Pattern Recognition 171
| Pattern Recognition | |
| author | William Gibson |
| pages | 368 |
| publisher | Putnam |
| rating | 7 |
| reviewer | Jonathan Hamlow |
| ISBN | 0399149864 |
| summary | Gibson turns his trademark fast-forward speculative lens on the present with a compelling novel of a marketing savant's search for a mysterious artist. Despite its strengths, Gibson's latest novel has serious flaws. |
Pattern Recognition's Cayce Pollard is very much a Gibson protagonist -- a somewhat hapless but sympathetic outsider with a unique sensitivity for a particular class of data. Cayce has what is termed an "allergic" sensitivity to the peculiar cultural ephemera of marketing and branding, and employs the sometimes-debility (she experiences something akin to a panic attack, for example, in the presence of too much Tommy Hilfiger) as a highly paid consultant in the survival-of-the-fittest ecology of the 21st century marketing industry.
She is also a "Footagehead," a member of an internet-based community which obsessively follows and theorizes about a series of enigmatic film clips, apparently components of a larger work, which surface anonymously and without announcement in the various uncharted archives of the internet.
Cayce is led by her current employer (a Millennial marketing savant who's Swiftian name, Hubertus Bigend, is easily the funniest thing in the book) into a search for the creator of the mysterious footage. At the same time, she is plagued by an apparent conspiracy of intimidation, involving the systematic invasion of her privacy and an exploitation of her "brand allergy" gift, and haunted by memories of her father, a security consultant who disappeared in New York in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, and seems almost certainly, but not provably, dead. Her search leads her into the labyrinth depths of post-cold-war politics and economics -- depths it seems she may find increasingly difficult to navigate a path out of.
Comparisons to Gibson's earlier works are easy to find in Pattern Recognition. Its main character, with her savant informational talent, brings earlier characters like Case, Laney, and Silencio to mind. Her wealth-facilitated search for the artist of the Footage is strongly reminiscent of Marley's search for the boxmaker in Count Zero (and in fact Hubertus Bigend seems a more benevolent but still creepy combination of Virek and Cody Harwood). Certainly there seems to be a certain self-conscious recognition of these comparisons in the fact that Gibson gives his female protagonist a name phonetically equivalent to Case. Pattern Recognition is also Gibson's first novel since Neuromancer to follow a single point-of-view throughout the entire book. In this and many other respects it has a simpler and more direct story than any other Gibson novel, though it is driven by the mystery angle and contains no shortage of twists and turns.
I tend to like Gibson books better in multiple readings and I'm curious to see if this effect holds for Pattern Recognition. My first reading impression is that, while a well-written and enjoyable page-turner, this is Gibson's weakest work. The translation of his trademark savant talents, ubiquitous technology, idiosyncratic artists and post-modern robber barons to a recognizable present-day reality is hit-and-miss. Story elements that might pass easily enough in a world of the not-too-distant future ring false in this version of the present, where the comparison to what actually is is constantly invited. Likewise, the introduction of September 11th is forced and suspect. There is something slightly off in Gibson's portrayal here, something revealing that after decades as a Canadian expatriate, Gibson cannot fully align with the American viewpoint any longer. And it is perhaps to soon for this very real human tragedy, whatever its sociopolitical lessons and consequences, to be used as a plot device in a work of speculative fiction. I wasn't fully satisfied by the answer to the mystery of the Footage artist, which seemed contrived, and found the resolution of the story to contain altogether too much deus ex machina.
Gibson's facile prose and knack for telling a fast-paced and compelling story prevent these problems from derailing Pattern Recognition altogether. The book is readable, enjoyable, and not without satisfaction. Gibson is to be admired for risking a chance on a fairly radical direction in his genre and taking on the altogether less malleable present in favor of the endless possibilities of the future. The depths to which he mines his own material speaks, perhaps, to the strain of this effort. Fans will probably accept Pattern Recognition's addition to the Gibson canon, detractors of his latter works will no doubt see it as further evidence of his decline. I hope that it indicates a tentative but promising step into a larger world of narrative possibilities for Gibson, and that this promise will prove itself as our stranger-than-fiction present evolves continuously into the future.
You can purchase Pattern Recognition from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Linux? (Score:1, Informative)
Many feel that ``Sterling's science fiction is characterized by a keen appreciation for social forces and the increasingly intimate realtionship between things seen and unseen", which really stokes me and I think is a key point.
