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	• Pattern Recognition William Gibson Berkley Trade, 2004 - 368 pages average customer review:based on 270 reviews view larger image
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Wow.

Mr. Gibson's other novels are excellent, but nothing about them prepared me for this. Somewhere in his long career, he learned to really write, and this book is the result. Gripping, to-the-point, succinct, and utterly readable, this is my favorite novel. Mr. Gibson has finally learned to really do it; to write a book. This is that.

PS: His earlier books were pretty good too.

Is it cyberpunk?

Few genres have writers who is more or less synonymous with them. When you think of mysteries, a number of writers come to mind. With horror, Stephen King stands out, but other names are also dominant: Koontz, Straub, Barker, et cetera. With the science fiction sub-genre of cyberpunk, while there may be other authors, it is William Gibson who pretty much is the king of that field. Nonetheless, I don't know if I'd call his novel Pattern Recognition cyberpunk: in fact, it's barely science fiction.

Pattern Recognition takes place in the very near future and follows Cayce Pollard, a thirtyish woman with the ability to recognize what is cool long before most other people. This puts in demand with sneaker companies and other enterprises that want to be on the cutting edge. On the other hand, her talent comes at an unusual price: she has a strong phobia towards certain advertising logos and a general loathing of any trademarks.

Initially in England to assess a company's new logo, Cayce is soon recruited to go on a strange mission. It seems that every now and then a little bit of film is released on the Internet, attracting interest by those trying to understand the mysterious footage; is it part of a larger movie or should it be viewed in some other context? No one knows where the film is coming from, but plutocrat Bigend Hubertus wants Cayce to find out. Her effort to do so will have her globe-hopping and avoiding enemies who want her to either fail or not get the information in time.

Unfortunately, there is a big flaw in Pattern Recognition, namely who cares? I never really felt the urgency of Cayce's mission: finding out the maker of the film is not going to be earth-shattering. It's akin to knowing who shot Monty Burns well before the revelation episode: it's kind of cool, but it doesn't really change much.

Fortunately, however, Gibson is a decent writer, so this flaw is offset by his interesting world and characters, enough to merit a low four-star review. Is it cyberpunk (or even science fiction)? Only in the vaguest of ways. Is it a decent (if flawed) addition to Gibson's canon? Yes.

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Not Free SF Reader

Corporate cyber coolhunting.

William Gibson continues to regress technologically it seems, back to pretty much the present day. Seems we have a case of a science fiction writer not being able to hack it as a science fiction writer anymore.

Maybe not surprising considering the drugged out, arty past with no real interest in or knowledge of technology earlier in life, if what you can read about him is correct.

Maybe he'll end up writing about caveman and the wheel if he lives long enough. :)

So, after having a crack at the media industry, why not advertising and marketing, this time?

Dodgy characters and computer hacking etc. are still present, though, surrounding a film mystery.

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good book.

i have read many of Gibson's books. This book is very different from his more futuristic ones, which i like. But this book is by far my favorite of his.

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

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