Spook Country
by William Gibson
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Book Summary Information
Author: William GibsonEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-03-03
ISBN: 0425226719
Number of pages: 496
Publisher: Berkley
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780425226711
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Spook Country
Book Review: A Failure of Pythonic Proportions!
Summary: 1 Stars
Save for a few chapters, this was a complete waste of time.
Gibson cannot write compelling female protagonists. Hollis Henry is an amorphous, listless main character. Why create a protagonist that, by all indications, does not have the slightest care about her own pursuits? Hollis could have been written out of the novel completely and the tale still told, albeit with the same anticlimactic drone of an air conditioner.
The book is so awkwardly and artificially constructed, the reader can almost imagine the Post-It notes working backwards to make sure that each plot hole is cemented over, each improbable twist counteracted by some sudden spike in awareness on the part of one or another character. Every single character in this book is a clumsily placed plot device. Hubertus Bigend is a hyper-curious, super-rich, man-baby, with tentacles in so many industries he seems omniscient. The problem is, as was the case in Pattern Recognition, if he's so powerful, so rich, and so smart, why bother with the supporting cast? They're obviously just ignorant pawns acting as insulation (good chapter though - Insulation) in case of some operation going wrong.
The book could have been a fictional biography, a "Where are they now?" piece on The Curfew. Here's how they got back together, despite the tragic heroine-related death of Jimmy their drummer, they've rallied around to support Hollis in her adventure as she gets wrapped up with something much bigger than she could ever know. This fictional piece could have been 4 pages and run in an issue of Rolling Stone.
Alternately, the book could have been a few hundred pages, removed Hollis' character, Hubertus Bigend and his wealth and resources, the band-members relationships, and just focused on Chombo, Tito, Brown and Milgrim, The Family and The Old Man, it may have been good. Oh, and remove the references to augmented reality as art. It doesn't lend any techno-cred to the piece, it just falls flat and feels pointless.
So I don't have to preface this with "spoilers ahead", I won't cite specifically just how badly anticlimactic this book is, but let's just say that the antagonist's part (which is really subjective, I believe intentionally) ends in a ridiculous manner, of Monty Python proportions. (Specifically, Holy Grail proportions.) Further, when is clicks with the reader just what the good (or bad?) guys are up to, when we figure out just what crime it is they are in process of committing, it's just laughable. It's such a Keystone Caper load of garbage that one finds it hard to continue and see the book to completion.
And just when you think you'll have the pleasure of finding out the end results of their "crime", Gibson decides that is something best left to reverberate through "spook country", so we're not privileged with what could be redeeming details.
In summary, Spook Country in some ways feels like it's poking fun at spy thriller fans. While it has fleeting glimmers of Ludlum or Clancy, it is a failure in what is proposes to be due to weak and uninteresting lead characters, few plot twists, an almost comical climax, and a vacuum in place of catharsis.
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