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A review by adamchalmers
Spook Country by William Gibson
4.0
People keep commenting offhandedly that we're living in the cyberpunk age. This book convinced me they're right.
Spook Country doesn't involve new technology, new governments or history or events. It's just the governments we know, using technology we know they have, to do things they've been doing for decades. But it puts these real-world elements together into a story for the first time. And suddenly you realize that the world's changed. We're not living in a comedy. We're living in a William Gibson novel. We're living the pre-Neuromancer.
Brilliant prose. Characters are a bit hit-and-miss but, as always, the story is thrilling. The story's backgrounded by VR/AR and GPS technology, and how (like most military tech) it eventually becomes a tool for artists. Very relevant as wearables, Glass, Oculus etc all approach public release.
Like the previous book Pattern Recognition, I'm shocked it was written BEFORE Snowden and not after. Although I guess I wasn't paying as much attention as Gibson was.
Spook Country doesn't involve new technology, new governments or history or events. It's just the governments we know, using technology we know they have, to do things they've been doing for decades. But it puts these real-world elements together into a story for the first time. And suddenly you realize that the world's changed. We're not living in a comedy. We're living in a William Gibson novel. We're living the pre-Neuromancer.
Brilliant prose. Characters are a bit hit-and-miss but, as always, the story is thrilling. The story's backgrounded by VR/AR and GPS technology, and how (like most military tech) it eventually becomes a tool for artists. Very relevant as wearables, Glass, Oculus etc all approach public release.
Like the previous book Pattern Recognition, I'm shocked it was written BEFORE Snowden and not after. Although I guess I wasn't paying as much attention as Gibson was.