Books › Burning Chrome
Burning Chrome
First published 1986 · 251 pages
A gritty, neon-lit plunge into a dystopian underworld where high-tech hustlers navigate the bleeding edge of humanity and machinery.
What it feels like
Reading this collection feels like stepping into a rain-slicked, neon-lit alleyway of a dystopian metropolis. The atmosphere is thick with cigarette smoke, ozone, and the hum of illicit servers. It moves at a brisk, kinetic clip, throwing you headfirst into a world where high-tech innovation meets low-life desperation. The prose is dense and hallucinatory, marrying the cynical, hardboiled rhythms of classic noir with a visionary vocabulary of cyberspace and chrome. Beneath the adrenaline-fueled heists and corporate espionage lies a profound, metallic melancholy about alienation, memory, and the commodification of the human soul. It is a perfect fit for readers who love immersive, gritty science fiction and want to feel the raw, electric pulse of cyberpunk's origins.
- Mood
- neon-drenched
- gritty
- shadowy
- electric
- Tone
- cynical
- hardboiled
- visionary
- melancholic
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- technological alienation · high-tech low-life survival · corporate dystopia · flesh versus machine · memory and obsolescence
- The writing
- Dense, kinetic, and hyper-stylized, the sentences blend hardboiled noir rhythms with hallucinatory, cutting-edge technological jargon.
- The arc
- The journey shifts from the adrenaline rush of the hustle to a lingering, metallic melancholy regarding the human cost of a hyper-commercialized future.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave gritty, atmospheric science fiction and want to experience the raw, visionary origins of the cyberpunk aesthetic.
Content notes
- violence
- drug use
- body modification
- existential dread
About the book
Burning Chrome collects Gibson's early short fiction from the late 70's and early 80's.
Contents: Preface / by Bruce Sterling -- Johnny Mnemonic -- The Gernsback continuum -- Fragments of a hologram rose -- The belonging kind / by John Shirley and William Gibson -- Hinterlands -- Red star, winter orbit / by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson -- New Rose Hotel -- The winter market -- Dogfight / by Michael Swanwick and William Gibson -- Burning chrome.
Description from Open Library.
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