Pattern Recognition

Rating:
Summary: Sloppy Sloppy Editing! What's up?
Review: I'm a huge Gibson fan, bought Pattern Recognition Saturday and finished it Sunday. It's very provocative, especially for anyone interested in technology, the internet, advertising, and how they (could) intersect.

I liked it very, very much, though not as much as Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive and Neuromancer, which are on a higher plane.

My big beef here isn't with Gibson (though I suppose since he is the author maybe he shoulders some of the blame), but with the atrocious editing by the publisher, Putnam.

All of five paragraphs into the first page, there's the first error:

"...the nameless hour deeper, more null, its affect (sic) at once stranger and less interesting?"

Not a great start. Okay, I thought, maybe it's part of a new style Gibson's trying, or thematically perhaps the book is about semiotics and linguistics (and in a sense, which book isn't?). But then on the VERY NEXT PAGE, there's a punctuation issue :

"The plugs on appliances are huge, triple-pronged, for a species of current that only powers electric chairs, in America." Why is there a comma after "chairs"? It doesn't need it. In fact, the book reflects a rather exuberant use of commas, which I don't recall as a Gibson trademark.

Then on page 6. ""People smoke, and drink as though it were good for you, and seem to still be in some sort of honeymoon phase with cocaine." Why the comma after "smoke"? Again, perhaps I'm nitpicking, but in my mind it's pure sloppiness, especially when the book's heroine is a meticulous observer/chronicler of pop culture in all its fissures and permutations; the heroine is a perfectionist, so these grammar/editing mistakes annoy even more.

Speaking of which, Varick Street is spelled, wrongly, "Varrick" on page 186.

And here's a horrible string of sentences that any sixth grade teacher worth her salt would make an author rewrite:

P. 194: "Just now she wishes lives could be replaced as easily, but knows that that isn't right. However odd things seem, mustn't it be to exactly that extent of oddness that a life is one's own, and no one else's? Hers has never been without its share of oddness, but something in its recent texture seems to belong to someone else." That's verbatim, folks.

P. 204. Cyprus, the island, is initially spelled "Cypress," then spelled correctly three times directly below. At this point, I felt like calling Putnam to demand the head of the "proofreader"!

P. 205 A rare occasion where "had had" appears TWICE IN THE SAME SENTENCE: "Katherine had had doubts about Cayce concluding, it was true, but they had come to an agreement, and had had a good closure." I begin to feel physically ill. Who was sabotaging my beloved Gibson?

I loved the book, hated the sloppy editing. I hope the author and his publishers correct the next edition.

Rating:
Summary: The future is already here
Review: As a huge fan of Gibson's previous works, I was very excited to hear that his latest book Pattern Recognition would be set in the present (or very recent past). After thoroughly enjoying his last three books which, although a sequential series, seem to be moving backwards in time towards now, this new book promised to deliver on Gibson's often quoted aphorism "the future is already here; it's just not well distributed." Of all his works so far, I find Pattern Recognition the most provocative, memorable and hopeful. I am on my second read right now, highlighter in hand...

Rating:
Summary: Psychological
Review: A very good read for someone new in this genre. This book has a very cool theme, taking you through suspenseful events that are far from ordinary. Take yourself away with this one. It's definitely worth the money to get away. I also recommend Dreams: Gateway to the True Self, for a dose of self-motivation.

Rating:
Summary: A Good One
Review: Most readers of this one will be attracted, like I was, because it's a William Gibson novel. When your resume includes Neuromancer and you coined the term "cyberspace" your new book tends to attract a lot of attention. Don't be disappointed....this is a good novel.....it's just not going to set the world on fire. With a title like pattern recognition, I was expecting a lot....what you get is a story of a coolhunter (which is a great concept based on pattern recognition used for marketing prediction) combined with an Internet video (somewhat like "The Ring"'s script) and a personal detective story (which builds on the 911 disasters - sorry, but that's a cheap shot to me).

The paranoia of most of Gibson's writing does come through (I refuse to ruin the book for you by giving details in a review). This is a good story by a great writer. If Gibson is going to build a body of work that is substantial, we can't expect each piece to be an instant classic. Personally, I'd rather have a good or great series of works from him over the next couple of decades instead of having to settle for 2 or 3 classics. Just my opinion.....if you agree, get this one.....you'll be pleased....which is OK for now.

Rating:
Summary: Can be maddening, but gets you.
Review: There is such an overwhelming direction in this book to get to the bottom of who supplied the images in "The Footage" that it's nerve testing. The details grow exceptionally, not a problem to follow, it just adds to the suspense. I did not like the useage of 911 missing persons at all though. This is a future time travel suspense novel which will entertain you but leave you simply entertained as there really isnt much here to believe in. I just finished SB or God by Karl Maddox, another future recognition novel I highly recommend.

Rating:
Summary: The Present catches up to Gibson's Future
Review: I remember the profound sense of fascination I felt when I read Gibson's 'Neuromancer' many years ago. 'Pattern Recognition' has triggered that same sense of wonder and thoughtfulness. One cannot help but wonder how Gibson himself feels at seeing the Information Age he unknowingly prophecised come true around him, but this novel is an undeniable proof that Gibson has his writer's finger on the "Zeitgeist" of it all.

