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“William Gibson could have hung up his hat with the publication of Neuromancer. Like the great science fiction authors Wells and Verne, Gibson got everything right except for all that stuff he got wrong. And the first cyberpunk novel went on to influence so many areas of culture and thought that when read today it looks cliché and formulaic, and so does Citizen Kane or Lord of the Rings and for much the same reason. He mainlined the future, describing what was to come in overlapping realms of cyberspace and the Sprawl. In 1984, he saw tomorrow in all its gritty, static-filled complexity, and used that vision to give us a better view of today.
Trapping the zeitgeist is William Gibson’s gift. Turning noise to signal. Filtering out the irrelevant. He takes a few simple stories, weaves them together and presents us with a map of our world. Cyberpunk in a faded, dated notion now, so he has again gathered his tools, and produced a work which speaks to the peculiar position in which we find ourselves as post-9/11 citizens. Using his unusual knack for seeing a picture in a wall of snow, he gives us Spook Country: a novel not so much about the power of Big Brother as the powers which oppose and offset it and about the moves each of us are capable of making unnoticed behind the scenes.
Unlike much of his previous work, Spook Country lacks obvious science fiction elements, touching only briefly on the potential of VR and GPS. For those who enjoyed Gibson’s cyberpunk novels more for their noir feel, their appealing characters, and their glimpses of what is possible, than for their science and tech, this novel is not so much a change in genre as a change in venue. A spy story complete with a faded pop star, an ex-CIA operative, and a MacGuffin which won’t disappoint. Like Neuromancer before it, Spook Country distills the ambient energy of our time and returns it to us clarified – relevant bits set off by colored light and sinister shadow – a short guide to Now.
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mostdays wrote this review Monday, September 24 2007.
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