London: Athlone Press, 2000.

This book considers the expression and ramifications of cyberpunk, with special emphasis on William Gibson’s work, including Agrippa.

“Gibson’s Gothic aesthetic is epitomized by Agrippa: A Book of the Dead, a text that addresses the themes of loss, death and mourning not only through its content but also through its structure…its design mirrors the character of the cyberculture presented in all of Gisbon’s other works, as a scenario of permanent irresolution. In Agrippa, as in cyberculture generally, experience is coded as data that are easily accessible and thus foster in the reader/user an illusion of control. Hoewever, the data are also presented as precarious and ghostly; they do not form a solid body of knowledge, for they disappear in sequence at the same pace as they are consumed…”