AGENCY.

• Author: Mangu-Ward, Katherine

William Gibson--who created a dark, gritty vision of an online future in Neuromancer and popularized steampunk alternate history in The Difference Engine--now offers an intriguingly convoluted look at how we might handle the personhood of an artificial intelligence in his new novel, Agency. The drama is corporate and lawyerly and no less compelling for all that.

Agency's plot is intertwined with Gibson's previous book, The Peripheral, though calling it either a prequel or a sequel would be wrong, given the games he plays with timelines in both.

Agency...