The material helps, of course, but the narration is crucial. Compare this with a master of narration like Michael Jayston with seemingly no effort, he manages to make sections of Le Carrés “Smiley“ books crackle with relentless pace and gravity. But with an audiobook, it's the narrator dictating the pace and, though Lorelei King has a genuinely pleasing voice and style, she didn't manage to make even the chase sequence seem remotely exciting. This is not so bad with printed books as the reader's own enthusiasm helps to keep the pages turning. The problem is that Gibson is a writer whose ideas are so very good that they make up for his lack of skill in creating a sense of urgency and danger, even when that's what he is straining to do. I wish I hadn't bothered it was the literary equivalent of a pre-packaged salt-beef sandwich - the packaging and brand made it look so tasty but one bite showed it was nothing but by-the-numbers fare, which I only finished because I had paid for it and was still hungry afterwards. “Agency” is the follow-up to “The Peripheral” and, though that hadn't been up to Gibson's previous standards, the conceit of linked but separate futures and “stubs” was intriguing enough to make me look forward to listening to this continuation.
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