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3.89 AVERAGE
3.89 AVERAGE
The first couple of chapters in all three of the books in this series have been awful, tedious, superficial, and too obviously, painstakingly constructed with coolness as a number one priority... I almost always want to throw the book down. But eventually, the plot starts up... and even though I'm not sure what is really going on, I find myself unable to stop reading, caught up in the flow. It's like Gibson finally relaxes, stops trying so hard to be hip and current, and starts writing. Then all is good again until the last chapter (which he probably wrote ahead of time, when working on the first couple). Also, I was disappointed that the elaborate, high-tech, expensive plan of action that is set up for several chapters, keeping me on edge and up way past my bedtime, met with such a sad, silly, dinky little foe. It's almost obscene, like a sumo wrestler beating up a 4 year old kid.
Lots of interesting concepts here, as with all William Gibson's works.
adventurous
challenging
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Fantastic parlor trick pulling all the elements of the trilogy into a huge, heartfelt and thrilling showstopper of a finale
Okay, so Gibson is a very particular kind of writer, with his style of fine-grained particularity about things that makes everything he turns his eye on a kind of fetish. And fetishes, as I think most adults know, are very specific-- it's lucky, then, when the reaction to the fetish is only boredom and some mild exasperation, as I felt with this book.
It's the third of the Bigend books, Bigend being the super-entrepreneur that's animated the last couple Gibson books, and this one features the return of ex-lead singer of the Curfew, who I thought was a delightful tour guide from the previous Bigend book. There, I loved her, and I think that might be why I thought that book was so great-- it also fetishized weird art, and post-rock from the late eighties, and the obsession some people have with that kind of music (me included, of course).
In this book, I didn't respond that strongly-- the cat nip here, I think, is meant to be the crazy hotel/ private club where the characters stay, and its elevator and beds. But it just didn't grab me, even though it was obviously meant to, since we keep returning to it in the book.
The scan here, too, seems sort of ungrounded, in the way that the heist at the heart of Spook Country never did-- the interest in jeans and whatever else was happening with the retired spies also hunting a contract to make the same for the military never really came together for me in a satisfying way. It felt like zero gravity as a plot.
I do think that the way the book engages the financial crisis is really interesting. Like, really really well done-- matter of fact, without being maudlin. And the very end, and the new status quo for Bigend is also appealing-- throughout this book, Bigend is compared to a Bond villain. I'm not sure that's the way I want him to go, but it might be fun if he did get down to some serious malfeasance. And now, it seems, he has that potential.
At the same time, the way characters from earlier Bigend books take curtain calls here makes me think that we've seen the last of them. In other words, I don't know where this goes next, if anywhere.
It's the third of the Bigend books, Bigend being the super-entrepreneur that's animated the last couple Gibson books, and this one features the return of ex-lead singer of the Curfew, who I thought was a delightful tour guide from the previous Bigend book. There, I loved her, and I think that might be why I thought that book was so great-- it also fetishized weird art, and post-rock from the late eighties, and the obsession some people have with that kind of music (me included, of course).
In this book, I didn't respond that strongly-- the cat nip here, I think, is meant to be the crazy hotel/ private club where the characters stay, and its elevator and beds. But it just didn't grab me, even though it was obviously meant to, since we keep returning to it in the book.
The scan here, too, seems sort of ungrounded, in the way that the heist at the heart of Spook Country never did-- the interest in jeans and whatever else was happening with the retired spies also hunting a contract to make the same for the military never really came together for me in a satisfying way. It felt like zero gravity as a plot.
I do think that the way the book engages the financial crisis is really interesting. Like, really really well done-- matter of fact, without being maudlin. And the very end, and the new status quo for Bigend is also appealing-- throughout this book, Bigend is compared to a Bond villain. I'm not sure that's the way I want him to go, but it might be fun if he did get down to some serious malfeasance. And now, it seems, he has that potential.
At the same time, the way characters from earlier Bigend books take curtain calls here makes me think that we've seen the last of them. In other words, I don't know where this goes next, if anywhere.
This was such a satisfying addition to the Bigend trilogy I couldn't put it down. It's Gibson's thick description at its finest, replete with cliffhangers and several Easter eggs, especially one for loyal fans, at the end.
Entertaining. Fashion for nerds. More Hollis Henry and Bigend.
I always liked Gibson's female protagonists, especially Hollis Henry. The book starts with the usual impenetrable facade of 'stuff so cool you won't ever understand it', but as the plot grows and we're introduced to the supporting cast it gets more interesting, building to a most satisfying conclusion.