The bundle costs $35.64 (retail bought both books would be $50.90 USD) and can be bought from here [amazon.com] (scroll down a bit).
Hope u enjoy it as much as I have?!
Re:Linux? (Score:1)
footagehead (Score:5, Interesting)
Or really, just do a search for "footagehead" [google.com] at Google and you'll get several reviews and an excerpt or two.
--sex [slashdot.org]
Footage and footageheads...the meme... (Score:2)
He pointed out something I find pretty hard to ignore now that I'm into the novel: Do any of you others out there think that the "footage" plot is memetically borrowed from a certain quasi-filmic endless joke around here? I'm sure you know the one I mean, gentlemen...all your memes are belong to William Gibson now. (One imagines that in the near future, digital tricksters can get up to mischief slightly more sophisticated than Photoshop and Flash animations.)
Re:Footage and footageheads...the meme... (Score:2)
Uh, no. "Future" is just not an accurate word in this case. I'm not entirely sure if the novel is taking place in the future, per se, as the reviewer seems to think it's a "version of the present," but the cover copy says it's an "extrapolation," which sort of suggests otherwise. I'm sorry you can't parse a subtle rhetorical distinction like my hedging my bets, since Gibson is notoriously shy on dates.
You do understand that Neuromancer was written in 1984, right?
Yes, and I also understand that computers did exist in 1984, and I further understand that most technologically-oriented people who have looked at Gibson's work have said that his initial Neuromancer world was fantastical, and not really extrapolative, whereas his later works seem to be zeroing in on actual emerging trends and technology. His increase in factual knowledge from which to extrapolate might have something to do with the fact that Gibson wrote Neuromancer using a typewriter, and hadn't so much as even touched a computer in 1984, but he obviously has done so now.
I haven't yet finished the book, true. I only got it two days ago, and, all things considered, I don't read that fast. 900 wpm is peanuts when you haven't put much time into it.
Re:Footage and footageheads...the meme... (Score:2)
Yes, Gibson's universe was fantastical, but really only through 'Count Zero'. I ascribe the change to his actual introduction to computers. He's said to have written 'Mona Lisa Overdrive' on an Apple II, and to have remarked that he hadn't expected computers to make any noise.
In the world of 'Neuromancer' and CZ, the computer wasn't really literal. It was a talisman, channeling the magic of advancing technology and its effects on the human condition. But if you read MLO carefully, you see that, while computers start out with the same talismanic properties, by the end of the book their magic is largely gone and they have descended into applianceness (to coin a term). Then remember that while writing MLO, Gibson was learning the mundane, everyday usage of a real computer. He formatted disks and saved files and typed on a screen. And as he became familiar with how things really were going, his fictional computers began to lose their luster until, as MLO closed, even in his world they were mere appliances. Exposure to reality stole the fire of his vision.
It reminds me of a distantly remembered sci-fi short story about a boy who was kept isolated from the whole world while learning to play his musical instrument. Someone came along and slipped him recordings of Beethoven and Bach, and he reveled in them and began to emulate them. And then the cultural authorities busted him for being influenced and maimed him, that he may never play the instrument again. Not that I'm suggesting that fate for Gibson, but I see a parallel in his exposure to computer reality and the change in his creative output.
Re:Footage and footageheads...the meme... (Score:2)
Aaugh. It was by Orson Scott Card, and I read it in "Maps In A Mirror," now sadly out of print. Can't remember the title. "Nightingale," perhaps?
I have two of the paperback volumes from MIAM, but don't have the huge hardback edition.
It's really a pity that MIAM is out of print. Some of Card's best work is in there.
Hard to beat Count Zero (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Hard to beat Count Zero (Score:3, Funny)
That's gotta be up there with "A screaming comes across the sky" in terms of outstanding opening lines.
Duane, who must be geeking out because he just read his own preview, saw $1, and thought "Now, what variable goes there?"
Re:Hard to beat Count Zero (Score:4, Interesting)
"A lovely cerulean blue" (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hard to beat Count Zero (Score:3, Insightful)
"The sky was the color of a television tuned to a dead channel."
The funny thing about this line is that it meant "TV snow", which is becoming very rare now that most tuners blank out the picture to a neon blue, so now most readers probably think the sky was unnaturally blue and blank.
