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 years ago and was gratified to see the technology making its way into Gibson's work.)

The GPS angle starts to figure more prominently as the main story kicks into gear. By threading three intertwining narratives, Gibson is able to explore the sensibilities, the ironies and the passions of his characters.

In the end, the story is about a profound practical joke, well executed.

Ever since "Pattern Recognition," Gibson is back on his game. He has created a compelling niche for himself- present day science fiction. I appreciate where he is trying to go.

In the fifties, the FUTURE was a magical place. By the sixties, real science started to creep into the genre and by the seventies authors were wrestling with string theory and other present day magic.

I see Gibson advancing a point of view that in the early twenty-first century, science fiction might be more about understanding the world we currently live in, without having to invent one more exotic.