IS Gibson selling out to APC and iPod? Or is he playing their game and exposing it to the reader?

Beside that... it is a very good representation of actual spy transfers

After reading the reviews here i was somewhat dismayed. Could all that nattering point to *exactly* what Gibson prefers to sidestep? His stories are fun. No they aren't thrillers and they aren't violent, they are wonderfully written imaginative stories with gentle, optimistic endings - have all you nabobs fallen into the pit our culture has dug ("if it isn't nasty, violent and edgy - it ain't good")?

So real after these last money melting weeks.
A must read to get away from it all.

Gibson, for me was always an automatic read. Still is. Since I have recently read 'easy' novels (like Twilight, on the request of my daughter), I was slowed and confused by the first couple of pages. I forgot what a constant wall of cultural references was like, and how it makes one think. Then it becomes fun, and interesting.

I am no longer impressed by gratuitous wacky descriptions, like "the sky was like the polished steel of an assassin's blade" - not the Gibson ever says that, but he more or less perfected the art. He has a whole new batch of that stuff for this novel. Some of it is fun, and some I just gloss over. I must admit that I am his ideal audience because I more or less 'got' all of his references, and cultural/technical references are the joie de vivre of this novel.

I liked the spy part: very smart, and I was only slightly disappointed when I guessed the ending 50 pages before the end. That didn't keep me from staying up two hours too late just to get to it. It closes nicely, I was never bored.

What I didn't like was the political aspect of it. I am perfectly capable of forming my own conspiracy theories about the Iraq war, which are not really incompatible with his, but I'm both intrigued and disgruntled to find that in a 'spy' novel.

Yes, I'll still buy, and read his next novel. He hasn't turned me off as bad as Neil Stephenson did with that boring 'Baroque Cycle' thing (blech), or David Brin with 'Infinity's Shore' (double blech). How do great authors get boring? I'm still a Gibson fan.

This book reads like a chore. The style is smug, the plot is plodding, and the abrupt chapters make it impossible to become truly immersed in it. There are a few redeeming qualities here, but don't waste your time sifting through this swamp to get to them. Read this book if you're stuck in an elevator, otherwise, move on.