This ranks up there with kids not knowing what "sounding like a broken record" means or the joke I ran across the other day on the rec.humor.funny "best of" lists where a stupid parent wants to buy her son a blank CD at the record store because she doesn't know what kind of music he likes. Boy, was she stupid. Imagine, a recordable CD
Gibson, at his best, is a poet and his prose relies on free association of words, images, and technology. When we're lucky, there is a story in there, too. As a futurist, he gets the "feel" right quite often, but I don't know if he even tries to really research the science and technology behind what he writes.
Re:Hard to beat Count Zero (Score:1)
Er
It's not hard to understand, either. Which one makes more sense to you? "The sky was the colour of snowing" or "The sky was the colour of something really astonishingly blue"?
Re:Hard to beat Count Zero (Score:1)
Re:Hard to beat Count Zero (Score:2)
It was Tokyo. In the post-industrial future. I suspect that the sky would be a mixture of smog, "light pollution," and cloud cover.
Have you ever been to Tokyo? In 1984, when the book was written, it was immediately obvious that he was talking about an oppressive, unfocused grayness.
Re:Hard to beat Count Zero (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason that Gibson is good has nothing to do with his hard hitting plotlines. It is because he has a fantastic understanding of what is interesting. I'm a third of the way into Pattern Recognition, and I think it's his best book yet.
He's a very different person since he wrote about Molly. Watch "No Maps for These Territories." Please, please watch it.
Of course you do (Score:2)
But then I kept reading.
Re:Of course you do (Score:1)
Re:Hard to beat Count Zero (Score:5, Insightful)
But, one thing that annoys me with Gibson is that his writing style has gotten 'easier' to read since Neuromancer. It took me several times through Neuromancer to understand everything that is going on in the book in the grand sense of things thanks to unique verbal constructions and new terminology that only makes sense on multiple readings, and even then, there's probably small details that I'd catch on the next reading. I even remember having to reread some paragraphs just to make sure I understood what I could, that's how complex his language was then. Count Zero wasn't quite as deep with the text, though it did warrent a couple of rereads to catch all the details, and some of the complex verbage was still there. But Mona Lisa Overdrive, while requiring a few rereads to make sure you got all the details, lacked the deep structure in the writing, making it very easy (maybe too easy?) to read, and why some think this was his weakest work.
What I find interesting from this review and one elsewhere (Salon? Wired?) is that the plot sounds like a mirror of that in Count Zero with the art dealer looking for the maker of the shadow boxes. IMO, that part of the plot in CZ got the weakest treatment, despite being the darkest part of the entire story, and it did deserve another relook, maybe that's what happened here with Pattern Recognition.
Re:Hard to beat Count Zero (Score:2)
I had much the same problem. I'm sot sure why, but one solution to comprehending Gibson [everything2.com]'s rather dense, James Joyce [everything2.com]ish prose is to suck up the book in audio format. There happens to be an excellent audiobook available [booksontape.com] for Neuromancer [everything2.com]. It's read by the author. It features amazing, but subtle background music by U2 [everything2.com] (sans Bono [everything2.com], thank the Maker), amongst others. It's slightly abridged, yet not butchered.
It's also quite interesting to hear Gibson do a Jamaican accent, starting from his Western Canada surfer drawl. Definitely worth a day in court.
His books *are* dwindling in quality.. (Score:3, Funny)
Gibson on Prozac (Score:2, Interesting)
I hope... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I hope... (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, neither Gibson nor Sterling have had their best works lately. IMO, they both shone their brightest in The Difference Engine -- another long book, but one that combined the best of both Gibson and Sterling. Interestingly enough, the storyline is set in the past, not the future, with subtle changes that still make it a futurist-type book.
Re:I hope... (Score:3, Interesting)
Everyone also seems to hate The Difference Engine, which I don't quite understand either. I guess I have some personal attachment to it because I'm a paleontology student, but it did seem like a very good book to me. Yes, things went on...and on...and on. Yes, the language was difficult. But when was Gibson EVER easy to read? Yes, he makes you work for everything you get out of his books. But is that really so bad?
