Not Gibson at his best, but pretty good

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	• Spook Country William Gibson G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 2007 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 126 reviews view larger image
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less than the sum of its parts

I've loved Gibson from the start, but without a doubt, by "Pattern Matching" his prose had risen to remarkable.

In "Spook Country", he still has such a wonderful turn-of-the-phrase. Yet sadly, although there are numerous outstanding passages, the whole is less than the sum of the parts. The characters are too distant and too opaque for us to care much about what happens to them. And worse, at the end of the book, everything is still up in the air. Presumably there will be another volume to bring some closure to this story.

Some reviews I've read have compared Gibson to Thomas Pynchon. Certainly the atmosphere of paranoia and the setting of a baffling, ominous world are similar. But with that, this novel also has a dollop of the Pynchon's major flaw: thinly drawn, detached characters who are interesting only as oddities or archtypes, but are not engaging.

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It was a Dark and Spooky Novel...

Much has been written about the similarities between the works of William Gibson and Don DeLillo, Certainly, as I read both Pattern Recognition and Spook Country, I couldn't help thinking of White Noise: Text and Criticism (Viking Critical Library), one of the great books of the past 50 years. Gibson captures the same sense of lurking dread DeLillo masterfully describes, but could never be accused of being a mere imitator. Here, as in his other novels, Gibson has his own way of drawing us in and pulverizing our emotions. I found this a compelling story, maybe not as gripping as Pattern Recognition, but nevertheless a marvelous story.

So, why all the negative reviews here? After reading many, which I did because I was so perplexed by the response to a book that had received considerable acclaim, I reached the conclusion that there is a core of Gibson fans who want him to write Neuromancer over and over and over again. Well, I loved that book as well, but I think Gibson has grown as an author, and his recent works are just as gripping but are not as rapidly paced as his earlier work. There's less adrenalin rush here, but much greater psychological depth. Gibson continues to grow as a writer, and when that happens some readers will be left behind, like the pop music fans who show up at a concert begging an artist to play their hit single with a bullet from 20 years earlier when the artist wants to share new work with the audience.

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Gibson does it again

William Gibson's sequels are, unlike most writers, often better than the original (and always better than those other guys). This is no exception. He creates a fully-realized world, sucks you into it, and spits you out with more alternative constructs about civilization, technology, and reality than when you started.

Mild-Mannered Country

After reading Pattern Recognition (I'd give that 5 out of 5 stars), I couldn't wait to read Spook Country.

Hollis Henry, a former member of a 90's alternative rock band, is trying out a second career as a journalist. She's been sent out by Node, a magazine that she isn't sure exists, to do a piece on "locative art" (think geocaching meets VR). One of these artists introduces her to Bobby Chombo, the man who runs the servers where said art is hosted. The problem is he's extremely paranoid and her boss insists she find out why.

There's also Tito, a runner for a really small organized crime family. And he's being tracked by a guy named Brown, who's a covert operative of some kind with a strong sense of nationalism. But rather than get in Brown's head, we get his prisoner, Milgrim, an Ativan addict who speaks Russian. We meet other characters along the way, but the story focuses on Hollis, Tito, and Milgrim.

The story starts out slow. It took about 100 pages before it picked up. There wasn't any sense of danger looming over the characters nor was I able to determine what they were after that was so important. The three main characters are mild. Hollis seems capable of some decent snark but Gibson never really lets her loose. Tito's utilization of his Santeria faith is compelling when there's action, but it's sorely underutilized. He's a mushroom most of the time. Milgrim's Atvian experiences are intriguing but his objective seems to be avoiding a beating from Brown.

There are some minor characters which try to save us from this mild mannered and mellow trio. Chombo isn't one of them. He's annoying. But most of the characters in the novel get along so well that there's hardly any conflict.

We do find out what everyone is after. It's partly based on reality. I remember reading about the item in question in the news, but it never really seemed to garner the attention it deserved. I don't want to spoil it, but it concerns the Iraq War. The premise is believable, and what the characters set out to do seems cool but there's never any real danger. The plan is so well executed that when the story's climax comes along, I was left saying, "Oh, that was it."

William Gibson founded the cyberpunk sub-genre of science fiction, but there's really nothing in this novel that comes across as sci-fi. It's been said that the world has caught up with Gibson's vision and I have to agree. There's nothing here to chase away sci-fi phobic readers. But will they want to read it? Gibson's prose continues to be efficiently rendered, sparse yet beautiful. But as it's presented here it amounts to an ornately decorated cardboard box. A middle of the road Gibson novel is still better than most of the schlock out there.

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Not Gibson at his best, but pretty good

I am a great admirer of William Gibson as an innovative writer and I think I own every one of his books. His earliest novels were stunning in their inventiveness. Even his next-to-most recent book, Pattern Recognition, was absorbing, moving, and interesting.

However, in Spook Country, Gibson falls a bit flat. It's hard to identify with the characters, there is a bit too much product placement happening, and in the end there's not much going on in a nevertheless complicated plot. It's boringly trendy at times and never quite builds up the sense of menace and tension a book of this genre needs.

I don't regret buying and reading the book, though I should probably have waited for the paperback, but it's not quite up to Gibson's own high standard. If you're a die-hard fan of his go ahead and buy it - if not, wait a while for a paperback version.

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

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