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Pattern Recognition
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Pattern Recognition description
The first of William Gibson's usually futuristic novels to be set in the present, Pattern Recognition is a masterful snapshot of modern consumer culture and hipster esoterica. Set in London, Tokyo, and Moscow, Pattern Recognition takes the reader on a tour of a global village inhabited by power-hungry marketeers, industrial saboteurs, high-end hackers, Russian mob bosses, Internet fan-boys, techno archeologists, washed-out spies, cultural documentarians, and our heroine Cayce Pollard--a soothsaying "cool hunter" with an allergy to brand names. Pollard is among a cult-like group of Internet obsessives that strives to find meaning and patterns within a mysterious collection of video moments, merely called "the footage," let loose onto the Internet by an unknown source. Her hobby and work collide when a megalomaniac client hires her to track down whoever is behind the footage. Cayce's quest will take her in and out of harm's way in a high-stakes game that ultimately coincides with her desire to reconcile her father’s disappearance during the September 11 attacks in New York. Although he forgoes his usual future-think tactics, this is very much a William Gibson novel, more so for fans who realize that Gibson's brilliance lies not in constructing new futures but in using astute observations of present-day cultural flotsam to create those futures. With Pattern Recognition, Gibson skips the extrapolation and focuses his acumen on our confusing contemporary world, using the precocious Pollard to personify and humanize the uncertain anxiety, optimistic hope, and downright fear many feel when looking to the future. The novel is filled with Gibson's lyric descriptions and astute observations of modern life, making it worth the read for both cool hunters and their prey. --Jeremy Pugh |
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Pattern Recognition Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
Is it cyberpunk?
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Few genres have writers who is more or less synonymous with them. When you think of mysteries, a number of writers come to mind. With horror, Stephen King stands out, but other names are also dominant: Koontz, Straub, Barker, et cetera. With the science fiction sub-genre of cyberpunk, while there may be other authors, it is William Gibson who pretty much is the king of that field. Nonetheless, I don't know if I'd call his novel Pattern Recognition cyberpunk: in fact, it's barely science fiction.
Pattern Recognition takes place in the very near future and follows Cayce Pollard, a thirtyish woman with the ability to recognize what is cool long before most other people. This puts in demand with sneaker companies and other enterprises that want to be on the cutting edge. On the other hand, her talent comes at an unusual price: she has a strong phobia towards certain advertising logos and a general loathing of any trademarks.
Initially in England to assess a company's new logo, Cayce is soon recruited to go on a strange mission. It seems that every now and then a little bit of film is released on the Internet, attracting interest by those trying to understand the mysterious footage; is it part of a larger movie or should it be viewed in some other context? No one knows where the film is coming from, but plutocrat Bigend Hubertus wants Cayce to find out. Her effort to do so will have her globe-hopping and avoiding enemies who want her to either fail or not get the information in time.
Unfortunately, there is a big flaw in Pattern Recognition, namely who cares? I never really felt the urgency of Cayce's mission: finding out the maker of the film is not going to be earth-shattering. It's akin to knowing who shot Monty Burns well before the revelation episode: it's kind of cool, but it doesn't really change much.
Fortunately, however, Gibson is a decent writer, so this flaw is offset by his interesting world and characters, enough to merit a low four-star review. Is it cyberpunk (or even science fiction)? Only in the vaguest of ways. Is it a decent (if flawed) addition to Gibson's canon? Yes.
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