As for the difference between Gibson and Stephenson, Gibson writes collages and Stephenson writes comic books. Snow Crash was silly. It was a fun read, yes, but it was silly and impossible to take seriously. The plot was contrived, the atmosphere was so chaotic and often contradicted itself. Cryptonomicon went on and on, and The Diamond Age felt like reading The Difference Engine...but without anything interesting going on at all. He's funny, sure, but I find that Gibson's more subtle humor is far more satisfying.
That said, I liked Pattern Recognition. A lot. It's different from Neuromancer and Count Zero and Virtual Light, but that doesn't mean it sucks.
Re:I hope... (Score:2, Interesting)
I think they come from very different schools of writing. Gibson believes in complex language and leaving lots of things unsaid, whereas Stephenson makes it very clear what's happening and what his characters are feeling.
Personally I think the Vonnegut style is more difficult to write in a "serious novel" (as opposed to thriller novels). I understand that lots of people like obfuscated stories, but that doesn't mean they're better (or worse), and calling Stephenson's novels comic books is rather condescending.
Crytonomicon did ramble on a bit, but it was interesting the whole way through. I haven't read Pattern Recognition, but I've read the rest of Gibson's books. I loved Neuromancer when I read it in high school, but as I got older and read the rest of his stuff I got annoyed at most of his style. I really miss the technical accuracy of Stephenson, Gibson leaves so much unsaid it seems like he knows the story but isn't telling us, and his endings always have some big event that's supposed to wrap things up but seems completely unrelated to the rest of the story and leaves you thinking "...well, ok. I guess that's the end."
You could obviously say that I'm too dumb to understand his style, and that's certainly possible, although I don't consider myself that dense. I read lots of books by lots of authors. I read all his books because I really wanted to like him, but it was so hard to. Then I read Stephenson and thought, "this is what I was looking for." Snow Crash was purposefully over the top ("Hiro Protagaonist"? Come on), but just because a novel has comedy in it doesn't mean it can't be taken seriously. Is Catch-22 just a silly comic novel? Breakfast of Champions? Huckleberry Finn?
I know I'm ranting, but I had a writing teacher in college who thought Pynchon-style stories were the ultimate in writing. I find that opinion quite arrogant. You can tell by my handle I'm a Vonnegut fan.
Re:I hope... (Score:2)
And you're complaining about Gibson having bad endings? Gibson endings are somewhat cryptic...something big and groundbreaking has happened...a paradigm shift, you could say. But the full effect of that shift simply hasn't been realized yet. But what's important is the idea that no matter how similar everything looks, everything has changed. Though cryptic, there IS an ending. Stephenson writes and writes and writes and then realizes he needs to end the story and wraps the whole plot up in about 10-20 pages leaves some loose ends out accidentally and says "and they lived happily ever after." I don't see that you have any room to complain here.
The difference isn't about language or how much the writer tells you...it's the writer's purpose for writing in the first place. Yes, Stephenson knows more about how thngs work. Big deal. If I intend to learn about cryptography, I'll read a cryptography text. Stephenson tries to write a novel for enjoyment and then crams in some satire and technology, but in the end, it's a story for fun. Gibson's writing is instead to make you think about ideas.
Also, as far as Vonnegut, Heller, etc. go, they wrote serious books. Catch-22 is a serious book. Player Piano, Cat's Cradle, Breakfast of Champions, Slaughterhouse-5....all serious books. Yes, they used humor to get points across, but they were SERIOUS books. Nothing I've read about by Stephenson is serious. It's humor for humor's sake, rather than for the sake of getting a point across.
I'm sure you disagree, but that's my take on it. For the record, I enjoyed Snow Crash a lot (I can't say the same for Diamond Age or Cryptonomicon) but I just don't think it's on the same level as Neuromancer or Count Zero. But that's just my opinion. I could always be wrong.
Re:I hope... (Score:2)
Actually, the ending isn't a random event. The core idea in ATP was that at certain moments everything changes (a central tenent of most Gibson stuff, I'd say). The fax machine was a nanotech device, but it was being used for very basic things. Rei (the AI "girl") changes that drastically and breaks down any barrier between computer code and the real world. The effects in the future aren't shown, but that's for you, the reader, to figure out yourself.
That's my view. I could always be wrong though...
But yes, I can definitely understand your point of view. I don't think Stephenson is a "bad" writer...I just think the typical slashdot perspective that he's part of the Holy Trinity (The Stephenson, the Mitnick, and the Holy Torvald) is a little...ummm...overboard, to say the least.
