Agency by William Gibson

As was explored in the science fiction master’s 2014 prequel, time in Agency is split in two—or really, more. The narrative occurs in both the near future and a distant one, where all of what modern society fears—climate change, pandemics, wars over resources—has slowly wiped out 80% of humanity, and those remaining possess the technology to tweak the events of different parallel “nubs” of the past, thus changing their future. (Think of a tree of timelines sprouting a new limb, often to explode into apocalypse.) Recrafted after the real-life 2016 electoral shocks in the U.K. and the U.S., William Gibson’s seductive sequel to The Peripheral is set in a nub where neither Brexit nor the Trump presidency come to pass, but in a world that is still very much in need of saving. That is, if a new, powerful A.I. will allow it.

Buy Now: Agency on Bookshop | Amazon

Contact us at letters@time.com.