson's creative powers at their strongest. "Fragments of a Hologram Rose" is a lyrical masterpiece, exquisitely detailed and haunting in delivery. Gibson's work is prophetic and amazing, rounding out his Sprawl series (NEUROMANCER, COUNT ZERO, and MONA LISA OVERDRIVE). Bordering on poetic at times, crystal clear at others, Gibson is truly a versatile author.

All in all, fans of Gibson's other works or fans of cyberpunk in general will find this anthology immensely rewarding.

I first read Gibson in the short stories he sold to Omni, lo these many years ago, and when this collection came out, I was delighted to see those old friends, "Burning Chrome," and "Johnny Mnemonic" in print again. As with all anthologies, the quality of these stories is uneven at best, but when Gibson's good, he's very, very good indeed, and when he's not so good, he's still an author who repays reading.

This is the first book I read by William Gibson, and to date it's my favorite.

Gibson's strength is not the spinning of huge tales with hundreds of characters. His strong suit is atmosphere. These stories all have strong settings. His language is poetic as he describes his near-future milieus, and his prose has a beat like a pulse as he makes you feel for his characters, In all these stories, I felt like he had plopped me down right amongst the characters. His feel for words, dialogue, and setting are so strong. Everything he writes in these stories seems to ring true, as if he's describing a world that he himself created long ago.

"Red Star Winter Orbit" is a fascinating story, and "Dogfight" was perhaps my favorite. There's a quality to his stories that I can't pinpoint well-- they all seem to flesh out what it means to be human in an age of rapidly advancing technology. The technology is exciting, but scary at the same time. I feel for these characters, because they have adapted to this harsh way of life, but at great cost.

Gibson imagines a future that is either not far off, or here with us today, and these stories really set the tone for the novels to come later.

If you're a fan of his novels like _Neuromancer_ or _All Tomorrow's Parties_, you owe it to yourself to try this group of short stories. Cyperpunk had a sharper edge back when Gibson wrote these, and there's not a bad short story in this collection called _Burning Chrome_.

ken32

This collection contains ten stories, seven of which are solo works by William Gibson and the other three are collaborations. Nine appeared previously between 1977 and 1985 and one was new for this collection.

Gibson writes hard, technical cyber-punk SF with the art of a real master of the short story genre. Good SF shorts are of course all about ideas, situations and snappy plot twists but great examples of this genre also pack in characters that you can understand and root for and worlds that come to life in your head. It is hard to do that and only a handful of writers can turn out work of this quality.

The opening shot in the book, "Johnny Mnemonic" is one of those rare tales that burns its way into your head. Reading it is almost like being there watching the events unfold. The narrative makes the outlandish grunge-tech future come to life and it is easy to see how this tale inspired the making of a movie.

It is a powerful start and the rest of the book does not disappoint. From the anonymous barfly world of "The Belonging Kind", up into the dying orbit of an old Russian space station in "Red Star, Winter Orbit" and back to the seedy hacker world of "Burning Chrome" Gibson delivers a set of tales for which the phrase "assault on the senses" is no exaggeration.

The book is a fine introduction to both Gibson and the cyber-punk genre and it is a book that every SF fan should own and re-read regularly. If you like it and to want to explore similar work, I'd suggest "A Good Old Fashioned Future" by Bruce Sterling, or the "Mirrorshades" anthology.

This book, and the title story inside, pretty much defines Cyber-Punk. Yes, John Brunner's The Shockwave Rider (1975) and Ryan's The Adolescence of P-1 (1977) pre-dated the Cyberpunk movement by a decade but their views of a computer based world didn't take off the way Gibson's work did. The earlier novels also lacked a bit of the noir/pulp fiction flavor that Gibson's work has. The '70's novels had the protagonists fighting a machine/network set up by 'the man' and ultimately subverting it. In Gibson's stories, the characters are the rats in the walls, just trying to get ahead or around 'the man'. Yeah, I can't really describe the difference but it's there.

One other factor that makes Gibson's work stand above others in the this genre is his descriptive powers. He paints a very realistic seeming world that is very visual but he doesn't bog down the narrative while doing so. When I start reading his stuff, I rarely find myself knocked out of the story by the text. Cool!

William Gibson burst onto the scene with slick writing and a dismal view of the future. His protagonists were all flawed and the endings resulted in bittersweet Pyrrhic victories - a world were pain begets pain. Mostly set in the criminal underground or the criminal corporate world at war, he explored the darkness in his future worldview and the darkness within each of us.

What I liked best about this collection is what I like best about all of Gibson's work, the fluid prose. Like liquid poetry injected directly into the consciousness it raises your pulse and quickens the anticipation. He's brilliant at creating a mood, a true master.

The highlight of this anthology was the title story, Burning Chrome. To describe it with words like octane and infused would be to weaken its impact, a pure rush of language that conveys the story of desire: wealth, sex, life. There may be no better story in the genre than Burning Chrome.

Of the other stories, Johnny Mnemonic and Hinterlands stood out as exciting rides of fictional craziness. Hinterlands was half-horror, half cyber, and full out corporate espionage. Johnny Mnemonic foreshadowed Neuromancer with the introduction of Molly and the ill-fated Johnny run cross of the true corporate power in Gibson's stories, the Yakuza.

The rest of the collection is a fine sampling of Gibson's writing. Some better than others.

The following is the contents:

"Johnny Mnemonic"
"The Gernsback Continuum"
"Fragments of a Hologram Rose"
"The Belonging Kind"
"Hinterlands"
"Red Star, Winter Orbit"
"New Rose Hotel"
"The Winter Market"
"Dogfight"
"Burning Chrome"

- CV Rick

I'm a sci-fi fan from way back and particularly fond of short stories. I'd never read any stuff by Gibson, so I thought that Burning Chrome would be a good place to start. The blurb on the back of the book had quotes saying "father of the term cyberspace" and "truly original" and "new classic that has revitalized the genre" etc. The funny thing is that all that stuff was true, but I still didn't like the book. I guess the best way to put it is that he's got great ideas, but that's not enough to make a sci-fi story rise to the level of good literature. You still have to be a good writer, and in particular, Gibson's characters stink. They're one-dimensional and poorly realized; he's in love with technology but not so good at people. Maybe Gibson would be better at a full length novel; not everyone can write shorts. (my favorite sci-fi shorts still have to be Ray Bradbury's) His ideas were interesting enough for me to give him another try, though, and read Neuromancer.

From Red Star Winter Orbit to the title story Burning Chrome, Gibson serves up short and smooth stories. If your looking for something to kick back with while waiting for your bus or plane(as I did) this collection from Gibson is perfect. It just added to my memories of roughing it on the streets of LA.