Read *All Tommorow's Parties* (Score:2)
Re:I hope... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I hope... (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem with Idoru is that it was the middle book of a trilogy, but nobody knew it was a trilogy until All Tomorrow's Parties arrived, when Gibson tied Idoru back to Virtual Light. Gibson's problem is that he doesn't know how to write a cliffhanger. Idoru ended on its own terms, wrapped up well enough to suggest no sequel was forthcoming, but not well enough to give the reader a satisfactory resolution. As a result, many fans skipped ATP, figuring that Gibson's fading relevance finally went out-of-scale low. It's a shame. ATP's ending is as deus ex left field as Mona Lisa Overdrive's, (and Pattern Recognition's, apparently), but far more satisfying than Idoru's.
Re:I hope... (Score:2)
Just finished it... (Score:3, Interesting)
Pros
- Main character is quirky and engaging
- Side characters are unusually unpredictable, but very human
- Last third of the book really moves
Cons- The first 2/3rds of the book is pretty slow
- By putting the book in the current/very near future Gibson has enough technical things that are just a little off to annoy me
- It seemed very disjointed
SummaryI'd own this in trade paperback, and in hardcover I would borrow it from the library
Re:Just finished it... (Score:1)
I also wonder how long before "footage" starts showing up.
The book is already dated (Score:4, Interesting)
Sony was in Neuromancer. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sony was in Neuromancer. (Score:1)
His new book seems saturated with brand name dropping. I couldn't stand it. He's trying to create an atmosphere with niche products (read iCube). And in a few years it is just going to look silly.
Neuromancer has really held up well considering it was written in the early '80s.
Re:Sony was in Neuromancer. (Score:2)
Then, perhaps you missed part of the book's central
conceit. Cayce Pollard's life essentially revolved
around brand names and their applications.
He's trying to create an atmosphere with niche products (read iCube). And in a few years it is just going to look silly.
I don't follow your logic there, how does the use
of "niche products" predict how silly the book
will look in time? This is conjecture on your part
at best. Hell, there's a lot of things he mentions
in the book that go unbranded that are still very
useful to the small group of people that know
about them. (The Gyrotonic machine she uses in the
beginning, for instance, has worked wonders on
my ex)
Remember, just because a product is a "niche"
product, doesn't mean it lacks impact. The cube,
as do most Apple products has a bit of a devout
following, much like the footageheads themselves.
If anything, Gibson's using those "niche products"
to mirror some of the trends in the characters in
the book.
Re:Sony was in Neuromancer. (Score:2)
Re:Sony was in Neuromancer. (Score:2)
had a problem with, just certain ones that she found
derivative or just plain wrong. Exapmles of this
are seen in her revulsion to Tommy Hilfiger, (One I
share, and for much the same reasons she cited in
the narrative) and the original Michelin Man, not
the "more neutered" newer version.
She had no problems with using her friend's cube or
Boone's Tibook either, it seemed.
No (Score:2)
She reacted more to some brands then others, (including the 'new' Michelin man, not just the old one) but all brands bothered her.
Re:No (Score:2)
She reacted more to some brands then others, (including the 'new' Michelin man, not just the old one) but all brands bothered her.
Beg to differ here, but re-read that first chapter
when she hits Tokyo. It's not so much the brand,
but the contextualization of the brand. "Whole
seas of Burberry have no effect on her, nor
Mont Blanc Nor even Gucci"
Re:The book is already dated (Score:1)
Gibson and technology (Score:5, Informative)
Now, there's nothing *wrong* with this. Lots of people who write westerns have never touched a horse, and cheap paperback romances don't bear much resemblance to real life.
It does, however, make Gibson less interesting to me as a real-life computer geek -- just as having a even hints of a real social life makes those paperback romances uninteresting.
Re:Gibson and technology (Score:5, Informative)
He didn't use a computer back in the mid 80s when he wrote Neuromancer, but then not many people did. He now uses them as much as your average joe, though he is still no technophile. The idea that Mr Cyberpunk doesn't use a computer is so man-bites-dog, however, that it still gets reported as fact.
Re:Gibson and technology (Score:2)
It's the first part of this that I care about, not the second -- it doesn't surprise me that he's not actually a Luddite. But still:
To the "average joe" computer user, technology is basically magic, and that's the point of view Gibson is clearly writing from.
