A review by branch_c
Spook Country by William Gibson

3.0

This book started off in a promising way for me, but as with most of Gibson's work, it could not quite hold my attention and deliver on that promise. Again I found myself noticing a similarity to Stephenson's writing, in a good way. The setup for the mystery and eventual conflict is intricately and cleverly plotted. But as the story went on, the similarity I noticed more was to le Carré - the focus is on who is watching whom, who is paying whom, who is in league with which other shadowy figures offstage. I suppose this sort of spycraft could be interesting, but here, as in le Carré, it's sparingly presented to the reader in pages of well-written, but mundane, and for me, largely tedious detail. The eventual resolution and payoff was just average.

Likewise my feeling about the characters started off strong, but ended decidedly mixed. Hollis is a great character, including her backstory and inner monologue - engaging and well done. Brown and Milgrim, on the other hand? Could not possibly have been cared less about their story (which is a good thing, because I just finished reading the book and I've already forgotten how they ended up). Tito and company - somewhere in the middle, but more toward the latter.

So I think three is a fair rating, and I haven't given up on Gibson yet; will likely move on to the third in this series, Zero History, since I already have the book, and may give The Peripheral a try since I enjoyed the TV adaptation.