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A review by vdarcangelo
Spook Country by William Gibson
2.0
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2007/aug/10/ideas-outshine-characters-in-fast-paced/
This review originally appeared in the ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
Ideas outshine characters in fast-paced technothriller
Vince Darcangelo, Special to the Rocky
Published August 10, 2007 at midnight
Plot in a nutshell: In his acclaimed books Neuromancer and Pattern Recognition, Gibson coined the term "cyberspace" and predicted the Internet and the proliferation of user-generated film clips, such as those found on YouTube. In his new novel, he again explores emerging technology and its impact on society.
Hollis Henry is a former rock-singer-turned-magazine-writer. A fluff assignment turns sinister when Henry begins to question the identity of her employer - a magazine that doesn't yet exist and seems to have unlimited funds.
Henry soon learns that her assignment about an emerging virtual reality art form isn't about the art but rather its reclusive genius, who's involved in a political scandal with higher stakes than high art.
But Henry is not alone. There's also Milgrim and Brown, a petty criminal and his drug-pushing captor who may or may not be a government agent pursuing a shipment of data code-carrying iPods. And Tito, an up-and-coming crime family operative who is about to "disappear" after a big mission.
Along the way, Henry secures the assistance of Inchmale, her former band mate/lover, and dines with the mysterious advertising magnate who bankrolls her investigation - but are his intentions benign? Eventually, the story lines intersect in Vancouver, where a dirty political secret brings the characters to a so-so climax.
Sample of prose: "She remembered Inchmale describing Stockholm syndrome, the fondness and loyalty one could supposedly come to feel for even the most brutal captor. She wondered whether she might be experiencing something like that, here. Inchmale thought that America had developed Stockholm syndrome toward its own government, post 9/11."
Pros: Maneuvering the quick-hit chapters and shifting points of view is like being rushed through an art gallery. You take in patterns and forms, but can't fully digest anything before being led down the next corridor. This puts you on edge and makes for a solid page-turner.
Cons: Gibson bombards readers with multiple story lines early on, and for several chapters, I felt as though I'd walked into the middle of a conversation. In addition, he writes Henry out of every jam with deus ex machina ease. Despite stumbling upon a massive political/military scandal and crossing paths with secret government agents, a crime family and millions in dirty money, Henry is never in harm's way.
Final word: Like Gibson's other books, Spook Country offers a complex vision of a world in which art and military technology cross paths, where iPods and wireless Internet layer virtual reality on the physical world, and where sometimes the greatest commodity is information. It deserved stronger characters to carry the book's grand ideas.
This review originally appeared in the ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
Ideas outshine characters in fast-paced technothriller
Vince Darcangelo, Special to the Rocky
Published August 10, 2007 at midnight
Plot in a nutshell: In his acclaimed books Neuromancer and Pattern Recognition, Gibson coined the term "cyberspace" and predicted the Internet and the proliferation of user-generated film clips, such as those found on YouTube. In his new novel, he again explores emerging technology and its impact on society.
Hollis Henry is a former rock-singer-turned-magazine-writer. A fluff assignment turns sinister when Henry begins to question the identity of her employer - a magazine that doesn't yet exist and seems to have unlimited funds.
Henry soon learns that her assignment about an emerging virtual reality art form isn't about the art but rather its reclusive genius, who's involved in a political scandal with higher stakes than high art.
But Henry is not alone. There's also Milgrim and Brown, a petty criminal and his drug-pushing captor who may or may not be a government agent pursuing a shipment of data code-carrying iPods. And Tito, an up-and-coming crime family operative who is about to "disappear" after a big mission.
Along the way, Henry secures the assistance of Inchmale, her former band mate/lover, and dines with the mysterious advertising magnate who bankrolls her investigation - but are his intentions benign? Eventually, the story lines intersect in Vancouver, where a dirty political secret brings the characters to a so-so climax.
Sample of prose: "She remembered Inchmale describing Stockholm syndrome, the fondness and loyalty one could supposedly come to feel for even the most brutal captor. She wondered whether she might be experiencing something like that, here. Inchmale thought that America had developed Stockholm syndrome toward its own government, post 9/11."
Pros: Maneuvering the quick-hit chapters and shifting points of view is like being rushed through an art gallery. You take in patterns and forms, but can't fully digest anything before being led down the next corridor. This puts you on edge and makes for a solid page-turner.
Cons: Gibson bombards readers with multiple story lines early on, and for several chapters, I felt as though I'd walked into the middle of a conversation. In addition, he writes Henry out of every jam with deus ex machina ease. Despite stumbling upon a massive political/military scandal and crossing paths with secret government agents, a crime family and millions in dirty money, Henry is never in harm's way.
Final word: Like Gibson's other books, Spook Country offers a complex vision of a world in which art and military technology cross paths, where iPods and wireless Internet layer virtual reality on the physical world, and where sometimes the greatest commodity is information. It deserved stronger characters to carry the book's grand ideas.