No. Re:Gibson and technology (Score:2)
Is he a UNIX head? No. Does he spend his spare time overclocking hardware? I don't think so. But he reads and surfs a hell of a lot, and carries around a wireless laptop.
Re:Gibson and technology (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't believe me? Check out his site, with his rather interesting blog here [williamgibsonbooks.com]
Paperback romances (Score:1, Funny)
(takes a sip of booze and continues to dictate as he writes.)
"Just the sight of those breasts made Reginald's penis very hard. His penis was of considerable size, and now beads of sweat ran slowly down his penis, making it glisten like a strong swimmer fresh from out of the pool. It was a fantastic penis that seemed as strong as a horse's leg, yet as delecate as a flower wrapped in silk. What a grand, grand penis! Diana's nipples..."
(stops there.)
Uh, let's see! "Diana's nipples..." OH, WRITER'S BLOCK! WRITER'S BLOCK! Hm! CRAP! I'm stuck! (to Mr. Hat, his handpuppet.) Oh, well! Maybe that's enough writing for tonight, Mr. Hat!
Re:Gibson and technology (Score:1)
Hey, he must use a computer because he has a blog [williamgibsonbooks.com] now.
Re:Gibson and technology (Score:1)
Re:Gibson and technology (Score:2)
Re:Gibson and technology (Score:2)
Re:Gibson and technology (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Gibson and technology (Score:1)
I actually saw him read last week, and he said that is one of the funniest things he hears about himself--that he doesn't use a computer. Like someone else noted, he didn't for Neuromancer, but hardly anyone else wrote on computers, either. And yes, he does use email; he just zealously guards his email address.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to reading the book.
Re:Gibson and technology (Score:1)
Re:Gibson and technology (Score:2)
Oh, come on. He uses a computer, he has a blog [williamgibsonbooks.com].
He hadn't used a computer at the time he wrote Neuromancer, but that was long ago.
present tense (Score:4, Interesting)
The result is that I enjoyed the book, but was very aware of Gibson's limitations. I found it difficult to get lost in the world that he, the writer, creates. His ability to create atmosphere is very good, and that is definitely something I enjoyed.
You did know (Score:2)
Re:You did know (Score:2)
I got my ARC off of ebay in November for 25 bucks.
But I would have sold it for 100's. Well, probably not.
Puto
Related Goodies (Score:4, Informative)
William Gibson home page. [williamgibsonbooks.com]
A bot modeled on Gibson's take on AI. [iniaes.org]
The Aleph [antonraubenweiss.com] - all things Gibson.
Re:Related Goodies (Score:2)
What the hell is a Califonian telephone?
Cayce = Case (Score:1)
Re:Cayce = Case (Score:2)
Re:Cayce = Case (Score:1)
That wasn't a prediction it is wishful thinking. Obviously Cayce tapped into the collective unconcious of society in the far future year of 2003!
Gibson's Site & Blog (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com [williamgibsonbooks.com]
I liked his entry about the Columbia (2/1/2003). I had one of the Space Taxi models he describes.
Stefan
How dare you write such a tantalizing review! (Score:5, Funny)
Is there some way this book could be shoehorned into a self-becoming philsophical angle? Because then I could justify reading it for a paper.
Otherwise I have to wait 3 months.
Yeah (Score:2)
Steven King's Wang. (Score:2)
Darryl Musashi (Score:1, Interesting)
That said, for some reason he's reused one of the character names - Darryl Musashi, which you will recognize from the X-Files episode he wrote entitled "First Person Shooter" (the guy who got his hands chopped off and then his head by the "goddess").
Gibson long forgotten by me (Score:4, Interesting)
The science was unimpressive and, worse, uninteresting. The scrappy, plucky, aww-shucks main characters weren't remotely realistic or resonant, and the stock, two-dimensional villains almost as embarassing as his overreliance on deus ex machina.
The last few books of his that I would read I would approach as if they were bad scifi movies, and I would wait for the villain to vanish in 'death', and then I would wait and call to the page when he would 'mysteriously' return. Then I just gave up.
I have limited time in this world to read truly excellent work. Hell, there's better trash sci-fi being put out in comics these days if that's what floats your boat.
