Nice language, good flow, but the world Gibson creates is not as deep and the plot much simpler than usual. The main character holds her own but the world she moves through is much simpler than a usual Gibson text. ( )

Grand fun. Felt like a John Carre novel, but then it felt like a foreshadowing of the whole QAnon thing. Plenty of twists and turns, but not too too contrived. OK, maybe the resolution was a bit too resolved. Still, wonderfully paced, excellent flavors of places and people. ( )

I have a real love/hate relationship with Gibson's prose. There are times when I want to shout, "For the love of Mike, use complete sentences!" Other times I just melt at some lyrical turn of phrase he will use.

This is a typical Gibson story: of-the-moment tech and culture blended together with quirky (but realistic) characters.

I'm on the fence about rating this 3 or 4 stars. I'm going to wait a while and see how much the story and characters hang with me, now that I'm no longer reading. If they stay strong (like they were real people who told me their story), then I'll upgrade the rating to a 4.

[UPDATE: I've hiked my rating to 4 stars, in large part due to the strength of the other two stories in this series: [book:Spook Country|22322] and [b:Zero History|7745031|Zero History (Blue Ant, #3)|William Gibson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1282769471s/7745031.jpg|10567916]] ( )

I wanted to like it more. The writing is really good. Gibson can string words together. The truth is the book moved really slow and I didn't really care about the plot. Normally I would have given up in this book (the start was really slow). Only his writing style kept me going. Ultimately, it left me a little cold. ( )

Set a few minutes in the future, this is the story about marketing, paranoia, stalking, and crime. For me, a lot better than Neuromancer ( )

I...didn't get it. Honestly, that might be all there is to say. There were a lot of moving parts and a lot of evocative language, but ultimately, it didn't go anywhere to me. I felt like the pacing was so odd, there were topics that Gibson really perseverated on, like: someone broke into Damien's apartment! The apartment was broken into! Was the apartment broken into? We think someone broke into Damien's apartment! All of a sudden, it just occurred to me that the apartment might have been broke into and I need to process it because we've never discussed it before!
The pacing with characters was even stranger: Bigend's ex-girlfriend - who was never introduced on-screen, but was supposedly Cayce's best friend, who would spontaneously send e-mails and I had to remind myself who she was every single time. A lot of characters (like Magda and her brother, Ngemi and Hobbs) appeared from nowhere but somehow were implicitly trustworthy and part of the party?

Also, pilates. So much pilates. And yes, I really side-eye books where the male author spends a lot of time discussion the female protagonist's clothes and workout habits. Also, seriously, what is the obsession of male authors with destroying female character's clothing? This seems to be a trope of male action authors and it's dumb. How does Cayce manage to destroy two priceless jackets, one of which she's had for years in the course of a couple of weeks?

But my biggest problem is that it never went anywhere: the footage, Cayce's surreal logo allergy, her father-the-spy's mysterious disappearance: all of these gorgeous starting pieces didn't grew thematically, didn't grow together and ultimately never felt satisfying on a plot level, metaphysical level or thematic level.

( )

An interesting book, that's aging very quickly.

The book revolves around marketing, logos and brand perception, and the current culture of the time, both off and online.

When written, it was almost but not quite futuristic. Now it's a reach to drop yourself back into a world where toaster Power Macs and clamshell iBooks are admired rather than giggled at.

In fact, that's what makes the whole novel hard to appreciate - all the characters are driven by attachments to styles and fashions that seem so meaningless now, several years later, or perhaps my own biases are showing through.

There are threads here that eluded my grasp - I don't understand the Stuka at all.

If you're willing to put some work in, perhaps you'll adore this book as much as many reviews, but it will take some flexibility in outlook.

Objects in the rear view mirror are closer than they appear, indeed.
( )

Normally I read the kind of literary fiction where pages go by without anyone so much as thinking of doing something, let alone actually leaving the house. I'm not allergic to action, but there has to be something in there to engage the brain as well as the adrenal glands. I'm glad to say I was totally taken in by this novel. The plot was perfectly paced for my tastes, it asks interesting questions and the protagonist is totally engaging from very early on. I wanted CayceP to succeed, although it wasn't always clear what that might entail. Most of the other characters were well drawn, although Dorotea, and Hubertus Bigend (!), were a bit overdone. Because Cayce is so interesting I actually wanted to look up the cultural and design references I wasn't familiar with, whereas I normally consider that stuff just to be authorial posturing and skim over it. What's more, I found those references did help to flesh out her character, since her aesthetic is such an important part of who she is.

