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3.89 AVERAGE
3.89 AVERAGE
Good writing, as always, but characters and plot are a bit wanting. Far from his best.
adventurous
medium-paced
Gibson is an iconic author, the man who coined the term "cyberspace" in the prescient Neuromancer trilogy - perhaps my favorite triology of all time (rivaled only by LOTR). Zero History concludes the Big Ant trilogy (started with Pattern Recognition and continued with Spook Country).
This is a different universe for Gibson. Present day, consisting of readily available (and branded) technology and focused on the technological and sub-cultural aspects of fashion and marketing. Intrigue, crime, uber-hipness, secret fashions, cultural manipulation, egos, and damaged characters fill the pages, along with Gibson's trademark detailed description of things and environments.
Gibson's plot in this trilogy is subtle, minimal and oblique. Ultimately there is one, I think, but it almost seems an afterthought. Not a "what comes next" page-turner. More a ramble through a world filled with concepts to ponder and idiosyncratic characters to figure out.
The book struggled to keep my interest, in part due to the complex web of characters Gibson creates - put the book down for a week or so and it is hard to re-start without constantly saying to oneself "who is that again ... I've forgotten!" Thank goodness for Google (Gibson would approve)! As a result it took me 12 years to read this trilogy end-to-end! But in that end I think about many of the concepts near weekly ... and that made it worth the read.
This is a different universe for Gibson. Present day, consisting of readily available (and branded) technology and focused on the technological and sub-cultural aspects of fashion and marketing. Intrigue, crime, uber-hipness, secret fashions, cultural manipulation, egos, and damaged characters fill the pages, along with Gibson's trademark detailed description of things and environments.
Gibson's plot in this trilogy is subtle, minimal and oblique. Ultimately there is one, I think, but it almost seems an afterthought. Not a "what comes next" page-turner. More a ramble through a world filled with concepts to ponder and idiosyncratic characters to figure out.
The book struggled to keep my interest, in part due to the complex web of characters Gibson creates - put the book down for a week or so and it is hard to re-start without constantly saying to oneself "who is that again ... I've forgotten!" Thank goodness for Google (Gibson would approve)! As a result it took me 12 years to read this trilogy end-to-end! But in that end I think about many of the concepts near weekly ... and that made it worth the read.
This was my favourite of the three books. I enjoyed how the characters and storylines came together. Milgram was a wonderful character in the previous book and is even better here. I contined to find what to me are overwritten descriptions and references a bit much though.
I enjoyed this trip down the backstreets of branding and fashion. YMMV.
Not sure if a US author because the writing flow was a bit choppy in places - it didn't flow easily. The story was entertaining. My first read of this author; don't recall how I found this book but glad I did. Early in the book it was hard to decide whether to commit to the book or give up on it because of the writing style; glad I stuck with it. It was a different story, with a different take on something most of us may not think about: fashion. The author did a nice job building and delivering a story. Very enjoyable.
This is the last book of Gibson's Bigend trilogy, and I think I like it the most of the lot of them. Maybe I've just gotten used to him writing contemporary techno thrillers with happy ends, or maybe it just flowed better than the two previous works. I'd like to read all three back to back at some point to see if my impressions change at all.
In ZH we're following Hollis Henry and Milgrim again, alternating between them every other chapter. We also get more of Bigend (of course), but he's still a secondary character, despite being the peg the trilogy hangs on. Happily enough we're also getting more of Heidi Hyde, whom I liked a great deal. I'm sure she works best as a secondary character as well, sort of like a spice, but she's used to great effect in ZH.
In ZH we're following Hollis Henry and Milgrim again, alternating between them every other chapter. We also get more of Bigend (of course), but he's still a secondary character, despite being the peg the trilogy hangs on. Happily enough we're also getting more of Heidi Hyde, whom I liked a great deal. I'm sure she works best as a secondary character as well, sort of like a spice, but she's used to great effect in ZH.
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I really struggled with this, I found it hard to take seriously a big about a mysterious pair of jeans... I don't think it was necessarily bad, it just wasn't for me!
I loved this. It's only very very marginally Sci-Fi since almost all the tech is present-day - just deployed in odd ways. It's really a character-driven story like the rest of the blue ant books. The characters are great and it's very intimately written. The story spins along on people's perceptions of what is going on and there are some great moments of humor and revelation. Definitely a worthy final novel in the series!