Neuromancer will always rank as something extremely special to me, but it was obviously time to move on from Gibson's lowered expectations a long time ago. Maybe if I hear that he's gone back to writing books instead of crappy screenplays (or horrificly cheezy and outdated X-Files episodes) I'll give him another shot. In the mean time, Im giving a pass on Pattern Recognition.
Candidate for Slashdot editor (Score:1)
Too bad she's not real, nothing's going to save
Discombombulating review (Score:4, Funny)
The translation of his trademark savant talents, ubiquitous technology, idiosyncratic artists and post-modern robber barons to a recognizable present-day reality is hit-and-miss. OMG!!!!
Suddenly I much more sympathetic towards the non-geeks writhing in pain when they hear something like "The remote X11 ssh-tunnels through the firewall and gets NATed to a xwin32 client"
DAMMIT!!! Just tell me if I should read the book or not!
Re:Discombombulating review (Score:1)
Probably not.
Wow (Score:2)
I hated Neuromancer. (Score:2)
If Neuromancer gave us one good thing, it was Neal Stephenson's surprisingly well-crafted response, Snow Crash.
Re:I hated Neuromancer. (Score:1)
Re:I hated Neuromancer. You should re-read it. (Score:2)
When was the last time you read good sci fi tech book that had some real tech, and was interesting?
I will give you an example: "Nick Burns had spent the entire day running cat-5 through his new clients office. He was suprised to find some left over vampire taps from a previous network installation. Pocketing his Leatherman(the one with the expansion kit)he strolled over to the server room while pondering the schema of an LDAP configuration he had read on a /. thread. I had been an interesting day to the say the least for the young network engineer."
I get all the tech I need at work and at play. I dont need to be reading and thinking "FOOL use the crossover cable, THATS WHY IT WONT UPLINK TO THE SWITCH" I like Snow Crash, good book. I like Stephenson, he is a good read. But hardly a wordsmith. And he appeals to us techies cause he throws in some of our geekspeak.
Pot meet kettle?
"Gibson's prose is pretentious and obfuscatory, seemingly crafted to sound "gritty" but more likely written so as to hide the fact that he doesn't know what he's talking about." I am not attacking here but a writer writes like his favorite authors. You see their influnces. You can see Gibson is extremely well read and has a command on language that few do.
I can suggest a really good book for you. Walter Jon Williams. HardWired. Nueromancer like, but great characters and war story.
Puto
I just finished the book this morning (Score:4, Informative)
The first 50 pages or so, when we get an introduction to Cayce and her world seem sort of devoid of life. I ended up setting down the book for a while, reading only a few pages at a time. Once the main plot thread really got going, however I was sucked instantly in.
In fact, what I found most lacking in the beginning, the texture that's so prevalent and so beautifully described in a lot of Gibson books really came out in full force, in the description of Japan and Russia. The characters also started to come out in a lot more depth, once we got to meet Darrin, Voytek and his sister, Parka boy, The whole Kieko project (which, despite my earlier post) Is truly the funniest part of the book.
One thing that was really kind of Jarring about the book was it's whole 'post-sept.11th' feel. Of course, we are still technically post-sept-11th. But now it seems we've moved on to a sort of 'insane war mongering' mode. Or at least our government has. The war on Iraq doesn't really feel connected to the attack just a year and a half ago. The whole culture changed on September 11th, but it's mostly back to the way it was. And PR book is set in that temporary culture.
(Gibson actually mentioned that on his blog, that the book was set last year, not this year)
Another thing that bothered me was the sort of technical errors in the book. Not minor mistakes, but rather an apparent misunderstanding of cryptography. A misunderstanding that forms a central pillar of the plot. If not the central pillar. And not only that, no one ever thinks to encrypt their email, even though they suspect people may be listening in.
And yeah, the ending was positively Stephensonian. IE, it sucked. We get to hear the whole story, but everything just works out much to well. I don't want to give anything away for those who haven't read it though, so I won't bitch to much, in particular. Not here. There's a nice section for spolier-filled [williamgibsonboard.com] discussion on Gibson's site, which I will now have to check out, having finished the book.
No! (Score:2)
Re:No! (Score:1)
Re:No! (Score:2)
That's not fair, but the average Katz-like sentence length does tend to indicate a sixth day violation.
Derivative work? (Score:2)
Re:Derivative work? (Score:2)
Google seems to be my friend:
http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/ebook297.htm
Wonder how similar these stories/themes are?
