Burning Chrome by William Gibson

When I purchased the Sprawl Trilogy after reading Neuromancer a few months ago, I noticed that there was an edition of Burning Chrome published in the same cover style as the other books in the trilogy. After a bit of research, I learned that this short story collection featured some of the Sprawl characters throughout its short pieces, so I picked this one up too. I decided to read it right on the heels of Mona Lisa Overdrive so that I could remember the details of that story (as much as anyone can retain details from such an odd story, anyway).

Burning Chrome is comprised of ten of William Gibson's most popular short stories. The volume includes: "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," and "Burning Chrome." On the whole, I found the collection to be quite strong. Most of the stories held my interest and all of them contained Gibson's trademark cyberpunk style. Short fiction is a good format for him to play with; it allows him to create a  world and show his characters interacting with it. This is where he shines. He can show readers short glimpses of possible futures without having to worry about crafting a longer narrative. In my (probably unpopular) opinion, the Sprawl Trilogy made less sense as it went on. Once you start relying on Voodoo gods to characterize your science fiction future, things have gone off the rails somewhere. In a short story, however, Gibson's style plays well. He gives us a bit of story, we see it play out for a while, then we leave it. Nice and easy.

"Johnny Mnemonic" was one of my favorites in the collection. It concerns a young man, Johnny, who works as a kind of human data storage device. He has an implant in his brain that allows customers to store huge amounts of data in his head. Johnny then safely transports this data to a location of the client's choosing. The information he stores can only be accessed with a special password created by the client. Johnny himself can not access it at all and his implants prevent him from reading it. This method of transport is supposed to be the safest way to send information, as hacking into a person's brain is nearly impossible. The story begins when a job Johnny is working on goes wrong. His client dies before retrieving his data, and whatever the information is that got his client killed has got the Yakuza on Johnny's trail. In an effort to escape the Yakuza and purge the information from his head, he teams up with Molly Millions (my favorite mirror-eyed street samurai from Neuromancer) and embarks on a mission that leads him to a crazy underground fighting arena and, improbably, a cybernetic dolphin partner. It basically had all the best parts of Gisbon's storytelling: a cyberpunk setting, high-tech crime, intense action sequences, and bizarre plot twists. It was a good time. Interestingly, this short story was also made into a movie in the 80s staring Keanu Reeves and it looks awesomely bad.

I think my overall favorite story though was "The Belonging Kind." The plot of this one was bizarre and difficult to explain without spoiling it, so I'll be brief. It involves a socially awkward guy who we first meet hanging out in a bar and trying (unsuccessfully) to pick up women. Eventually, he runs across a woman who seems to mirror his own awkwardness and finds him good company. They talk for a while and flirt successfully. Intrigued, he follows her once she leaves the bar and watches her casually shapeshift into an entirely different woman. She heads into a bar with a totally different vibe than the one she was in before, and fits in with everyone there flawlessly. She repeats this several times throughout the night, and the man keeps following her in a state of disbelief. She turns into several different women with several different personalities. Eventually, he loses track of her when she heads home. He becomes obsessed with finding her again, and his quest to seek her out and determine what she is leads him down a very strange path. 

It's tough to give one rating for Burning Chrome, as I enjoyed some of the stories more than others. Most of them were pretty enjoyable on the whole, so I'm going to go with a three out of five stars here. The collection is a great sampling of the many odd and creative ideas swirling around in Gibson's brain. He presents a lot of different ethical questions for readers to dissect and shows us a lot of possible futures, all in his distinctive science fiction style. Any fan of his novels will definitely enjoy this, especially Sprawl Trilogy fans, as they will get a chance to see a few of the characters from that universe again. This was a weird (in a good way) and entertaining read.


Challenge Tally
Classics Club (Sequel to List Book): 44/100
Finally in 2019: 11/6 Books Read - Complete!

Total Books Read in 2019: 23