I picked up “Pattern Recognition” after being away from the works of William Gibson since, I don’t know, probably “Mona Lisa Overdrive.” It wasn’t an intentional split — my reading habits are really more like phases, and I think I went into an essayist phase shortly after. When I made it back to SF, I hadn’t really forgotten William Gibson. . . I’d just discovered Frank Herbert, and that’ll take up a chunk of time.
So about a year back, I was wandering around one of the many used bookstores I haunt and I decided to hit up the sci-fi section. There, in mint-condition trade paperback, was William Gibson’s “Pattern Recognition. I added it to the stack of books my wife and I were liberating without really thinking about it, but I started flipping through it that night.
"Hi, I'm Bill, and I'll be your evil genius for the evening."
From the first couple of paragraphs, Gibson had me hooked. The story follows Cayce Pollard, a self-described “cool hunter” who works in advertising. Cayce has an almost psychic sensitivity to corporate logos — she knows instantly what works and what doesn’t, and no one questions her judgment. She makes a good living at it, too, traveling around the world and consulting for some of the biggest companies in the world.
Unlike the previous Gibson stories I’d read, this one isn’t set in the future — it’s set in present-day (all right, 2002, really, but the novel came out in 2003, so close enough). However, much like the author’s other works, it is immensely well-written and satisfying, taking the reader through various shady neighborhoods, plans within plans, and conspiracies while remaining eminently readable (Thomas Pynchon, I’m looking in your direction).
It’s less hard-SF than the other William Gibson stuff I’ve read (which is, admittedly, almost all Sprawl stuff), but I think that works in its favor — the SF people won’t be disappointed, and you “normals” out there will get a good read without feeling too lost in the science-fictiony elements.
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JohnnySix writes, mostly -- and consumes far too many stimulants.
Books You Really Should Have Read By Now — “Pattern Recognition” | PopBunker.net http://www.popbunker.net/2010/07/books-r...
Nothing like a Pynchon smackdown to get my interest peaked…
Don’t get me wrong, I like Pynchon and all (though it’s hard to say that without sounding like an asshole). . . but I also like authors who don’t need to confuse the hell out of you to tell a good story. Gibson’s one of those.
Interesting… I had a very opposite reaction to this book. I found it tediously dated in the early aughts as Gibson tried to troubleshoot near future/current waves exploiting online communication. Gibson works his best while anticipating trends. There is some interesting work with cloud sourcing wrt The Video, but I otherwise found the book a little boring.
The current world style also was not as distracting from Gibson’s prose as normal so his fragmented sentences and implied ellipses really stood out – which I found a little jarring more so than with his earlier novels.
You make some good points — especially with Gibson being better with what’s coming than with what’s happening, or what happened. I thought the character of Cayce summed this up nicely — she’s also better with “what’s next” than “what’s now.” To me, Gibson was speaking through her and acknowledging that shortcoming very early in the book — though maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part.
I also agree with you that “The Video” stuff was probably the most interesting part of the book — I didn’t want to get into it too much here so readers could discover it on their own.
Gibson’s prose style doesn’t bother me too much, but I think it’s all a case of what I read before this one — James Joyce’s “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” (for, like, the eighth time). I’ll probably forgive a lot of unconventional prose choices after that.
To be clear, though, I don’t necessarily like this better than the Sprawl stuff — but I do think it’s a bit more accessible for those who haven’t read much SF at all. It’s a gateway drug I’m pushing here.
Also, I’m just excited that someone else I know has actually read this one. It’s you, me, and three other guys.