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A review by songwind
Spook Country by William Gibson
1.0
This was the most elegantly written bad book I have read in a long time.
As usual, Gibson's use of language was excellent and evocative. He clearly researched his topics.
The problem comes from the fact that several of the topics were completely unnecessary, and added little or nothing to the story. Hollis Henry and the locative art angle, and by extension Bigend, Ollie, Odile, and the various artists were completely useless. There was no consequence to their actions. Nothing in the main plot involving the mystery box ended up being affected by their actions. But we still get dozens if not 100+ pages about them, and locative art.
The same is true of Milgrim and his heresy obsession. Milgrim performs one action, one time. There is no reason Brown couldn't have had his skill set, or a computer programmed to do the same thing. Instead we get page upon page about Rize, Ativan, and middle ages heresy. For nothing.
The Santeria angle is equally unnecessary, but at least it is background into Tito, who has the singular distinction on actually accomplishing something. Even then, he was just a foot soldier taking orders, not an actor in his own right.
To be honest, this book reads as though Gibson laid out a list of his current interests (messianism, Santeria, rich people, locative art, product placement, freerunning) and decided to see how he could shoehorn them into a book.
I was so very disappointed.
As usual, Gibson's use of language was excellent and evocative. He clearly researched his topics.
The problem comes from the fact that several of the topics were completely unnecessary, and added little or nothing to the story. Hollis Henry and the locative art angle, and by extension Bigend, Ollie, Odile, and the various artists were completely useless. There was no consequence to their actions. Nothing in the main plot involving the mystery box ended up being affected by their actions. But we still get dozens if not 100+ pages about them, and locative art.
The same is true of Milgrim and his heresy obsession. Milgrim performs one action, one time. There is no reason Brown couldn't have had his skill set, or a computer programmed to do the same thing. Instead we get page upon page about Rize, Ativan, and middle ages heresy. For nothing.
The Santeria angle is equally unnecessary, but at least it is background into Tito, who has the singular distinction on actually accomplishing something. Even then, he was just a foot soldier taking orders, not an actor in his own right.
To be honest, this book reads as though Gibson laid out a list of his current interests (messianism, Santeria, rich people, locative art, product placement, freerunning) and decided to see how he could shoehorn them into a book.
I was so very disappointed.