Detective, Historian, Reader: Alternate History and Alternative Fact in William Gibson’s The Peripheral

Abstract

Alternate history is on one level liberated from the narrative of history and verifiable fact, but it is also mercilessly reliant upon that narrative for its effectiveness. This paper analyses how William Gibson’s The Peripheral subverts familiar elements of the alternate history genre, combining it with similarly distorted conventions from detective fiction, manipulating the reader’s response, and causing them to question accepted truths, realities and roles, problematizing narratives of history and justice.