Rating: 
Summary: Oh so close
Review: As a marketing guy with otaku for cool, I loved the first 60 pages, warts and all. Gibson immerses us in a world of uber-marketing, where people like Cayce Pollard can earn a living by consulting on logo design with a simple "yes" or "no".I had hoped he would continue in this sleek, trendy, semi-readable style, but from about this point forward it turns into a fairly predictable, but engrossing and enjoyable story of Cayce's search for "the maker", the artist who is slowly releasing footage (snippets of video) into the backwaters of the Internet. Gibson has matured in his prose style, so even though the contemporary subject will not resonate with fans of his earlier works, Pattern Recognition is more readable and less juvenile than his cyberpunk work, making it more palatable to mainstream readers. Not perfect, but still fun. (Psst. William, too much email, not enough IM. Hang out with more 15 year olds.)
Rating: 
Summary: I want a Rickson jacket like Cayce's
Review: Cayce Pollard doesn't just hunt cool: she *is* cool. Attired in anonymous Cayce Pollard Units (CPUs) in shades of black and gray, she jets around the world, meeting intriguing characters and acquiring snippets of information designed to lead her to the creators of mysterious Internet-disseminated video footage. Gibson skillfully conveys action, with Cayce narrowly escaping danger and extricating herself from dire situations a la James Bond. There are break-ins, spy-vs-spy encounters, double-crosses and triple-crosses. The good guys prove to be the bad guys, and then sometimes become good guys again. Or maybe vice versa. To fully appreciate the magic of this book, the reader needs to suspend disbelief: the plot may hang together but it doesn't quite make sense; the characters, etched with the driest India ink, seem one-dimensional. (You would probably rather not peek into their psyches anyway.) The video clips that serve as the motivation for the frenetic action hardly seem worth the effort (the premise reminds me of the Internet marketing frenzy that energized the Blair Witch phenomenon of 1999). And how, I wanted to know, could Gibson have given his protagonist a passion for Pilates, the uber-fitness fad of the decade and something that a trendophobe like Cayce would eschew? No matter. The less time you spend staring at the roller coaster gears, the more you'll enjoy the ride. Quirky Cayce, a minimalist leading a maximal existence, will help you hold on tight as you scramble breathlessly through the pages, mentally juggling all the plot points and characters and wondering if Gibson will be able to pull the threads together by the end. He does, with a denouement that I initially found unsatisfying. Or maybe I just couldn't bear the thought that the book had come to an end. Gibson's deft touch keeps the reader from dwelling on whatever flaws exist. This is the perfect book for a winter read: long enough to last a few evenings by the fireplace and substantial enough to stick to your ribs.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I went out and picked up this book having never read anything by Gibson before, but being a huge Neal Stephenson fan. So, I expected an intense cyberpunk novel that would blow me mind like Snow Crash or Cryptonomicon. Maybe my expectations were too high but I found this book to be slow and awkward. Although the book is set in present day, the world Gibson portrayed was more abstract to me than the virtual reality in Snow Crash. I mean, the main character has a phobia of trademarks, but she herself is a trademark designer... I'll give Gibson's other works a try, but if you are new to Gibson (like myself) I'd recommend not starting out with Pattern Recognition.
Rating:
Summary: Present day. Present tense.
Review: As has been noted, this book take place in the present. I'm not sure if anyone has pointed out that this book is also written entirely in present tense. Maybe Gibson wanted to underscore the fact that this work was not some distant future, rather the future is now. The only other point worth mentioning is that Gibson reuses a theme from Count Zero. The protagonist is hired by a wealthy business man to track down the source of the footage and given the financial means to do so. Similarly, Virek hires Marly in CZ to find the maker of the boxes. This results in a mild speedbump in the suspension of disbelief around page 50. All in all, a beautifully written work. I once described reading Gibson to a friend as channeling the future in the form of some elegant, alien prose. This is much the same minus the future.
Rating: 
Summary: Revisit The Present Tense
Review: I didn't find this book boring. Far from it. While it isn't phenomenal or groundbreaking as some of Gibson's other works are, it does cast our world in a different light. Particularly our society's fascination with designer labels and 'Net subculture. The book is a moody piece of work. Hip but not daring. Slow but always fascinating. I'm not going to rundown the plot, as others have already done so. I will say something about the ending, which is a bit of a letdown. Your mind has a million, more satisfying ideas about where the plot could have led. Instead, it ends up being rather pedestrian and the book suffers for it, particularly since its something of a detective story. Everything about the book is leading towards it and then it just...ends. Blah.
Rating:
Summary: William Gibson's Satisfying, Lyrical Look at the Present
Review: "Pattern Recognition" is William Gibson's best novel since "Virtual Light" and the first set in a present that seems uncannily like the world described in his "Cyberspace" trilogy of novels ("Neuromancer", "Count Zero" and "Mona Lisa Overdrive"). Yet stylistically it owes more to his sparse lyrical prose style that he used so adroitly in his last two novels, "Idoru" and "All Tomorrow's Parties" than any of his previous work. Although set in the present, William Gibson's latest tale owes much to his cyberpunk science fiction, especially with regards to the vast visual sweep of the tale and how his protagonist interacts with contemporary internet society (Speaking of which I doubt I have read a more realistic, genuine appreciation of internet culture elsewhere; Gibson's portrayal is unquestionably the Real McCoy.). "Pattern Recognition" has yet another uncanny William Gibson plot that seems short on substance and is just as unresolvable, yet somehow he manages to bring this relentless tale to a satisfying conclusion. "Coolhunter" Cayce Pollard is hired by a megalomanic tycoon to search out the source of invisible video snippets posted to the Web which have caught not only his attention, but also Cayce's and that of her small band of internet friends too. Meanwhile she must cope with her father's mysterious disappearance in lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001 at the time of the World Trade Center terrorist attack. Cayce's quest will take her from London to Tokyo and finally, Moscow, where she finds the unexpected source of these video snippets and some clues which may help resolve what did happen to her father - a former American intelligence agent - on that fateful morning. Without question, William Gibson is one of the most interesting literary stylists currently working in fiction. Those who have ignored his earlier work because it is science fiction are missing the splendid work of one of the finest writers of our time. "Pattern Recogntion" is the quintessential novel of our time, deserving to be read by all interested in understanding not only contemporary Internet culture, but indeed, contemporary Western culture.
