Gibson finds the cutting edge of now

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	• Spook Country William Gibson G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 2007 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 146 reviews view larger image
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Gibson finds the cutting edge of now

Gibson, the father of cyberpunk, now has his feet firmly planted on the cutting edge of the present, where artists work in virtual reality, drug addicts crave Ativan and iPods are old hat.

Hollis Henry, former punk rocker turned journalist, has been recruited by a new, as yet nonexistent and suspiciously secretive, magazine, "Node," to write an inaugural piece on what artists are doing with GPS and the Internet. As Hollis views virtual installations of dead celebrities in L.A. the irony of the military-artistic complex is obvious but not cozy, at least not yet.

But when the artist introduces her to his technical producer, an agoraphobic paranoid who maps his warehouse home in GPS squares and refuses to sleep in the same square twice, Hollis gets a glimpse of something bigger.

Meanwhile, in New York, a thuggish spook named Brown tracks Tito, a 22-year-old Russian-speaking Cuban-Chinese who passes mysterious iPods to a mysterious, taciturn old man. Tito assumes the old man cannot be as poor and insignificant as he looks if he is doing business with Tito's powerful crime-family uncles.

And Milgrim, Brown's Russian-speaking captive, assumes Brown is a government spook. Addicted to anti-anxiety drugs, Milgrim discovers a new wellspring of curiosity in himself when his favored Ativan is replaced by a Japanese generic.

So what's it all about? Well, there's a mysterious cargo container somewhere on a ship, intermittently traceable through GPS. Belgian mogul Hubertus Bigend (fans will remember him from "Pattern Recognition"), the backer behind "Node", would like Hollis to help him home in on it.

Referencing spy-thriller technology and political uglies while keeping the book's feel a step into the future, Gibson brings the threads of his plot together in a satisfying conclusion. Sharp, colorful writing, intriguing characters and a page-turning, well-organized plot make this a thoroughly enjoyable and thought-provoking read.

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Watch this space

I'm half-way through Spook Country and can't figure out why some people are unhappy. It's not Sci Fi, it's social commentary. I've read all his books, he's evolved past SciFi. Nothing is in the least bit futuristic here, but a reminder of where we are that says a lot about a dangerous future that maybe we can avert. There's a line that summarizes his take: "intelligence is advertising turned inside out", or something like that. That's the theme of the novel. I don't care how perfect the plot and ending are, it's the perfect little snapshots of what we have become that matter. And the fact he reuses his characters and previous techniques is OK too, there's only so many facets to exploit, and then some repetitiveness is unavoidable, just like his characters expect people to go on their favorite "rants". The crafted sentences don't strike me as self-serving at all, I like his style. Maybe when I finish I will be angry that he failed to ALSO make it a thrilling narrative, but I'm such a happy camper so far I doubt it.

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Just ok

Its been four a year wait since William Gibson's last read and this is the best he can do??
Its ok for a read but my expectations were higher having waited this length of time. It is a speculative fiction work reminding me of some of Richard Morgans work. I guess the themes of Neuromancer can be reworked only so many times and anyone expecting similar will be dissapointed, I was. Were to now for Mr Gibson?
Neuromancer managed to restore my faith in SF. I was kind of hoping for something as revolutionary as the books of this period in Gibsons work.
What with the barrage of mediocre, at best, work that passes as SF it looks as though we will have to find someone else to lead the way.

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Unwinds by the end...

The misleading blurb at the back of the book intimates that someone is using iPods to spread something viral across New York. This is not the storyline at all. This is a story of spooks chasing the mysterious contents of a shipping container. iPods are incidental, yet they merit two mentions on the back of the book.

Spook Country is a story designed to lead us into the world of industry-spooks, outsourced-spooks and ex-spooks. Knowledge is power and therefore these people run our world. This is what fascinated and apparently riled Gibson, who set this piece post 9/11 and analyses its effect on the spook industry, a topic hinted at in Pattern Recognition but delved into right here.

Unlike most of his books, this one never leaves the American continent. So it lacks a certain colour. Gibson tried to make up for this by including Hollis; a female of ex-punk-rock fame, writing an art story that turns out to be a chase into the Spook-world for a mysterious shipping container that never docks. Not really interested in politics, or spooks, she's driven by a lack of funds.

We're also brought into the world of Tito, imported from Cuba along with his extended family - all guerilla-trained as spooks from birth - he never knows where he's being sent or why, though he's a natural at what he does.

The final thread from which the story twists and turns is Milgrim the valium-addict and Russian translator. Kidnapped to do the bidding of an outsourced-spook, he is confused, lost and has no control.

It was lovely seeing Vancouver - Gibson's home town - through his eyes, the Cuban family of spooks was very intriguing and definitely worth a storyline, it was also interesting to see Hollis' fame used as a doorway into this spook-world.

But i guess i didn't expect quite such a political ending. The story lacks colour, partly due to lack of travels, but also due to the lack of driving characters. In order to keep the mystery, the reader is kept in the dark, as are the three protagonists. Not a wildly successful experiment. It seems like Gibson wants to write a political thriller but is constrained by the format he predetermined when he originally conceived of Hubertus Bigend and this contemporary series which began more successfully with Pattern Recognition.

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reviews: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, page 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

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