Burning Chrome by William Gibson (collection)

Burning Chrome is a book collection of short stories Gibson wrote until 1986, but also the title of the short story that comes last in the book. This review is about the entire book.  These are early Gibson stories, some dating back to 1977, when he moved from Toronto to Vancouver, after dodging the draft in his native United States. The first story, or almost a novella, is Johnny Mnemonic, but I already reviewed that one separately. 

From the rest of the stories I really liked "Hinterland" which has a bit of Lovecraftian feeling of "Cosmic Horror" that I enjoy (cannot stand slasher/gore "Horrors").  In alternate future where USSR won the space and economic race, a cosmonaut accidentally discovers a type of wormhole from where ships and people go into another universe.  The people mostly come back dead or crazy, committing suicide soon after return.  However, some, but not all, astronauts come back with amazing technological advances, which seem to be from a science and technology that is fundamentally different from ours in its very concept.  One example is a metal ring which has magnetically encoded information on how to cure every kind of cancer.  Another example is detailed diagrams and schematics of constructing molecular-based computers which are microscopic and yet as powerful as the best available at the time.  This reminds of the "Cargo Cult" in the Pacific Ocean during World War 2, where the less developed tribes living on the islands would create altars and worship the technologically advanced Allied planes and people, who would sometimes leave them some piece of technology that helped the tribes-men's lives immensely. 

"New Rose Hotel" is also interesting, albeit quite short, but already set in "The Sprawl" universe that Gibson uses for his later Cyberpunk classics.  "Winter Market" is another story that I really liked, not because it has a very interesting plot (it doesn't), but because it happens on Granville Island in Vancouver, BC, with Kitsilano, False Creek, Downtown, West End and other landmarks being central to the story.  Even though I don't live in Vancouver anymore, the 7 years I spent there are still full of fond memories for me, and the city has a soft spot in my heart.

The titular story is very alike Gibson's best known work "Neuromancer," although the characters are different.  It is set in the Sprawl, Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Area (BAMA) with the technology and social elements as in the novel. The Cyberspace is described similarly, though no computer scientists has figured out yet why should Big Data be represented with 3D geometrical objects and figures. Also no tech executive has figured why should Big Data be accessed with "decks" that hook up to one's skull and work directly with the vision center in one's brain. Anyways, at the end the girl turns out to be a Meat Puppet because she needed money - maybe a forerunner of Molly Millions who (unfortunately) does not appear in the story.