The prose is perfectly judged as well; it's not a genre that is likely to be bogged down by lyricism, but there is wit, precise action and moments of beauty beautifully described. I'll probably return to my usual world of literary fiction for a while, but next time I want a rollicking good story I'll probably turn again to William Gibson. ( )

As a non-spoilery comment... This book made me want, very badly, to visit London, New York, and Tokyo. ( )

Wow! ( )

It took a while to build up interest in the story, many page spent describing the clothes of the main character in a convoluted way to introduce her extreme reaction to fashion labels and trademarks (quite to plot device). Once the interest was developed, it was quickly lost durning the fairly contrived ending, with all the loose ends explained away over a dinner party. ( )

It's a section lifted out of the life of the main character. There's not so much with the traditional beginning, buildup, climax, and end. The flow of the book isn't as severe as you'd generally expect, and seems less forced because of it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The references to East Lansing, Michigan, where I work, were icing on the cake. ( )

I give this three instead of two stars only because Gibson had some lovely prose in this work, some excellent turns of phrase, moments where I went, "Ooh, that was nice." It felt like reading a Murakami novel, except Gibson remains too Western, and the inchoate mood never quite settled correctly. Murakami gets away with this somehow, drawing a plot and a character along a plot as through a dream. But I wanted something more concrete from Gibson. In particular, I was annoyed that Cayce's "allergy" didn't play more of a central role – it provided emotional subtext for her, but in the end seemed like a cool idea Gibson imagined, but couldn't figure out how to properly exploit. ( )

I give this three instead of two stars only because Gibson had some lovely prose in this work, some excellent turns of phrase, moments where I went, "Ooh, that was nice." It felt like reading a Murakami novel, except Gibson remains too Western, and the inchoate mood never quite settled correctly. Murakami gets away with this somehow, drawing a plot and a character along a plot as through a dream. But I wanted something more concrete from Gibson. In particular, I was annoyed that Cayce's "allergy" didn't play more of a central role – it provided emotional subtext for her, but in the end seemed like a cool idea Gibson imagined, but couldn't figure out how to properly exploit. ( )

This took a while to build on me but it definitely has Gibson's signature world building weirdness. Not as prophetic as neuromancer but it still has that same cyberpunk noir setting I love. In a world not unlike our own in the not at all future. Looking forward to reading more. ( )

Stylish, somehow deeply sci-fi feeling - not only without any sci-fi elements, but also despite its deep early-2000s-ness. Not sure I loved the ending but I liked the journey, and certainly the characters. It's fun prose! ( )

I first read this book many years ago and enjoyed it even more this time around. I find myself analyzing Gibson's amazing writing style as much as I enjoy the story itself. I think he could make an interesting story about any obscure subject. This is definitely the best book of the 3 (Spook Country, Zero History). ( )

I haven't read a lot of William Gibson's non-cyberpunk books, so I was expecting this story to take a turn towards the Sci-Fi for about a third of this volume. Instead, it remained a modern-day mystery with a bit of internet detail and very well-drawn characters. This book was written in 2001/2002, so it is unsurprising that it touches on the events of September 11, 2001 in a very direct way. I would've expected that to interfere with my enjoyment of a book, but in this case the author handled it in a way that made the story more impactful, not less.

The book started slow for me, and really didn't pick up momentum until about 2/3 through. There were some details in the story, especially aspects of the characters, that struck me as unrealistic, but none of them were dealbreakers. For instance, the main character is a tech-savvy brand-phobic marketing guru who is intensely aware of and interested in coolness. Someone like that would not, in 2002, use hotmail.

Overall, I'm not interested enough to read another book in this series, but this one wrapped up neatly enough that I don't feel like I'm missing anything.

New words and phrases I learned from this book:
Gimlet eyed: A piercing gaze (a gimlet being a tool that bores holes)
apophenia: they spontaneous perception of connections and meaningfulness in unrelated things
crepuscular: of or resembling twilight
noren: traditional Japanese fabric dividers, hung between rooms, on walls, in doorways, or in windows.
evert: turn outward or inside out ( )

An excellent book with an amazingly well-drawn main character. The ending itself seemed kind of sudden, but so much of the book up to that point was so excellent, it is easy to overlook this minor fault. ( )

Not great, but fine. Sort of Pynchon-lite minus the screwball. ( )

Do you live in the 21st century?
Do you have a computer?
Have you ever seen an advertisement?
Do you believe that if you saw a floating silver robotic penguin, it would be because those really exist, rather than a hallucination?
Read this book then. ( )

I think William Gibson is really just not my cup of tea. ( )

Brand-conscious

or

I want to get a new wardrobe after this. ( )

Aaargh! I read this because Scott Hawkins, the author if the amazing The Library at Mount Char, called it “criminally underappreciated.” Luckily I didn’t purchase it; I got it from the library, but still! (I also tried to read something by Jonathan Franzen because Lev Grossman recommended it, and I thought, “Anything recommended by the author of The Magicians must be awesome.” Ah, no. Weaponized boredom; didn’t get two pages in. Note to self: LITERARY TASTE IS NOT TRANSITIVE.)

