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Title: Spook Country
ISBN: 0399154302
Author:
William Gibson
Publicate Date: 2007-08-07
Publish: 2007-08-07
List Price: $25.95
Average Customer Rating: 3.0
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $8.98
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $4.92
Amazon Merchant Price: $14.20
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1: Not feelin' it
The only reason I gave two stars instead of one is that I like the fact that Gibson injects some meta-criticism of his older thinking (in particular the reason why virtual reality isn't what it used to be). But as far as a "literary thriller," this book doesn't fly. There was never a point where I was feeling anything. The characters were completely passive and flat, the plot listless, without any interesting twists or turns, and just a smattering of media theory (the best part). None of the characters were believable or made sense. Their motivations were mostly inexplicable.
It's ironic that Stockholm Syndrome is mentioned more than once considering that a) most of the characters were captives to their fate and destiny, and b) like story's various hostages, I as a reader felt captive by a droll narrative because I am hugely sympathetic to Gibson's mind and his books. I particularly loved his last book, Pattern Recognition, so I'm a little disappointed by the follow-up (yes this is a sequel in the vague way that the Sprawl trilogy connected through through peripheral characters).
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2: Not Gibson's best, but...
Spook Country
William Gibson
Penguin/Viking
William Gibson is justifiably renowned as one of the key founders of the now vast realm of cyberpunk. His 1986 novel Neuromancer was a foundation stone for a new style of futuristic fiction; high tech but gritty. The opening line of the novel said it all: "The sky above the port was the colour of television tuned to a dead channel."
In Gibson's world voodoo met with artificial intelligence. It was a dark realm of worrisome virtual realities. It was a soaring burst of imagination that, at the time, had no equivalent.
Since that time Gibson has gradually been re-inventing himself, coming closer to the present day with each book. His latest, Spook Country, is very much placed in the here and now, resonant with references to 9/11, the Iraq war and corruption within the current American administration. At heart it is a thriller, without the flourishes of remarkable futurism that marked Gibson's earlier works and as such it will be a disappointment to those hoping for the surreal leaps of vision in his earlier works. But Spook Country remains resolutely a Gibson book, replete with references to the gods and goddesses of voodoo belief. Here the iPod meets the goddess Ochun and a drug called RIZE clashes with the muscular, athletic god Oshosi.
The promotional blurb for Spook Country claims that the novel is "J.G. Ballard meets John Le Carr??", but the novel is far too American for it to fit into such a bizarre English context. One suspects that the Canadian-born Gibson is more influenced by the paranoiac sci-fi of Philip K. Dick and the stylistic tropes of Raymond Chandler, both denizens of Los Angeles where much of the novel is set.
Sense of place is a major aspect of Spook Country. Elements of LA and New York City are captured brilliantly. As one of the key protagonists, the youthful Cuban exile Tito, sprints through Canal Street in New York one can envisage the setting immediately. But although this is New York post-9/11 - a fact that is central to the story - Gibson fails to capture the sense of displacement many New Yorkers still feel, a sensation rendered palpable in Don DeLillo's latest novel, Falling Man.
Like DeLillo, Gibson uses an artist as one of his triggers to get the action rolling, in this case an artist who uses a kind of virtual reality recreation of past events such as the death of River Pheonix. The artwork is the ostensible subject of a feature story for a not-yet existent magazine called Node to be written by a former indie-rock singer Hollis Henry. It rapidly becomes apparent that Node will probably never exist and its' supposed publisher is seeking something else entirely. Running parallel to this story are the mysterious goings on of a group of Cubans, especially the athletic Tito who summons the aid of Ochun and Oshosi when necessary, a CIA-type thug and a drug addled character called Milgrim.
Central to the book is the `producer' Bobby Chombo, a paranoid and reclusive troubleshooter for manufacturers of military navigation equipment who refuses to sleep in the same place twice. Hollis Henry has been told by her editor to find him but not told why.
With his sprawling matrix of characters the narrative moves along at break-neck pace. Mis-information transfer run by the Cubans - often via i-Pod - constantly misleads shadow-agents of the government. Also central is the fortune of American cash set aside to help re-build Iraq that has been pirated away for other, unspecified, but clearly corrupt, uses.
At times Gibson's narrative soars, at others it is dogged down by slightly lame character development. It is ideal Winter reading but fails to claim anything like the cultural potency of Neuromancer.
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3: Wonderful Read
Continuing in the near-future world of Bigend and Blue Ant, "Spook Country" mixes complex twists and turns, multiple threads and rich character studies. This book takes longer than "Pattern Recognition" to set-up, but the payoff is well worth the effort.
[That's all I'll say in comparison, as comparison reviews fill me with inertia, and imho are almost useless]
Gibson possesses the magical ability to transport readers, and this book did that to me once again. More, more, more please.
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4: Gibson at His Best
A sequel to "Pattern Recognition" and a more than worthy successor. I can hardly wait for the third book of Gibson's latest trilogy!
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5: An Enjoyable Read
Spook Country
If you haven't read William Gibson before this is the not what I recommend you start with. I don't think its his best work to date.
I think Pattern Recognition is one of his best, most accesable books set in the current period so far.
I do appreciate his attemps to put his vision and writing style on current day events. And even though I didn't enjoy this book as thoroughly as some of this others, I'll still keep reading anything he puts out because of his captivating writing style and point of view I just don't get anywhere else.
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