Re:Derivative work? (Score:1)
Present-Day Cyberpunk (Score:2, Funny)
I remember a couple of years ago a friend and I were discussing all the various "pessimistic sci-fi" fantasies that were coming true: things like Palladium, TIA (with its interesting choice of emblems), biometric identification in airports, and so forth. He joked that in a few more years, we'd be living inside a cyberpunk novel.
And now, what do you know, William Gibson writing books set in the present day.
Joking aside, I'm looking forward to reading this, although I'm not sure it will be very good. I'm not sure if Gibson has enough computer knowledge to portray the real "cyberspace" convincingly; and I wonder if constraining himself to reality will dampen the dark, surreal imagery that, in my opinion, is the strongest point of his books.
I'm still mixed over this one. (Score:2, Interesting)
The only thing about this latest offering is that it seems to be moving in a trend away from sci-fi and they 'cyberpunk' related themes that really hooked me on Gibson's earlier writings (i.e. Neuromancer etc. etc.). I think that if instead of reading those more hard edge technology based stories I had read the later books first (Pattern Recognition/All tomorrow's parties) I'm not sure if I would have lumped him into the same category and not sure if I would have been anticipating his new releases as much as I usually do.
Why does everyone expect a Neuromancer redux? (Score:3, Interesting)
Besides Gibson tends to cover the same ground in his novels perhaps a little too much as it is. Personally I am happy to see him stretch a little, and applaud him for trying even if it isn't entirely successful. If you are going to critisize Pattern Recognition on its merits as a novel unconnected to the Sprawl trilogy, fine. But please don't bitch because it isn't Neuromancer v2.0!
Re:Why does everyone expect a Neuromancer redux? (Score:2)
Always liked Gibson's work. (Score:1)
Anger and Scorn in Early GIbson (Score:2, Interesting)
sparse pages -- a novelette, really (Score:1)
I guess that's pattern recogition...
Lots of throwaway lines. The UK as mirror world metaphor only on the surface... natch.
Geeks consistently get Gibson wrong... (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's some rebuttal to some of those criticisms:
The usage of Sept. 11th makes perfect, absolute sense. I'd like to understand why a poster above refers to the book as speculative fiction. Although marketed as such there is nary a piece of technology nor a futuristic setting to suggest that P.R. is even a work of science fiction, despite being marketed as such by the publisher. If you've worked in filmmaking or advertising on a Transoceanic basis in the past year, this book reads more believable than anything out there.
I think it's obvious that Gibson has taken the central themes in all of his books and reformed them into this and set it in the present day because there's no longer a need to push it forward. The perception of time is a constant underlying theme in Gibson's work, and this one deals with the immediate and what's in fashion because it dominates our day to day living. September 11th is immediate and cannot be ignored, and ultimately the book is about any human search, no matter the time or place, for meaning in a sea of information that is incomprehensible due to its complexity. P.R. does not offer any easy answers or political commentary on Sept. 11th, only a raw sort of need to understand and contextualize something that horrific into a person's life.
That fits into the broader idea of the book, the old Gibson standby of someone trying to track down an artist. The footageheads who trawl the web and dissect and bisect the pieces of anonymous footage are really doing what humans have always done in culture; once again, searching for meaning where there is none.
If anyone can point me to a book which captures the sensation of what it's like to be part of an online community or to communicate with friends daily, globally and immediately; please offer suggestions. That's what P.R. nails.
Cayce?? (Score:2)
Burning Chrome (Score:2, Interesting)
iopha
Gibson book signing (Score:3, Informative)
Gibson will be signing books at the Union Square Barnes and Noble in New York City on Thursday (February 13th) at 7pm.
</psa>
Hubertus Bigend / Hubert Shrump (Score:2)
Re:Gee, one can only hope... (Score:1)
I read that book when I was eleven, and was able to follow it just fine.
My theory about brontosaurs by Anne Elk (Score:1)
And don't get him started on H.P. Lovecraft! PURE DREK!
In my experience, it seems that the women I know have a particularly hard time with works like that. My theory is that it's all the detailed descriptions of things to the last minutae. The same people usually don't like Doc Smith because of his purple prose. Most of the men seem to fare better, possibly because they are more visually oriented. You have a lot of interminal words describing something, but it's directly translatable into concrete imagery.
Re:Linux? (Score:2)