Rating:
Summary: New style for Gibson
Review: The new Gibson book is stylistically different from the closing of his second trilogy 'All Tomorrow's Parties'. It was clear to everyone that his style was changing from hyper stylized and saturated Neuromancer to almost impressionist Zen fable like 'Parties'.It is different not only in style but also in structure as Gibson has written his most linear novel yet... At turns funny and to the point when observing supporting characters this is also Gibson's first real mainstream novel that has nothing with SF yet owes everything to it for it's attitude and way of looking at our ordinary world which contains extraordinary characters and events if one knows how to look a certain way. The terrorist attack on NYC and Pollard's...father are both a metaphor for the above. Use of email exchange between characters as a narrative device is as accomplished
as an old style XIX century epistolary novel could be. Not a revolutionary invention of a sub genre or a near future narrative this book is something new for a Gibson and proves his early success was not an accident. Will it be a trilogy? I certainly hope so.
Rating:
Summary: Great but flawed
Review: This latest book isn't set in the future, but Gibson's world of today somehow manages to feel rather like his world of the future did a few years ago. I enjoyed it immensely. The story was strange and interesting, the characters quirky and unusual, and the atmosphere thick and compelling. Most of the action in Pattern Recognition takes place in several very different major world cities, and we get a well formed impression of each place. I get the feeling that Gibson did a lot of travelling to gather material for this work. After reading it, I feel as if my own life has a stranger and more epic aspect -- that's a measure either of how impressionable I am or how good a writer Gibson is... or both! With all that being said, I still found several flaws. There are factual errors and I had a few problems with the ending. First the errors: - Gibson repeatedly says that computer animation is rendered by large groups of people. It's not. It's rendered by large groups of machines. - He talks about the risk of someone listening in on a cell phone conversation "if they get your frequency". In fact none of the modern cell phones the characters are using would be analog, so they can't be easily listened in on in any case. And they all use the same frequency band. I wish they'd run these books by some people with real technical backgrounds who can fix these problems before such a book gets published. It would be so easy to do. Other issues: - The ending seems rushed, and the mechanism by which all the plot intricacies are explained is too easy. - Gibson deprives the main characters from figuring out parts of the mystery. But all these being said, I still consider the book entirely enjoyable and a real work of art. If you've ever liked anything Gibson's done, get this one. Even though it doesn't take place in the future time of Neuromancer, our own time is strange enough to carry the same feeling.
Rating:
Summary: Whatever happened to the Netrunner?
Review: Netrunners everywhere. Over-advertising on every street corner. A paranoid government. This is the present. Our world. Outside your window. Sound like the introduction to Neuromancer? Ironically, Gibson now writes fiction about a real world which bears many striking similatities to his fiction of years past, dealing with topics and ideals we can see in our everyday lives. That said, the book itself is quite good, though not truly gibson-esque as cyberpunk-junkies would recognize. I couldn't wrap my mind around every page, and there are some recognizably slow-as-molasses moments where you're tempted to skip ahead. But by the end, it is inescapably Gibson. BTW-What really strikes me is that this book could technically be called an early prequel to neuromancer. Though the current thoughts of the future are undoubtedly different than those found in the early 1980s, Gibson seems to have a polymorphic (there, I used some geek lingo. HAPPY?!) future in mind, with set themes but ever-changing scenery.
Rating:
Summary: Gibson Gets Real
Review: Dropped into a new local bookstore Fri evening, wanting something to read, rather than reread, over the weekend. Ended up picking Gibson's latest, Pattern Recognition. First off...I liked this book - a lot; thinking it over I think it's my favorite of all Gibson's books - possibly because there's an underlying element of "sweetness" in the book's mood that keeps the pervasive vision of social anomie and paranoia at delicate bay.
The protagonist, Cayce Pollard is a "cool hunter" - an (expensive) trendspotter for hire. She's also an internet "footage" buff - footage being seemingly random snips of a movie (complete or work in progress ?) that's being released by an anonymous auteur (sp) to the obsessive interest of a growing clique of footage heads all over the world. She's also the daughter of an (ex) CIA honcho who seemingly disappeared in 9/11 & has a mother who tries to communicate w/ the dead (her Cayce's named after the Va. "clairvoyant"). Pattern Recognition operates explicitly in several arenas at once: 1. Cayce trying out new "brand" ids - seeing if they'll work or not; 2. attempting to find a pattern in the "footage" - where does it come from, what does it mean, who's responsible; 3. what's going on w/ the global economic system; 4. what happened to her dad. Being a responsible author, Gibson naturally ties all these threads together in a novel fraught w/ betrayal, dubious relationship, virtual friendships which solidify in the "real" world and hope.
anyway..i liked it.
bob
"the poundin' of the drums, our pride & disgrace" barry mcguire/ pf sloane(?)
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