In his latest novel, The Peripheral, Gibson brings the two aspects of his career together. The Peripheral's central conceit is that communication is possible between a distant post-apocalyptic future where one can inhabit peripherals (organic androids) remotely and communication occurs through live feeds beamed directly into one's visual cortex and a near future of 3-D printing, high-tech gaming and a social disintegration. He has a good deal of fun estranging us from not one, but two science-fiction worlds, an impressive achievement.

Flynne Fisher lives in a near-future rural America, surrounded by permanently damaged vets from some distant war. She survives by playing online games for money and by working at the local 3-D printing shop. In what she thinks is an online game, she witnesses a brutal murder that takes place in a strange version of London. What she doesn't know is that she is in fact witnessing events 70 years in the future.

In that future, Wilf Netherton is a disgraced and alcoholic publicist, and indirectly responsible for the murder. In an effort to solve the killing, Wilf and his allies contact Flynne, bringing the two worlds together and implicitly contrasting them. The villains who carried out the murder are also in contact with the past, and are mobilising their forces to silence Flynne.

The Peripheral is a slow-burn thriller, which luxuriates in its own ideas. The intersection of technology and biology gives Gibson's work its special vitality, and there's plenty here to wonder at: ceramic robots called michikoids who sprout spider eyes; a "cosplay" zone, like a great theme park, representing Victorian London; a tricycle with a deadly weapon that looks like a scorpion tail; implants on the hard palate that one activates with the tongue; and, of course, organic avatars called peripherals.

For Gibson, technology is something that structures power relations and yet also possesses liberating potential. When he finally sends Flynne to the future to temporarily inhabit a peripheral, the novel fulfils the promise of its premise and kicks into gear.