The story behind 'Pattern Recognition' is rather simple: Cayce Pollard, a 'coolhunter' and marketing consultant, is hired by an ad agency to hunt down the source of an Internet subculture revolving around mysterious video footage. The story, in itself, is not incredibly engaging, but it matters little because there is a lot more to like. The fact that Cayce is 'allergic' to branding is what initially drew me into this novel, but it turns out it plays only an anecdotical role. I did not care about the mystery of the footage at the beginning, but when everything came together, I found the concept behind this poignant and thought-provoking.

To put it simply, the way Gibson writes about culture and technology is awe-inspiring. The novel is littered with little gems, too numerous to recount here. It reminded me of the early Douglas Coupland, but with a more somber, dramatic and meaningful tone. Pattern Recognition, as the title implies, provides thought-provoking themes about chaos, order, and how the human mind struggles to make the later emerge from the former. The many ways in which Casey searches for 'patterns', in the world around her and in her personal life, are moving and deeply satisfying.

I'm amazed at how much more 'mature' Pattern Recognition feels in comparison with Gibson's earlier cyberpunk stuff. It's not that Neuromancer is not as good as it used to be, but you can definitely feel the wiser, more thoughtful approach that two decades of writing have brought to Gibson. It's a joy to see a writer evolve as such, and I hope to see more of this kind of work from Gibson in the future.

Rating:
Summary: an exposition of net culture
Review: Gibson is a stylist rather in the Joycian tradition instead of the Proustian writers I usually love. But more importantly Gibson is the voice of our times. His previous masterpiece, Neuromancer, is set in the future and is a violent and male world where the Internet is a place rather like a country. Gibson coined the word cyberspace to describe this "country". Pattern Recognition, his latest work, is set in our times and is non-violent and female but still about the Internet, in this case how its culture is affecting our culture, how the two are merging so to speak.

Here is a quote, slightly elided:

"Of course," he says, "we have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our grandparents had a future, or thought they did. Fully imagined cultural futures were the luxury of another day, one in which 'now' was of some greater duration. For us, of course, things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures like our grandparents' have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile." ... "We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition."

The book has several themes, all connected to the net. One is the nature of friends made over the net, long time friends that is, that one has had many many deep conversations with. These friends have something of the nature of childhood friendships which have survived into adulthood in so far as the people are known for their verbal impact rather than for their image or sociological impact. Children (and dogs) see people in a different way -- they see an inner essence and cannot be fooled by such trappings as wealth, beauty or circumstance. We would call the way children see an "interface" and the way adults see a different interface. Net friendships of long standing have something of the children's interface because what one "sees" is the projection of intellect and emotion in words, in this case words on a screen instead of words on paper.

Another theme is what is called "the footage" -- brief scenes from a strange and compelling film that are posted anonymously to the net. Here is a description:

"How much time have you spent with the actual footage?'
"Not much."
"How do you feel when you watch it?'
He looks down at his noodles, then up at her. "Lonely?"
"Most people find that that deepens. Becomes sort of polyphonic. Then there's a sense that it's going somewhere, that something will happen. Will change." She shrugs. "It's impossible to describe, but if you live with it for a while, it starts to get to you. it's just such a powerful effect introduced by so little actual screen time. I've never felt convinced that there's a recognized filmmaker around who can do that, although if you read the footage boards you'll see different directors constantly nominated."
"Or maybe it's the repetition. Maybe you've been looking at this stuff for so long that you've read all this into it. And talking with other people who've been doing the same thing."
"I've tried to convince myself of that. I've wanted to believe it, simply in order to let the thing go. But then I go back and look at it again and there's that sense of . . . I don't know. Of an opening into something. Universe? Narrative?"

Cayce (the female protagonist, pronounced "case" in analogy to the protagonist of Neuromancer) eventually finds an email address connected with the footage and sends this message to that address:

"Someone showed me one segment and I looked for more. I found a site where people discussed it, and I began to post there, asking questions. I can't tell you why, but it became very important to me, to all of us there. Parkaboy and Ivy and Maurice and Filmy, all the others too. We went there whenever we could, to be with other people who understood. We looked for more footage. Some people stayed out surfing, weeks at a time, never posting until someone discovered a new segment.

We don't know what you're doing, or why. Parkaboy thinks you're dreaming. Dreaming for us. Sometimes he sounds as though he thinks you're dreaming us. He has this whole edged-out participation mystique: how we have to allow ourselves so far into the investigation of whatever this is, whatever you're doing, that we become part of it. Hack into the system. Merge with it, deep enough that it, not you, begins to talk to us. He says it's like Coleridge, and De Quincy. He says that it's shamanic. That we may all seem to just be sitting there, staring at the screen, but really, some of us anyway, we're adventurers. We're out there, seeking, taking risks. In hopes, he says, of bringing back wonders. Trouble is, lately, I've been living that."

