The Future is Now and Gibson is still there!

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	• Spook Country William Gibson Putnam Adult, 2007 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 151 reviews view larger image
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The pleasure of finding things out

"The only constant I am sure of is this exhiliarating rate of change". We're busy acquiring layers: Physical and intangible ones, digital, highly personal and general, all of which combine to our reality. This book reads like a densely, at times beautifully written personal blog (ok - from various POVs). Along for the ride, I found myself constantly googling bits & pieces. I ask you: Which of you had ever heard of 'locative art, the Mongolian death worm, Cuban gods, the secret flagellants of Thuringia' - or even those obscure car brands, before reading this book? What a delight to discover they all do exist (sort of)! Okay - I admit the Ativan-addicted Milgrim character had me stumped until I remembered 'Milgram's 37'. Much has changed since Feynman had no end of trouble finding any info at all on Kyzyl (or how to get there). Now there's all this info, just a mouse-click away. Of course it's endlessly fascinating to look at how we make sense of this. A book we're reading while travelling (or music on our ipod) is now as ever providing additional subtext (like Milgrim's revolutionary messiahs), but these days we have to be interactively travelling online (sleuthing) while at home (reading Gibson) - no other choice really, unless you want to miss out on meaning. Yes, the plot's a little thin (4 stars), but as Gibson touches so many other layers of inspirational and current (political) subtext without actually spelling them out, it's as always an insightful, thought-provoking (and if you do the googling) very rewarding read. Great language too.

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Decent book, but not Gibson's best

First off, let me say I'm a huge Gibson fan. I've worn through a couple of copies of the books in the Neuromancer series, enough that I've had to buy new ones, and have read the others not in that series as well. I have, thus far, enjoyed everything he's written on one level or another.

Spook Country, while good, was not his best work by a long shot.

In other books, I feel that cyberpunk "edge," be it in the characters, in the technology or topics discussed, etc. In this one, the technology aspect revolves around GPS and "locative art." Locative art was a new concept to me, just as some of the other concepts were new to me when I read the other books, but with the others, I came out caring and interested - with this one, I didn't care about locative art. It just didn't add anything or bring that edge with it that I expected.

The characters in the book were decent, though I felt like maybe there were too many, or the ones that were there didn't have enough depth. The main character I cared about, but the others I just didn't. Some were intriguing and I wanted to know more, but it just wasn't delivered.

The plot was reminiscent of something from a Robert Ludlum novel, but without the page-turning action. There were spies, people with no names doing dead-drops of information for other folks to pick up, and tailing people, but you didn't get the action that it felt like the plot warranted.

The three key things that bugged me:

1) Gibson's writing style has changed such that, you'll see, he writes in very long, winding, complex sentences with lots of adjectives and commas, and maybe an odd metaphor thrown in, so that, by the time you reach the end of the sentence, which is really a paragraph in-and-of-itself, you'll have forgotten what he was talking about at the beginning. (Just like that.)

2) By the time the climax comes, you're expecting something really cool to happen, but it doesn't. You work all the way through the book to get to this one particular event, it happens, and... poof. It's done, nothing comes of it, and you don't care. It's like the event never happened at all. (Which, admittedly, is sort of a theme here - it's spies doing things under the radar, so you don't notice. But the climax? Come on, throw me a bone!)

3) In many of his other books, Gibson throws in references to vodou-based religions and gods. Sometimes it's just an aspect of a character, sometimes it has to do directly with the plot, but in all cases it weaves in reasonably well with the story. This time, too, there are vodou references, but they don't make any sense. They stick out there as a distraction, like an afterthought - "Oh, crap, I finished the book but didn't throw any vodou in there!" I kept wondering where it was going, just to find out that it didn't have anything to do with anything.

In the end, I did like the book, but if you haven't read any Gibson before, start with Neuromancer instead.

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The Future is Now and Gibson is still there!

The "follow the bouncing Character" is always enjoyable for me. Gibson links it so well that I can read a chapter or 3 late at night and enjoy every minute of reading and the anticipation of the next chapter!Interesting people, nice yarn; Gibson always come through for me!

Brilliant, but not perfect

The good: This book has some brilliant characters which ultimately intertwine around a caper based climax at the end. The writing is clever and a joy to read, and paints a very realistic and plausible world, once you get past the first chapter, which was like another reviewer mentioned like wading through overly descriptive mud.
The reason it isn't perfect was that I felt the climax, which had been building nicely, didn't come to as much resolution as I would have liked. Of course there is enough material to do some sort of sequel, but that is up to Mr. Gibson.
All in all, worth the read, but not his best work.

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reviews: 1, page 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

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