Book Reviews of Pattern Recognition

Reading Gibson's later works I always thought he'd drifted away from his "Cyberpunk" roots, this novel shows that he is still capable of writing readable fiction when he tries.

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.
(Amazon Review)

Willam Gibson follows a talented young woman through a classically Gibson permutation of our social and economic structures. Reluctant and far too cool, our girl threads through the heavily woven plot to the resolution with attitude and grace. Look for Gibson's sweet kicks on the back cover.

Gibson's attempts to dazzle with edgy prose and hightech high jinx quickly degenerates into its own predictable ho-hum recognizable pattern. Dan Brown, he ain't.

A good read.

intense psychological mystery

Slow starter, but pretty good overall.

I originally bought this because it was recommended by my favorite author, Neil Gaiman. It is totally unlike Gaiman's writing, but very cool sci fi.

Fascinating first half of the book - I enjoyed the "mystery" of that part much more than the solving (or second half). Science fiction-like in the sentence structure and word play.

A strange book

I am not a sci-fi fan per se, but this was very well written. The author has quite a following, so if you do like sci-fi, you will rate it even higher than I did!

Very good writing...moody, mysterious, quirky...interesting characters...never a dull moment...a very good read

Very good.

Recent NY Times Best Seller with a lot of great press from the critics. I just couldn't get into it.

FROM OUR EDITORS
The Barnes & Noble Review
In the first sentence of his first novel, William Gibson penned one of the most memorable lines in the last quarter century of science fiction or, indeed, any literature: “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” Gibson invented cyberspace, envisioned the “matrix.” Imagine what he could do with the present.

Well, imagine no more. Pattern Recognition is a wild ride through a world of Hotmail accounts, Tommy Hilfiger displays, Pilates studios: our world. Your protagonist: Cayce Pollard, whose talent consists of a truly extraordinary allergy to brands, trademarks, and fashion. Which, inevitably, makes her invaluable to marketers everywhere on earth.

But this assignment…this one doesn’t merely involve reacting to a logo design. This one is a sprawling mystery. Where do those odd video posts to the Internet come from? Why do they inspire such fanatic loyalty? And who is it that really wants to know -- enough to break into Cayce's apartment, hack her computer, threaten her life?

Walk away? Cayce Pollard has her father’s stubbornness: a former intelligence agent, he was last seen in a taxi headed toward the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001...

This is a story we couldn’t stop reading and can’t forget. Bill Camarda

Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks For Dummies®, Second Edition.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
The accolades and acclaim are endless for William Gibson's coast-to-coast bestseller. Set in the post-9/11 present, Pattern Recognition is the story of one woman's never-ending search for the now.

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