Burning Chrome by William Gibson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Burning Chrome collects ten of Gibson's short tales, exploring a variety of ideas and themes. There are some pretty amazing and far-out concepts being played with here, in typical Gibson style. Russian space stations manned by the first human on Mars risk falling from orbit in one story, while a disaffected teacher stumbles upon a shape shifting creature lurking in bars and nightclubs in another. Some of the stories--"Johnny Mnemonic", "New Rose Hotel", "Burning Chrome" for sure--take place in the Sprawl, while others are clearly set in alternate worlds.
Even the worst of these stories are still well worth checking out, and what the collection lacks in cohesiveness it more than makes up for with clever plots and intriguing ideas. "Hinterlands" (about humanity's first contact with proof of life outside our solar system) alone is worth the price of admission (disclosure: I got this from the library, so I guess the price of admission was pretty low).
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