Anyway, my thoughts. I will make no attempt to avoid “spoilers,” since you can’t “spoil” a boring slab of what-the-fuck-was-the-point-of-that.

The main character is Cayce, a specialized freelancer in marketing whose talent is evaluating logos for marketing oomph. She is weirdly sensitive to branding:

What people take for relentless minimalism is a side effect of too much exposure to the reactor-cores of fashion. This has resulted in a remoreseless pairing-down of what she can and will wear. She is, literally, allergic to fashion. She can only tolerate things that could have been worn, to a general lack of comment, during any year between 1945 and 2000. She’s a design-free zone, a one-woman school of anti whose very austerity periodically threatens to spawn its own cult.

In a mall:

Tommy Hilfiger does it every time... A glance to the right and the avalanche lets go. A mountainside of Tommy coming down on her head.

My God, don’t they know? This stuff is simulacra of simulacra of simulacra. A diluted tincture of Ralph Lauren, who had himself diluted the glory days of Brooks Brothers, who themselves had stepped on the product of Jermyn Street and Savile Row, flavoring their ready-to-wear with liberal lashings of polo knit and regimental stripes. But Tommy surely is the null point, the black hole. There must be some Tommy Hilfiger event horizon, beyond which it is impossible to be more derivative, more removed from the source, more devoid of soul. Or so she hopes, and doesn’t know, but suspects in her heart that this in fact is what accounts for his long ubiquity.

Cayce is particularly sensitive to the original version of the Michelin Man, a mascot known as Bibendum (“We drink.”). Her corporate enemy finds this out and uses it against her:

Dorotea takes her time unfastening the envelope. She reaches inside. Pulls out a square of art board the size of the last one. On it is the Michelin Man, in one of his earliest, most stomach-churningly creepy manifestations, not the inflated-maggot de-shelled Ninja Turtle of the present day, but that weird, jaded, cigar-smoking elder creature suggesting a mummy with elephantiasis. “Bibendum,” says Dorotea, softly.

Bibendum is described as creepy, and he makes Cayce freak out, but really he’s just dorky. There’s a pic of him here. If you follow the link you’ll see he’s just the Michelin Man, portrayed as the old stereotypical image of the Capitalist Fat Cat. He even has a monocle; well actually it has two lenses so I guess it’s a ...bionicle? Whatever.

Oh, yeah, the plot: It would be nice if there were one. What happens is: Our Heroine is a devotee of mysterious film footage that’s being anonymously released in bits and pieces on the Net. (Perhaps this seemed like a whiz-bang idea when the novel was published in 2003.) It’s not possible to tell whether the segments of footage are parts of a coherent story because they’re apparently being released in random order. One reason Cayce likes the footage is that the people in it wear clothes that cannot be dated to any particular time in the last half century (as of the novel’s publication).

Eventually some corporate dude who is interested in advertising engages Cayce to find out who the film’s makers are, and gives her an infinite expense account so she can go galivanting all over the planet looking for him/her/them.

And the big surprise is... the maker is a Russian chick who has suffered brain damage in a gang warfare bombing. Making the footage is her only way of interacting with the world.

...Yeah, so? It’s all very pointless. It actually is as pointless as it sounds; I’m not leaving out anything important.

Also, annoying plot features: (1) A crucial bit of evidence is supplied by a guy whom Our Heroine literally happens to meet on a street. Plotting by coincidence, ugh. (2) The main bad guy, the woman who exposes Cayce to the Michelin Man of Dread, later on tells her to drink some water that she, the bad guy, has provided, and Cayce actually does so. For fuck’s sake! Of course it’s drugged, and Our Heroine has a brief stay in a Russian mental-hospital-cum-jail as a result. In reality no one would be that stupid, obviously.

How did this get published? ( )

Slick, and cool, and wonderful. I normally don't pay much attention to descriptions of place and setting, but Gibson's are - pardon the cliché - vivid as any I've ever read. From the narrow alleys of Camden Lock and Portobello Road in London to the cobblestone streets of SoHo in New York to the otaku bright lights of Tokyo, Gibson firmly and directly puts you there.

I'll be browsing F:F:F, for sure. ( )