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Dec 17, 2009

Lee added it

I finished reading William Gibson's newest novel, Spook Country, a few days ago and have been trying to figure out how I feel about it. It is one of the few books I have eagerly scooped up in hardcover, I loved his Pattern Recognition so much. The promise of another book set in what can only be called the "extreme contemporary" moment was too much for me to pass up or wait for paperback to experience.

Unfortunately, Spook Country does not rise to the level of its predecessor More...

4 comments like (19 people liked it)

Aug 18, 2007

(0v0) rated it:

It's a little thin. Compulsively readable, nicely plotted, and delightful in its references to places and technologies of the 2006 moment. (In this, I read it under the right conditions: the day it was released, on an LA-NY flight. It opens on the block in which I used to live. I drove past Gray's Papaya in midtown just as his characters had breakfast there.)

But the thing is, the characters just get thinner and thinner. It's intentional, I guess. He's trying to create new archetypes. More...

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Enrique rated it:

I was disappointed by this book. William Gibson, touted as a writer with ideas, handles the conceptual with a surprising lack of deftness. In one sense, this book is about name-checking pop culture ephemera and devices. More attention is given to the description of the insoles of Adidas GSG-9 boots and cesium bullets than actual story development. The "chapters" are anything but, and give the novel the feel of a technologically-mediated novela on Univision.

But, more on More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Nov 01, 2007

Matt rated it:

I've been reading William Gibson for a few years now, well after "The Movement" came and went and the world adopted and forgot the term "cyberspace." I wish I had been around to feel the freshness of that way of visualizing data, but it's a sad fact that I'm young enough to simply take that for granted. Possibly, kids who grew up around Cape Canaveral have the same take on Heinlein.

At any rate, "Spook Country" isn't a novel of the near-future, but the here More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 03, 2007

Adam rated it:

No matter when or where it is set, all the best science fiction is really about the present day. William Gibson takes this idea to its logical conclusion and writes about the present day as if it were science fiction.

Gibson seems mostly concerned with how our (real) technologies are transforming us. His main character, Hollis Henry (love the strong female characters that are always present in Gibson's work), the lead singer of a defunct band from the '90s, who is now trying to make i More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 21, 2009

Ron rated it:

Gibson weaves another dark mystery from the narrow viewpoints of exotic, solitary characters, as they move through a complex "day after tomorrow" alternate present. We follow an ex-Cuban "spy family", shuttling secrets from buyer to seller on iPods, and an ex-rocker now journalist covering a software engineer working with "locative artists". These artists build 3D visual simulations that appear overlaid in a particular place when viewed through Gibson's beloved VR More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 26, 2008

Ezra rated it:

i found this book to be one of mr. gibson's more frustrating productions. that's ok. i've been a fan, of some sort, for a while; i read neuromancer at just the stage of early adolescence when it was probaby most effective; with each of his subsequent books i've been able to generally ignore the parts where he overindulges in flowery sociophilosophising, or when the plot feels like it's treading water; i'm also consistently sent home with some unfamiliar image or area of inquiry that stays with More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 25, 2008

Jen rated it:

Although this was generally an interesting read, for me it had some fundamental problems. 1) For the first 50 pages I found myself daydreaming and constantly having to reread bits 2) The contemporary technology in this book is going to soon date itself. I don't know if Gibson considers this scifi, but the issues at hand (and the technology) already feel a little dated. Though as a result, I suppose it may appeal to a wider audience than other scifi or technical mysteries. 3) It was truly anticli More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jun 04, 2008

Matt rated it:

William Gibson is one of the few writers that I make it a point to be in the store on release day of a new novel. I first inhaled 'Spook Country' over a two day period. I was initially disappointed, for reasons I cannot quite put my finger on. The best I could come up with was that it wasn't quite 'Gibsony' enough for me.

However, having just reread it in a more methodical manner, I have to reverse my initial opinion and declare my love for this book.

The usual, interestin More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 02, 2008

Stan rated it:

William Gibson's latest work looks at our current world as a science fiction environment. His attention to detail, to marketing and to the latest hight tech toys manages to give his work the veneer of somewhere else while placing it firmly in the present. A neat trick.

