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Pattern Recognition

Berkley

List price: $7.99
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Average customer rating: 3.5 stars

Atmospheric

I was impressed with the atmosphere William Gibson created with this book, and I love the heroine. It's not science fiction, exactly, but the atmosphere feels alien, because of the heroine's place in it. Gibson created a similar atmosphere in Spook Country, but I like this much better.

Almost ... but not quite

If William Gibson had done nothing else after writing "Neuromancer" he would still be recognized as one of the most original voices in science fiction for a work that is rightfully considered a classic in the field. Of course, after you've written a classic and invented cyberspace, where can you go?

The question of "Where can you go?" is a recurring theme in Gibson's work as most of his stories involve an apparently permanent underclass composed of marginally desperate people in an oppressive dystopia. As I read more of his work I kept waiting for his characters to develop into more than two-dimensional vehicles for whatever the plot du jour was. I finally gave up with "The Difference Engine" (co-written with Bruce Sterling); a novel so turgid I couldn't finish it.

So when I saw a copy of "Pattern Recognition" in the cutout bin at the local bookstore I decided to take a chance.

As I started reading I found myself pleasantly surprised. The protagonist, Cayce Pollard, is fleshed out to approximate a real person and Gibson draws you into her world. As the novel progresses you start to empathize with Cayce and identify with her thoughts and emotions. The story unfolds through her eyes.

Here also is the prose and literary inventions that are Gibson's hallmark. Unfortunatly, there are also a number of references to real-wrold products that have the effect of instantly dating and detracting from the flow of the story.

The novel develops characters and builds tension nicely and you are looking forward to the destination that Gibson is leading you to until about three-quarters of the way through. Then the bottom drops out of the experience and Gibson ties up the story threads in a slap-dash bang-bang manner that is completely different in tone than the preceding pages. The overriding impression is that the author spent time and effort carefully crafting a story and then got a call from the publisher saying that they needed the book Right Now. The ending takes the reader out of the story. After the build-up in the early and middle parts of the book the ending is very disappointing. Nothing about it feels plausible or even connected to the earlier story.

this is that viral art project

When I read this book, I was flying an airplane to visit a community of mystics in the mountains.

Cayce, the hero, attempts to unwravel an online viral art project. It has always been her obsession to want to identify the artist responsible for the various flashes of video feed regularly released, mysteriously without coherent structure, on the internet.

She comes face to face with the reality of what is happening as she is told that it has always been considered naive to differentiate between Russian government and Russian mafia: the culprit is an innocent Russian mob boss's daughter.

the answers: name then address

:)

SciFi Not

After reading several works by Gibson, I have to admit being slightly puzzled at what he is writing.

SciFi is not horror, and not fantasy.

SciFi is supposed to be about "what if" and "science." It also contains Adventure, and technology. It contains history, sociology, politics, economics and logic.

Gibson sometimes produces something close to science fiction and close to adventure.

But not always and not this time.
PeteDSL

Ok, but not great

Books general attitude regarding the web feels dated, the ending is not great... A love story is started up then just let flop. We start getting into things that go no where. Seems like WG is trying to hard to be hip and all techie (note his shoes on the back cover) rather than it feeling natural. Two stars are reserved for the really bad novels, where P.R. is just not good but not bad.