Spook Country

Having enjoyed Gibson's previous book, Pattern Recognition, I was looking forward to this one. But sadly this slick, contemporary thriller, told in bite-size chapters, fails to live up to expectations.

The three strands of the book are confusing to begin with, so disparate are they, that you wonder where the story is going. It's only halfway through that the story gets moving and the tales of Tito, the young Cuban who passes iPods to a mysterious old man; Brown, the rogue spy watching Tito with a prescription drug addicted translator in tow; and Hollis Henry, journalist and one time lead singer of cult band The Curfew, finally start converging. Oh and floating in the background is the mysterious Hubertus Bigend of advertising agency Blue Ant, as he was in Pattern Recognition.

But whereas the McGuffin in Pattern Recognition was genuinely intriguing and the pay-off satisfying, here it falls flat and I was just left thinking “is that it?”. Gibson is always well worth reading, but he's written better in the past. I only hope the third book in this loose trilogy, Zero History, is better.

This was a disappointing sequel to Pattern Recognition. I had difficulty engaging with both the plot and the characters.

I liked this book but unlike Pattern Recognition I didn't get sucked into it. The short chapters were interesting but I think it kept me from building the kind of immersion I expect. But a lukewarm experience ina Gibson novel is still hotter than most books.