Spook Country starts out with an introduction to locative art. Using GPS and viewing glasses, the artist creates phantom art that can only be seen with the glasses. ( Ironically, I worked on a similar project a few year More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 25, 2007

Daniel rated it:

I'd like to think that all but the most blindly jingoistic citizens are at least a little uncomfortable with the government taking so much liberty with our, uh, liberties these days. The war on terror makes a great campaign tool I guess, but with it comes the ugly stepsisters of, among other things, warrantless wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, and private security contractors. And this is what "Spook Country" is about.

Gibson is great at taking cultural developments More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 20, 2007

Mark rated it:

I don't know that I have much to say about this. I enjoyed it on a sentence level almost exclusively. I didn't think it was an interesting story, and it came off as a watered-down version of Pattern Recognition.

There's no way to know this, but I have this weird suspicion Gibson struggled writing this book. There's no strong idea behind it. The chapters (all very short) have a self-enclosed feel. Oddly, they all have chapter titles, which you don't see much these days. I'd get to the More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Aug 25, 2007

Christian rated it:

Gibson's novel (and its predecessor, Pattern Recognition) constitutes a sci-fi novel set in the present. It manages to create a visceral feel of the future as something pressing upon the present. This feel is notably contained within a dialectic between secret and public histories (as the novel puts it). The future appears to belong to avant-garde artists, cutting-edge corporations, and, as the title indicates, intelligence networks. The plot in this novel is nothing too intricate, especially gi More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 31, 2007

Pwntalive rated it:

Every author should only write one great book. all others should be burned. and i will be the arbiter of what single work is that authors most outstanding work. Otherwise, authors who introduce a new genera should be made to never write in that style again, as their contributions to society via the introduction of a genera far outweigh their ability to pile prose together in anything other then episodic poppycock.

at some point in the recent past, gibson decided that the life of the s More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 13, 2007

Fred rated it:

Well, I finished it. It was good, but overall I have to say that Mr. Gibson has fallen into a rut. I have but one suggestion for him: go out on a limb. Try going forward again. Take all your strengths and apply it to something a little more bold, perhaps attempt to truly look forward 20 to 50 years, or go way out and write a good space opera.

But enough with the John Grisham. Please.

* * *

Still in progress. William Gibson is my Rowling. I will drop whateve More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Dan rated it:

The story consists of the interwoven plot arcs of 3 different Characters: Hollis Henry a retired indie rocker turned journalist, Tito a mysterious boy in a family of Cuban organized criminals specializing in smuggling and forgery, and Milgrim a Russian translator addicted to designer anti anxiety drugs who is being held captive by a government agent. This book is set in the same contemporary world as Pattern Recognition and shares some of the characters.

I really liked this b More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 30, 2008

John rated it:

I really enjoyed this book, though the ability to suspend disbelief required increasing levels of will as the the story progressed and more details were revealed. Early in the book your brain works hard to discern patterns and analyze clues, but this turns out to be wasted effort, given the highly implausible ending. Gibson has an excellent eye for detail, and a real talent for dialog, and the book is a fun read.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 09, 2009

Carol rated it:

Spook country is set in the Northwest, William Gibson's home territory. It is about spies and stealing artistic content. It has some of the same characters that appeared in his previous book, Pattern Recognition. It is a fun and entertaining read.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 16, 2012

Jeff rated it:

I fell for Pattern Recognition like a shmo dating out of his league. It was so much cooler than I was, and my doorway into that cooler world. I had to run to keep up with the first 50 pages, but I loved being out of breath.

Did I mature? Or was Spook Country just less hot? I suppose I should develop some cogency about that question, but I'm too stunned for that yet. The book is good. Whatever kind of semi-science-fiction this is (I can't imagine the publishing world hasn't already dev More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 12, 2008

Brian rated it:

I could not seem to finish this book; it took me over six months of picking it up and putting it back down for long stretches. The tidbits of wry, Gibson wit and insight are present, but evenly spaced throughout the book; instead of constant, they're consistent. I don't have much sympathy for any of the characters, save Brown and Milgrim, because they're stand-ins for the American populace, both the misguided and outdated conservatives, and the willingly self-medicated and self-victimizing liber More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

May 26, 2010

DoctorM rated it:

The world caught up with Wm. Gibson's sci-fi stories a few years ago in his brilliant "Pattern Recognition". Gibson's world is now this world--- our world. "Pattern Recognition" was in many ways Gibson's 9/11 novel. "Spook Country" is his post-Iraq spy novel, with a few characters overlapping from "Pattern Recognition". Again--- intricate plot, deadpan humour, perfect film-noir pacing, product placement for Cohn's "Pursuit of the Millennium", a More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 31, 2009

Kevin added it

William Gibson has moved over his career from cutting edge science fiction just past the predictable future, gradually moving backwards in his settings towards the present. His last book, Pattern Recognition, felt like it was just barely into the future, maybe taking place the day after tomorrow. He has completed this trip with Spook Country, placing it distinctly in the here and now. There are all sorts of statements to make about what this means for science fiction as a genre, for mainstream More...

