Amazon delivered my pre-ordered Spook Country by William Gibson some weeks ago, and I made time for it a few weeks ago. For Gibson, this book felt entirely too much in the present. Rather than a recognizable, but just slightly altered view of how the near future might present itself, Spook Country felt like right now.
I still enjoy some of the characters, especially the amalgam of cultures and ethnicities that Tito presents. Tito is a young member of an extended Cuban clan, trained by the KGB (or so it’s hinted) during its glory days. The family’s embrace of the “systema,” as they dub their fieldcraft, is fun to read and follow, with the most believable use of iPods ever.
By contrast, the former rock star/current journalist Hollis is more interesting for where she goes than who she is. And the other characters — even the ones I was sympathetic to — were colorfully drawn cutouts, not people. I like the mood and ambiguity of Gibson’s books, but this novel gripped me less than others he’s written.
After finishing these brief notes, I watched the video on the book page. I’ve never looked at Gibson before. He’s not how I imagined him. I also read Tim Bray’s review of the same book. I’d avoided his take earlier. Bray lives in Vancouver, where all the characters collide, so he has his own (ahem) Pattern Recognition. And, it seems, a stronger appreciation of this novel.
As to Gibson… he’s always have Neuromancer, even if it pains him to have all subsequent work compared to that wonderful burst of static noise.