Excellent book; very good narrator on audio CD version.

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	• Pattern Recognition William Gibson Berkley Trade, 2004 - 368 pages average customer review:based on 271 reviews view larger image
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Excellent book; very good narrator on audio CD version.

Exciting plot with plenty of twists. Sort of a techno mystery, with plenty of paranoia. Well developed characters. It is unusual to find a science fiction novel with a female character who is admirable and yet believable and sympathetic. The book is thought provoking, but the writing is not heavy handed. To fully appreciate the early parts of the novel, it helps to have a little background in advertising or retail and/or fashion, but not essential. Many science fiction fans are blissfully oblivious to fashion. :)

Shelly Frasier does a good job of narrating the audio CD version, with vocal nuances that reflect the subtle nuances of the story.

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Pertinent Commentary

I can well understand why those who cut their teeth reading Gibson's _Neuromancer_, _Count Zero_, _Mona Lisa Overdrive_, etc., would find _Pattern Recognition_ very disappointing. However, not being a die-hard sci-fi fan, and not having been familiar with Gibson before I read this book, I found his satiric commentary on today's consumerism refreshingly erudite; I liked the way he couched his terms. Now, having read the aforementioned books (and finding that after the first one, all the "cutting-edge" stuff got a bit old), I think that although they are fun, "visionary" reads, _Pattern Recognition_ holds a stronger, more important message. No, it is not "cutting edge" in terms of sci-fi, even Gibson's sci-fi, but I admire Gibson's guts to embed social commentary within this genre so accurately and well, making this book more au curant in terms of its particular techno-gyrations.

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I Sort of Wanted a Pattern I Didn't Recognize

If "Pattern Recognition" was from any author other than William Gibson, I would give it four stars. Though it won't be on any English lit required reading list fifty years from now it is the quintessential "good read" for the thinking man: It is hip. It is literate. It is fast-paced but consistently thoughtful. But I just think Gibson could do better.

Gibson's heorine is Cayce Pollard, "cool hunter" extraordinaire. She garners a mildly enviable living as a marketing and fashion consultant by wandering the streets of the modern Megalopoli, watching the next generation of modern Western/Asian civilization, and making uncannilly accurate predictions about the next trends in fashion, music, whatever. She also has the unique ability to size up in one ten-second sitting a new marketing logo, intuiting whether it will succeed or not.

Here enters Hubertus Bigend, hyperwealthy London marketing magnate and some time signer of Cayce Pollard's pay checks. Bigend launches Cayce into Gibson's plot by handing her a bottomless corporate credit card and sending her on a literally global hunt for the mysterious genius constructing "The Footage", a series of motion picture frames appearing at unpredicatble times and locations on the internet. "The Footage" may or may not be adding up to a traditional motion picture. It may or may not have some artistic meaning. It may or may not be the creation of a conventional human intelligence. But it has accumulated a cult following of "footage heads" who are absolutely enthralled with the images they see, who spend hours on their .alt newsgroup letting fly with rumors and speculations on its origin and meaning. Cayce Pollard, unbeknownst to Bigend, is already one of the most smitten and loyal footage heads in the world.

And this is where I have to say I have seen this before, delivered by Gibson himself. In Gibson's "Count Zero", Paris art dealer Marly Krushkova plays Cayce Pollard and Euro tycoon Herr Josef Virek plays Bigend, sending Marly/Cayce on a mission to find the mysterious creator of new "boxes", "poems frozen on the boundaries of human experience." Maybe Gibson, is sort of "quoting" himself in "Pattern Recognition", retrofitting his "Count Zero" plot to the turn of the twenty first century. But, I don't know, I guess I just expected to see more of the hallmark creativity that I read Gibson for in the first place.

As in "Count Zero", it turns out that others are also looking for, and attempting to protect, the mysterious artist, others with mysterious agendas and straightforward firearms. Armed with only her credit card and her laptop, Cayce will dodge bullets and bad guys in London, Tokyo, and eastern Europe, in her search for her artist, being helped along the way by e-mails from footage heads the world over.

In Gibson's science fiction, the detail of his imagination makes him the master of creating and evoking unseen worlds. Readers can almost feel the grit beneath their feet on the cracked sidewalks of Gibson's cyberpunk dystopias. But this attention to detail, when turned to contemporary times and places that we all have some middling knowledge of, tends to merely get in the way of the plot of "Pattern Recognition." "Yes, I already know this," I found myself saying several times, or occasionally, "No. This city just isn't *that* weird. Now get on with the story."

But despite all my complaints here, it is a very readable novel, with a rare combination of plenty of action, poignancy, and plenty of "stop and think" moments on the power of media, marketing, the internet, and even international airlines, to redefine our ideas of what constitutes the normal and the desirable in life.

But "Pattern Recognition" still just doesn't clear the bar of imagination that Gibson himself has steadily raised over the past two decades. If you aren't familiar with Gibson, this book might be the place to start. It is a good read, and his other works will be only better. But, if you're looking for the imagination you found in "Neuromancer" or even "Count Zero", be prepared for a bit of a come down.

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

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