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Mar 12, 2009

Stephanie rated it:

In his seminal 1984 novel Neuromancer, Wiliam Gibson created a dystopic future that popularised the term cyberspace and inspired The Matrix. In his latest novel, Gibson again cooks up a brew of science fiction, this time in a more familiar era -- now.

Like his 2003 novel Pattern Recognition, the canvas is the globalised 21st century, and as the title sugests, it is haunted by spooks -- people who lurk on the periphery, from spies to simulacra.

You don't read Gibson for his More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 05, 2009

Bookmarks Magazine added it

William Gibson coined the term "cyberspace" and foresaw the future of the Internet in his 1984 debut, Neuromancer. He once again explores nascent technologies and their impact on society in Spook Country, in which he confronts politics, mass media, and pop culture. Critics who praised Spook Country, a sequel of sorts to Pattern Recognition (2003), saw it as a chilling snapshot of a world gone mad, while those who expected a more conventional thriller were disappointed. Several panned t

More...

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Jan 15, 2009

Kalyn rated it:

This is the first book I've read by William Gibson, but I will be sure to read some of his others. The book weaves together the lives of 3 major characters (and several minor ones) in a converging series of vignettes posing as chapters. The viewpoint skips around among them, in roughly real time (so you know how each of them see an event) until the end of the book when the deed is done and they all go their separate ways.

I liked the way it was written and enjoyed trying to figure More...

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Dec 22, 2008

Artie rated it:

This was a fun little read as far as sci-fi goes. I would say the characters, while having some depth and dimension were never written in a way that attached me to them. Not even the main character, Hollis Henry. Also, there was a bit of a let down in terms of the mysterious man employing her, binding her to secrecy over some potentially illicit activity and then at the end he seems to just lose his once-intense curiosity without justification. Nevertheless, the story is written from three d More...

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Nov 20, 2008

JBradford rated it:

Science fiction has never been the same since Gibson wrote Neuromancer, and this one is just as scary in its extension of current trends into a more or less present that is maybe just a few years in the future. Gibson gives me a headache in a way (this book does, too; J.P. Putnum’s Sons selected a terribly thin font that tests my $17 drugstore reading glasses to their limit and beyond), because I keep twisting my mind trying to figure out what is reality and what is projection. This story fea More...

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Jan 11, 2012

Keith rated it:

There is much to compare between Gibson’s impressive return to form, Pattern Recognition, and Spook Country. The latter concerns Hollis Henry ex-band member of ‘Curfew’ now a freelance journalist who has been hired by technology magazine Node to work up an article on ‘locative art’; basically, this is art that exists in cyberspace (and only seen through networked goggles), which is tagged by GPS to a specific terrestrial location – an example being the dead body of River Phoenix ‘lying’ outside More...

1 comment like

Dec 19, 2011

Athena rated it:

I first read Spook Country when it came out in trade paperback. I'm a huge fan of Gibson's prose as well as his outlook--Gibson has no problems seeing the divine and inscrutable in technology, or the larger macro-influences that manifest themselves in tech and our relationship to it as organic beings.

For me, reading William Gibson isn't so much about the story, but how reading the story changes you inside--your perspective, your ability and desire to expand your perspective. It's les More...

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Nov 06, 2011

Ryan rated it:

***1/2

Part techno-thriller, part future prognostication, and part examination of the weird intersections of media, post-9/11 paranoia, reality, artifice, and cyberspace, Spook Country is a thought-provoking book, if not as compelling a one as I might have hoped. It's interesting to absorb the bemused viewpoint of the author who coined the word "cyberspace" twenty-five years ago, who seems to understand the concept now less as a trippy second reality and more as an extension * More...

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