Review of Spook Country
December 17th, 2007Spook Country, William Gibson’s latest novel, is a departure from the science fiction of his I love and enjoy. The book is something of a follow-up to Pattern Recognition, which is also set in the present as a modern semiotician’s wet dream, and structured the same way. The book starts off with no discernible direction, and rarely does the reader know what the next action of any of the characters will be. In this way it can be disconcerting when a lull in the plot line occurs.
I was fine with Pattern Recognition. In fact, I enjoyed it very much. There was a single protagonist who was wonderfully eccentric and possessed a sharp wit. In Spook Country, there are three protagonists whose interrelations become known only in the later parts of the book, leaving the beginning muddled and twisty. The thriller part of Spook Country is decent, but sort of pulpy, and lacks the novelty of the thrills in Pattern Recognition. Finally, the technological side of Spook Country sucks. Locative art? Seriously? This was new and interesting in 2003. Then the whole genre never materialized. There’s never been any standard toolset for viewing or creating locative art, so it’s in hibernation. Gibson tries to present this type of art as new and exciting, but it is boring. Wiretaps? Echelon? Old news. Gone are the stunning virtual landscapes of Neuromancer, whose novelty is its strength.
It’s still an interesting read towards the end, when the action actually begins. But it feels more like a B action movie than a William Gibson book.
