At the best of times, I am easily confused by hard sci-fi. Is this (she says, at time of going to press unsure of who the home secretary, chief whip and the PM might be by the time you read this) the best of times? No.
Fortunately, despite The Peripheral (Prime Video) being not just an adaptation of a William Gibson novel but one undertaken by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, creators of the mind-breaking Westworld, it starts off gently and allows those of us who are willing but not hugely able a fighting chance of understanding the thing.
The main narrative begins in the year 2032 and the Blue Ridge mountains, where Flynne (Chloë Grace Moretz) and her brother Burton (Jack Reynor) are caring for their sick mother. Flynne works in a 3D print shop – their world is recognisably ours but tweaked a few degrees, with Homeland Security, for example, now automatically treating any cash withdrawal from an ATM with suspicion. Burton is a commercial VR gamer whom lesser players can hire to stand in for them and level up in games beyond their reach. When necessary, Flynne takes over. She is an even better player than her brother but would not be as readily hired as a woman (some things never change) and prefers to exist primarily in the real world anyway.
But when the chance arises to make some big money by beta testing a new, super-advanced VR game – complete with the kind of menacing, spider-clamp headset no one should ever agree to put on their head – Flynne steps up. Soon she is enjoying a thrilling adventure as a James Bondish figure caught up in a twisting quest, and soon after that she is not enjoying it at all. What began as motorbiking through a futuristic London and flirting with glamorous women turns into a world of unanaesthetised enucleation, beatings with “sonic punchers” and a mounting body count that begins to feel a bit too real.
This is, of course, because it is. The futuristic capital is the real London of 2099, where we have already seen – at the very start – a man called Wilf Netherton being visited by a girl who saved his life in the past and has come to say goodbye before she goes off to save the world. Not our world. Another one.
Back in 2032 and the Blue Ridge mountains, technology is springing unbidden to life all around Flynne, urging her with a voice not unlike Wilf’s to jump back into the game-that-is-clearly-not-a-game and escape the contract killers who are on their way to assassinate her.
The “peripheral” of the title refers to cyborg avatars that sim users can connect to from different locations and it is there, I’m afraid, that I must leave you to decide whether this is very much or very much not your thing.
Suffice to say that it is a bravura rendition of Gibson’s tale, told with confidence by people I suspect will keep the plotting tight and the internal logic – whatever that may be – consistent. Those who can follow it at the deeper levels will no doubt find it immensely satisfying. The rest of us can enjoy the ride, and the distraction from the decidedly untightly plotted present.
• This article was amended on 21 October 2022 because The Peripheral is an adaptation of a William Gibson novel, not of a short story as an earlier version said.