So these are some of the themes, all of which have to do with our experience of ourselves as part of the net which means that we experience ourselves as part of something that is virtual. And this, ironically enough, causes us to value those parts of ourselves that are the most human, the most emotionally connected. And we find this, more and more frequently, with those we converse with over the net.

Rating:
Summary: irresistable gnomic trivia
Review: Odd how Gibson fiction is not much good, at the same time, seems better than any other fiction around.
Most fiction is about:
1) Girl does adultery to gain status: Wuthering heights, War & peace, Mme Bovary, (or Tales of Genji, to go back 1000 years)
2) Boy grows up and leaves town : Dubliners, Sons & lovers
3) Hornblower hoists sail, or the SciFi clones of, with space ships and Emperors

Gibson writes flat, detail obsessed studies of people in culture. In the area I am expert in (Cryptography) he actually gets details slightly wrong, so I guess he may be slightly wrong about Vodun, or designer luggage or other areas he details. Somehow it doesnt matter, his air of fascinated resignation, melancholy abstraction, loving attentive indifference, is weirdly compelling (I actually pay money for his work)
He famously defined "cyberspace" on a manual typewriter, so I suppose he wrote this work about branding wearing Kmart boat shoes.
I read it wearing a 1986 pulsar digital watch, the one with the black metal band, with a new faceplate, so no logo.
gbruno.tblog.com

Rating:
Summary: A Bad Copy
Review: Pattern Recognition was a decent read. That being said, it was a disappointing attempt by William Gibson. Gibson has a certain style that he totally deviates from in this novel. It is almost as if he were trying to mimic the style of Neal Stephenson, albeit unsuccessfully.
Gibson also misses the mark with his characters. The character of Cayce is well developed, but she is the only one. Gibson created many compelling and interesting characters, but he did not develop these characters sufficiently. Gibson could have easily developed some secondary plot lines to give the secondary characters more depth.
I really liked the footage mystery though. The footage takes full advantage of the anonymity of the net. Anonymous works always inspire curiosity and interest. Details of the footage, and the cult surrounding it, seemed almost realistic and forced me into a search for Footage Fetish Forums on Google. A friend of mine suggested that the book should have had a companion website were you could view the footage.
All in all, this book was Gibson writing out of his element, trying to mimic Stephenson's recent success. The book is more mainstream and will invite non-Cyberpunk fans into Gibson's world, but the invitation just is not very good. Gibson has crossed into the mainstream with a forgettable novel.

Rating:
Summary: Gibson Tries the Prsent
Review: William Gibson is well known as the godfather of cyberpunk, imagining techno worlds of the near future. In Pattern Recognition, he takes a different tack: the book is set in the real world in 2002. You can argue how realistic the book is - but nothing about it is so fanciful to qualify as "science fiction".

The heroine here is Cayce Pollard. Like Laney, the protagonist in 2 previous Gibson novels, she has an intuitive talent for cutting through the BS and seeing what others can't. For Cayce, this means being able to know at a glance what kind of advertising will be effective. She's sent on a job by a marketing tycoon to locate the unknown creator of some online movie footage that is generating significant underground buzz.

This has nods to some of the author's earlier work (heck, Pollard's name alone echoes Case, the hacker hero of Gibson's breakthrough book, Neuromancer), but the author really being channeled here is John Le Carre. The picture of post cold war intrigue clearly bears the influence of Le Carre's later work, notably Single & Single and The Tailor of Panama.

First, the bad stuff: While the envisioning of a world where it's not government spies in search of intel, but corporations in search of information/ideas is interesting (and a clear bridge to the corp-dominated world of cyberpunk), but seems a little out of whack with the present. Investing in ideas without product? Didn't that burst with the 90's tech bubble? While some of the characters are well developed, others are mere cyphers (including one of the main baddies; he might as well have just named her "(...)"). The straightforward plot resolves fairly enough... but not to any great revelation. There's no twist, no surprise, no new revelations when all is revealed.

On the good side: Gibson has always been more about creation of a strange new world and strange ideas that might be ingenious visions of the future (or might just be nuts - which is almost as good). He's never been the sci-fi author for whom intricate plotting is his strength (check out Neal Stephenson or Walter Jon Williams if that's more your cup of tea). Even in the real world, his dream-like way of looking at things is fascinating, aided by his formiddable prose skills. Some reviewer once said that Gibson could spend 3 pages describing a wall, and you're left thinking "That's an interesting wall!" I concur with that assessment. In Pattern Recognition, he applies that almost-real-yet-kind-of-different lens, and we get zealous fangroups that feel like they could indeed happen, marketers who seem mighty extravagant - but maybe not >too< much more than real ones, and computer tech that may or may not be realistic (I've no idea) but definitely >feels< like the present en route to the future.

It's a decent book, but not his best by any means. In fact, it seems like a variation on Gibson's usual fare, and might be more rewarding if you've read some of his earlier work. (Try the short story collection Burning Chrome, and/or the "cyberspace" trilogy: Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive).