Rating: 
Summary: Yeah, it's good, go read it
Review: William Gibson's creative genius shines through in this collection of short stories which hold much more variation and much more bold innovation than most of his novels. In it you'll find prototypes of some of your favorite characters from his full length stories (steppin' razor makes more than one appearance). But you'll also find truly original and unique settings, characters, and ideas which are quite different from what most people have come to expect from him. Gibson's wit and vision are fused together and honed to unequaled sharpness in compact and power packed fistfulls of pages that take you from zero to sixty in no time and then dump you out on the curb at full speed a block later, not quite feeling you've not gotten enough but still wanting more nonetheless. Stories like "The Belonging Kind" and "Hinterlands" really changed my opinion of Gibson, I knew he could write good, interesting, and thought-provoking stories but I had no idea he could write anything that good. Definitely recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Hey, he INVENTED the Internet!
Review: 10 flashy stories here -- quick, action-packed, high-tech, impressive. Best R: "Burning Chrome," "The Winter Market," "Hinterlands," & my favorite, "The Gernsback Continuum," which shows Gibson has a sense of humor, 2 -- it's a look at the AMAZING projected science-fictional world of the 30s which comes back 2 get a blase photographer of the 80s -- with a vengeance. U'll laff.
"Burning Chrome" & "The Winter Market" have some great visionary sections -- U'll C these stories, not just read them. "Winter Market" would make a great music video....
Gibson's novels R cool, 2: NEUROMANCER, COUNT ZERO, MONA LISA OVERDRIVE & VIRTUAL LIGHT R all worth Xploring....
Rating:
Summary: amazing
Review: Burning Chrome is definitely a must. Gibson creates worlds that are just as real, if not more real, than our own, and excels at doing so. His work is dark as can be, and quite gruesome at times (I'm thinking a particular scene in Hinterlands), but is very thought-provoking. Several stories from this collection have made their way into film (Johnny Mnemonic, New Rose Hotel), though the celluloid versions just don't do the stories justice.Several of the stories here are collaborations, one with Bruce Sterling (the other giant of cyberpunk), one with John Shirley (another member of the early movement), and one with the more humanistic Michael Swanwick. Each of these has its own unique feel, though not one should be missed. Like all Gibson, this is a love it or hate it experience. If you like to think, you'll love it. If you're waiting to be entertained, go look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Gibson's strongest and greatest work
Review: A collection of short stories that exceed Neuromancer as pieces of writing. This is the work that defined Neuromancer and Gibson's cyberpunk world. These short stories actually have much more impact and emotion than I found in Gibson's novels. Two of the short stories, Johnny Neumonic and New Rose Hotel, were turned into movies, yet none of Gibson's novels were. The stories are just incredible, anyone who likes Gibson's work absolutely must read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Buy Three Copies of This Book, (for house, purse, & friend)
Review: You'll need them. At every word along the way of these astounding stories, the mind is on fire and burns with the hunger of pure, clear art. Give this writer a medal. If you can't do that, buy the book, at least. Reading these stories is like reading the way science fiction could be, if more people would finally decide to write art instead of cheap entertainment or thinly veiled philosophy. I've read many of his fine novels, but the short stories remain a stand-out in my mind, and I return to them often when I am in need of something intense and beautiful. They are his finest, tightest, most haunting works to date. Open this book, and when you close it, the whole world will be a different place.
I especially loved "Hinterlands".
Rating:
Summary: Vivid short stories set in a scary future
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: If you like Gibson, pick this one up
Review: Some great stuff here. Early ideas from Gibson, including the first appearnce of Molly Millions / Sally Shears(some of which is referenced in Neuromancer). Cyberpunk fans MUST have this one in their collection, these are classic stories.
Rating:
Summary: A collection that you must not miss.
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Gibson paints with words.
Review: 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
Rating:
Summary: Quality is the only unity
Review: Sometimes when you read a book of short stories, you get a sense of the book as a book. _Burning Chrome_ is not one of these cases-- it's clearly and simply a collection of Gibson's stories with no thematic unity or flow of tone. The quality of the writing is very high, and while some of the stories interested me less ("Red Star, Winter Orbit"-- co-written with Bruce Sterling) there were others that were breathtakingly lovely ("The Winter Market"). The preface of the book is written by Bruce Sterling, and there are collaborations with Sterling, John Shirley and Michael Stanwick.
|
