Spook Country by William Gibson Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $0.01 You Save: $14.99 (100%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Spook Country
Book Review: Spook Country, Tomorrow is getting closer and closer to today.
Summary: 5 Stars
When I started reading Gibson, Burning Chrome and Neuromancer told of a time in the foreseeable future, but still in the future. With each successive book, Gibson seems to be refining his view of that same moment in time, but as we approach that time his vision become clearer, and that future is fast becoming the present.
Spook Country is written about today, or perhaps tomorrow, but integrating existing technology in ways that most people don't realize it already exists. I love Gibson's writing style, and while I do wish for him to paint another view of a more distant future, I'm more than content to dwell in his presents.
Well worth the reading.
Book Review: Still good, but far from the best
Summary: 3 Stars
Since Pattern Recognition, Gibson is bringing his stories to the present time, leaving his previous choice of staging the plot in a nebulous future. But there are some strange things going on in the present; in Pattern Recognition, storie moved around the social network space - more precisely, a group of people the followed some posts of movie fragments. In this "Spook Country" the forward-looking feature is the geolocation, and the action moves around a group of artists that create their work aroun GPS-enabled devices. There are also lots of military types - the spooks from the title - and the story goes back and forth from the art to the war. I think that Gibson's main point is described somewhere in the book - technology advances through the army and the artists.
The starting point is intersting, but for the readers that enjoyed Pattern Recognition this new work lacks action and chemistry. The idea is indeed original and well crafted, enough to make you keep the interest until the end of the story. But don't expect a new Pattern Recognition.
Book Review: The Future is Now and Gibson is still there!
Summary: 4 Stars
The "follow the bouncing Character" is always enjoyable for me. Gibson links it so well that I can read a chapter or 3 late at night and enjoy every minute of reading and the anticipation of the next chapter!Interesting people, nice yarn; Gibson always come through for me!Book Review: The pleasure of finding things out
Summary: 4 Stars
"The only constant I am sure of is this exhiliarating rate of change". We're busy acquiring layers: Physical and intangible ones, digital, highly personal and general, all of which combine to our reality. This book reads like a densely, at times beautifully written personal blog (ok - from various POVs). Along for the ride, I found myself constantly googling bits & pieces. I ask you: Which of you had ever heard of 'locative art, the Mongolian death worm, Cuban gods, the secret flagellants of Thuringia' - or even those obscure car brands, before reading this book? What a delight to discover they all do exist (sort of)! Okay - I admit the Ativan-addicted Milgrim character had me stumped until I remembered 'Milgram's 37'. Much has changed since Feynman had no end of trouble finding any info at all on Kyzyl (or how to get there). Now there's all this info, just a mouse-click away. Of course it's endlessly fascinating to look at how we make sense of this. A book we're reading while travelling (or music on our ipod) is now as ever providing additional subtext (like Milgrim's revolutionary messiahs), but these days we have to be interactively travelling online (sleuthing) while at home (reading Gibson) - no other choice really, unless you want to miss out on meaning. Yes, the plot's a little thin (4 stars), but as Gibson touches so many other layers of inspirational and current (political) subtext without actually spelling them out, it's as always an insightful, thought-provoking (and if you do the googling) very rewarding read. Great language too.Book Review: interesting
Summary: 3 Stars
This is not one of Gibson's best novels, but it is worth reading. The mystery he conjures up is fascinating and there are some interesting gadgets like CG art correlated to real world locations, or something like that. Though, in the end I do'nt think Gibson weaved all his threads together in a really satisfying way.