William Gibson is considered something of a prophet of the near future, a status he attained with his 1984 novel Neuromancer, which foretold of a world dominated by cyberspace, technology and wanton capitalism.The Peripheral is also set in the future – albeit two versions of it. One has us in the impoverished, dismal backwaters of the United States a few years hence, where the economy centres on 3-D printing, drug-dealing and semi-professional video gaming. The other is located in a post-apocalyptic, near-deserted London 70 years down the line, which, after a series of environmental disasters, is inhabited solely by performance artists, billionaire kleptocrats and their lackeys.These two worlds are linked by a black market technology that allows games hobbyists to reach into the pas