Set in a near future of rural poverty and slightly further future where the 1% of our days has survived an apocalypse and now rule the greatly reduced world, an information-only form of time travel links (and simultaneously breaks the causal link) between the two times. A young woman who thinks she's being paid to play a computer game witnesses what looks like a suspiciously real murder. This sparks a temporal, economic and physical conflict as forces reach back from the future to destroy the witness and possibly her whole world as collateral. However, she can go forward, too, ingeniously, and a race to protect her and prepare her transforms her world, but the key to saving it lies in the future.

Great to see Gibson back doing mad sci fi. I love the rough and ready lo-fi vision of industrial laser printers versus the smooth sleek world of nanobot assemblers. Great writing, great characters, and as usual, a crackling portrait of the tensions pulling our world apart and the will to save it.