*One probably can't afford to write novels in modern London, so it's kinda like visiting Mars.
Read more Will Wiles and also don't drink too much, that part never helps
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Gibson was promoting his then most recent novel, The Peripheral, which shows London as Gibson imagines it a century from now: emptied out after an unnamed catastrophe, its vast, glass-towered spaces populated by oligarchs and overflown by spy drones. The first time I read that interview, I shrugged off Gibson’s anxiety as the pessimism of the outsider. I felt certain London – my London – could survive anything. I’m not sure if I believe that any more, and the city I loved seems so long in the past I don’t know how to grieve.
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In Will Wiles’s third novel Plume, we observe London as it might be, say a week from now. Jack Bick (not his real name) is a feature writer for a glossy lifestyle magazine. Both Jack and the magazine are fighting a losing battle for analogue survival in the digital jungle, with Jack’s struggle increasingly complicated by his addiction to alcohol. On the morning the novel begins, Jack is tasked with writing two longform profiles, one of reclusive cult novelist Oliver Pierce, the other of multimillionaire property developer Alex de Chauncey.
While everyone else in the office is distracted by a plume of toxic black smoke to the east, Jack’s main concern is getting back to his flat so he can down a can or three, the absolute minimum necessary for him to function. He knows there’s no way he’ll be able to manage both interviews, not in the same day, especially given that the chance of him writing them up is next to nil anyway. He fears it’s only a matter of hours until he gets fired. Then the writer Oliver Pierce throws Jack a lifeline, a story so big it might just save what is left of his career....
