Lit. of Fantasy, Horror and Sci-Fi: Fragments of a Hologram Rose

"Fragments of a Hologram Rose"

I have to say, this story isn't what I imagined it'd be; I'm not even sure what I thought it would be, only wondering what the title of William Gibson's story meant. This is the first of Gibson's stories I've ever read, so I'm not familiar with his work, but I personally had a hard time reading and understanding what was happening.

I had to re-read the story a few times just to get a better picture, because this is clearly a different society compared to our own; nearly everything in this world has to do with holographics and things called "delta-inducers" which I assume delta means "sleep". I also think these inducers create dreams, but these dreams are not the viewer's, but recorded from someone else's consciousness (how that is possible I don't know). Parker, the protagonist, shreds a hologram rose and it's broken into fragments. From this I have come to one conclusion:

Parker had a falling out with a girl but things didn't work out, probably because he'd become dependent on the holographic machines and the girl left him. In one dream-like sequence he's shouting at a cabby who she's driving away with.

In this world, shantytowns are poorly structured, built from plastic sheets and chunks of rusted metal; nearly every place is described as some kind of ghost town. Parker once even stumbles on a dead body, and he isn't even remotely disturbed by it; instead he robs the corpse of drugs and just leaves it there. Is this story about how technology can change people and the world around them?

I must be honest, I wasn't super intrigued by this story, but I no longer have the time to read anything other than short stories. I wanted to give this story a try, and even though I read through it quickly, the layout of the writing was very odd; not sure if it was the transfer to a pdf or something else, but it was a bit difficult to read smoothly.

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