Pattern Recognition by William Gibson Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Pattern Recognition
Book Review: "The Kiss"
Summary: 4 Stars
Plot Summary: Plot is well described in the editorial reviews.Opinion: I like it better than Neuromancer. The pacing is good, the character of Cayce it well set-up. By page 50 I was intrigued enough to be hooked, which is always good. Gibson seems to make moderately large time jumps in his novels that the reader is supposed to fill in the blanks of (or sometimes the character will "flashback" in some literary device kind of way), he also will spill some twist out into the story without much buildup and the reader is supposed to catch it. I really like that, but I bet that can get annoying to some who will have to go back and see what just happened (like I have to sometimes). There is not much humor in this book. The conclusion was good but not entirely satisfying to me. I felt some things were left really unaswered, but Cayce apparently didn't feel that so I'm ok with it.
Recommendation: Read it. I reluctantly read Pattern Recognition after not liking Neuromancer very much. The style is clearly the same which I liked in both novels, I enjoyed the story in Recognition much more than Neuromancer. It was more contemporary. Nothing really far fetched or science fictiony in this novel. I will definately read more of Gibson's stand alone works as they come. 4.5 out of 5 stars.
Book Review: A re-boot to Gibson's head
Summary: 2 Stars
What is exactly this book about? When you finish it, you are asking, "Is that it? Is that all? And the point of this adventure was.....?" Mr. Gibson apparently is very, very smart, and has great fashion sense too. He knows big words like recontextualized, but I dare anybody to use that word and escape being murdered.
I am increasingly glad for Sci-Fi authors that pre-date Gibson, we can all go back and read them. There is much padding, and such as chapters 14, 15, 16 can be exorcized with no problem. But as always part of the blame must be reserved for Mr. Gibson's editor, who permitted such segments to remain in the manuscript: page 25 "Waking to an inner flash of metallic migraine light, as if reflected off wings of receding dream." Or page 37 "As she comes up out of the rattling, sighing depths of the station, ascending vertiginous escalators with step grids cut from some pale and heartwood that must be virtually indestructible, the pack starts to thicken and make itself known."
This is not poetry, and it's certainly ain't lyrical. The book belongs in the bargain bin where I found it. 2 stars because I know a lot of heart-breaking wasted effort was put into producing this tome of recontextualized pseudo-post-modern edge-of-sleep un-Science Fiction internet... (yawn) adventure...into.... some ....... cyberspace ...... thingy.
Book Review: A Bad Copy
Summary: 3 Stars
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.
Book Review: A Lot of Words But the Plot Goes Nowhere
Summary: 3 Stars
At this point, I have to guess that William Gibson is living off of his hipster fame. Neuromancer and Burning Chrome a real gems in my Sci-Fi world, but this one just plods along with very little to keep it moving. Yes, Gibson gets into the modern internet culture and tosses his two cents in while making another call against big brother and corporate domination, but his characters are plastic and not fleshed out, the story moves forward out of ridiculous random chance and the resolution makes virtually no sense at all (that is unless you are the kind of person that needs a pathetically happy ending whether it is plausible or not)
Over all, Pattern Recognition seems like the work of a successful writer who is bored and putting out a book to put out a book. He certainly shows that he is not in this one to take a chance or even a stretch as a writer. I read it and it was better than some, but there are far better works out there to spend your time on. Gibson is definitely capable of putting out much better work. Pass on this and maybe he'll wake himself up for the next round.
Book Review: A Meditation on the Nature of Art
Summary: 5 Stars
Gibson, not unlike Leonardo De Vinci, contemplates on the strange relation between art and technology. His Cyberspace is both a piece of artwork in progress and a technological breakthrough. His latest creation "Pattern Recognition" tells a tale of Cayce, a marketing guru, searching for the nature of strange film footages distributed anonymously via the Web. The plot echoes the story of Marly hired by some Belgian gazillionaire to track down the Cornell's box imitator in "Count Zero."
Throughout the novel, Gibson seemingly suggests that true art is born out of catastrophe, and that the free market breeds commodities in the absense of it. Cayce lives in a world of marketing, surveying, branding, pricing, selling, and simulacra, or the world before September 11. Her father's mysterious disapparence on 09/11 opens her eyes to a new dimension...a world of human tragedies, genuine feelings and sufferings...a world beyond knee-jerk consumerism. Cayce seeks cold comfort in the footages. Fittingly, the footage creator herself is a terrorist bomb survivor. Art connects the artist with her audience. Catastrophe is the glue. They recognize one another in what is expressed in the footages because of their common experience. Human blood is the life blood of an artist. At the near end of the novel, Gibson quickly laments that even true art of the East is not immune to the contamination of Western commercialism.