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3.89 AVERAGE
3.89 AVERAGE
One of the things I love about Gibson's writing style is that most of the story is set-up and putting pieces in place for a relatively short but exciting climax. The downside of this is that things can drag-on if you don't click with the situation he is setting up. I got into "Spook Country" faster because it introduced the idea of spies working toward some kind of end goal almost from the start. With "Zero History" I was happy to be reading the continuing story of characters I liked but found the overall subject matter a bit tedious because it didn't seem to have a strong reason for being interesting. So this time, the last 20% of the book was the most engaging for me.
As always, I had to struggle to keep up with William Gibson. His novels are always like taking a ride on a roller coaster building itself just seconds before you arrive. You can't predict where it is going to go and, you suspect, if you looked behind it would have already erased and re-written itself.
It is part of a trilogy formed up by Pattern Recognition, Spook Country and this installment. However, it is the characters who intersect, not so much the plot. There is the overarching theme of secrets and finding out just who is it who holds the secrets you want. The notion that there is always someone who has that vital bit you need, something else going on in a spot you never thought to examine. And that spot is exactly where you are looking, and looking without seeing. Staring into the middle distance, never aware that you are walking into an abyss.
But of course, you never see all that until you try to look behind and the present place your attention is focused informs what you thought you understood (but really didn't quite get)...
Just read it.
It is part of a trilogy formed up by Pattern Recognition, Spook Country and this installment. However, it is the characters who intersect, not so much the plot. There is the overarching theme of secrets and finding out just who is it who holds the secrets you want. The notion that there is always someone who has that vital bit you need, something else going on in a spot you never thought to examine. And that spot is exactly where you are looking, and looking without seeing. Staring into the middle distance, never aware that you are walking into an abyss.
But of course, you never see all that until you try to look behind and the present place your attention is focused informs what you thought you understood (but really didn't quite get)...
Just read it.
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
"Zero History" is another fun book from William Gibson...it is essentially a retelling of "Oceans 11" for info-geeks. The kooky characters and multiple levels of plot all come together at the end for a big finish. "Zero History" is full of the high tech stuff that Gibson loves, and his ability to extrapolate modern trends to their often ridiculous and/or sublime conclusions make for interesting reading. Gibson fans will love it.
Did you know that William Gibson wrote a Thriller about fashion? Now you do. (Also he was, once again, prescient about quiet some of the trends, including the whole minimalism & timeless movement - Everlane & Co. anyone?)
Not his best work, but it has it's moments and it was a good one to keep my brain off what is happening around me in the world.
Not his best work, but it has it's moments and it was a good one to keep my brain off what is happening around me in the world.
I'm only giving this four stars rather than five, although I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to anybody interested in urban fantasy/sci-fi, even though it's not really sci-fi or fantasy, just kind of obsessed with technologies, only some of which don't really exist but maybe they do and I just don't know about them. I think that's because it's always kind of low stakes, even when he wants us to feel, I think, that the stakes are high.
I love how undramatic and nuanced the relationships are, but at the same time, just a bit more insight into how somebody's feeling might have been nice. It's not emotionally dead, but I never really believe that Hollis is that upset about Garreth, and though I like how Milgrim confuses himself as he thinks about Fiona it'd be more affecting if the other relationships were slightly better realised in contrast? Not that this book is about the romances, but the characters are kind of the core - if they weren't emotional or bound together by various friendships and relationships then the rest of it would be kind of pointless, like an even deader Inception.
The writing is fairly astonishing in a lot of places. I now need to go back and read the first two in the trilogy - but I got along with this just fine without having read either.
I love how undramatic and nuanced the relationships are, but at the same time, just a bit more insight into how somebody's feeling might have been nice. It's not emotionally dead, but I never really believe that Hollis is that upset about Garreth, and though I like how Milgrim confuses himself as he thinks about Fiona it'd be more affecting if the other relationships were slightly better realised in contrast? Not that this book is about the romances, but the characters are kind of the core - if they weren't emotional or bound together by various friendships and relationships then the rest of it would be kind of pointless, like an even deader Inception.
The writing is fairly astonishing in a lot of places. I now need to go back and read the first two in the trilogy - but I got along with this just fine without having read either.
This is the first [a:William Gibson|9226|William Gibson|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1282769227p2/9226.jpg] book I have read contemporaneously and not felt left behind by. I am not sure if this is an artifact of following him on twitter or if his assertion that this trilogy being about the post 9/11 decade has more to do with it. Either way I feel a little let down by the book. Not by the story which was fine and as super-detailed as I could hope for. Like for all [a:William Gibson|9226|William Gibson|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1282769227p2/9226.jpg] books I had to read with one hand on the keyboard to enjoy it fully.
A good book but not I feel as good as [b:Spook Country|22322|Spook Country|William Gibson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1186350896s/22322.jpg|1715356] or [b:Pattern Recognition|22320|Pattern Recognition|William Gibson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167348713s/22320.jpg|2455062].
A good book but not I feel as good as [b:Spook Country|22322|Spook Country|William Gibson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1186350896s/22322.jpg|1715356] or [b:Pattern Recognition|22320|Pattern Recognition|William Gibson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167348713s/22320.jpg|2455062].
300 pages of Fashion, artistic espionage, galavanting around London and Paris followed by 100 pages of techno-geek thriller with all kinds of imaginary tech toys. A really fun read. The short chapters made it easy to read "just one more" and then be late for whatever I should have left for already.
I feel like I should like William Gibson, I keep trying to. But I just don't really. Books just seem like a bunch of random ideas thrown together to be weird. Or maybe I'm just dumb.