"The Peripheral" is a new series from Amazon which will be released on October 21st. It is an adaptation of William Gibson's 2014 novel of the same name, which, as always in the style of the author, anticipates the future. The inventor of the term "cyberspace" has moved the threshold forward, telling with other decades in advance a tomorrow that today seems impossible, between augmented reality, metaverse and advanced technology. Science fiction, of course. But that's not all: The Peripheral will show a wide audience the cross-section of many technologies that we will see gradually become mainstream in the coming years.
In his 1984 book Neuromancer, W coined the term "cyberspace". In this way, he has given readers a vision of a future where humans interface with computers in a fully immersive virtual reality landscape. A landscape that has since become known as "the matrix". Does that tell you something? To Neo it says a lot. Today, almost 40 years later, we still live in Gibson's world. We may not yet have reached the level of technological sophistication envisioned in the Neuromancer, but we are on the right (?) Way.
What is The Peripheral about? Don't worry, there are no spoilers
Chloë Grace Moretz as protagonist, the authors of Westworld as a group. If that's not enough for you, I'm forced to tell you a bit of the plot :) Set 70 years into our future, The Peripheral tells the story of Flynne Fisher, a young woman who lives in a small town in rural America. Her life in her city is difficult to say the least: jobs are scarce and those available don't pay enough to make ends meet. Flynne makes a living doing odd jobs and collecting what she can from abandoned homes. She is content to live her life in the dark until she is recruited by her brother to participate in some sort of test on a new virtual reality technology.
Flynne agrees to participate, and finds herself in a world she did not know existed: a world of advanced technology and immense wealth. She quickly realizes that she is a pawn in a much larger game, which could have devastating consequences for her and her family. As she races to uncover the truth behind the experiment, she must use all of her wit and wits to survive in a world that is both familiar and alien to her.
Literary fantasy, technological reality
Some of the technologies featured in The Peripheral, as mentioned, include the virtual reality, augmented reality, the metaverse and other advanced technologies such as i autonomous vehicles, the integrated road systems, the robot assistants. These technologies are already making their way into today's reality: the use of virtual reality headsets is increasingly widespread, and many people use augmented reality applications and devices even for futile things (such as filters on social networks). The metaverse is also taking its first, confusing steps. What is real? What is fake? How will it end?
William Gibson's works cannot simply be read. They were written to be RE-read, and interpreted in the light of the present, sometimes as if it were a ruthless user manual. Gibson is an even more talented heir than Orwell, because he transcends the ideological aspects of his analysis of him, and also dwells on the technical, practical, social implications of the changes he foresees.
I cannot anticipate anything, only advise you to read the original novel (which in Italian is called "Inverso" and you will understand why) within the next 4 days. And then immerse yourself in the vision of this new very lucid dream (or nightmare).
