Fri, 31 Aug 2007
Gibson, Spook Country
William Gibson, Spook Country,
Penguin/Viking
William Gibson is the Neuromancer guy, the
fellow who coined the word "cyberspace" and
who was, along with Bruce Sterling and a few
others, a representative of the cyberpunk
school of sci-fi.
Lately though, he's been in the present or
the near future. His last book, Pattern
Recognition (there's a review of it in this
section) takes us on a hike around world
capitals in a search for some cult video
makers. In the background is a sort of Euro
daddy-warbucks, a smooth portrait of
designer amorality including the fact that we
only ever see his surface.
This character is back in the background
here, in this new book, and has a few more
lines sketched into his character. In the
forefront is the female ex-singer of a
disbanded cult band. She's trying to be a
journalist and has been sent to L.A. to do
a story on 3d virtual art which is tied to
GPS coordinates. In a parallel story, which
will merge later, an old man is taking delivery
of iPods full of data in NYC. There's also
a semi-addled geek who makes the geospatial
things happen.
More than this we won't tell. Part of the
pleasure of the book is figuring out just
what is going on and who're the good guys and
who the bad. It's a fun trip with enough
weirdness along the way to give it spice and
enough in the way of interesting prose and
prose asides to make us feel we're not reading
junk, even if there are quite a few brands
namechecked along the way... which makes us
feel like checking out a VW Phaeton - a big,
luxurious Passat lookalike that has a talent
for not turning heads.
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pre Dec 04 reviews are here
