quote:

Originally posted by IndividualFrog:
I really felt Pattern Recognition was much darker than Spook Country. That book put me through the ringer (which lead to being weirded out by all the Happy Endings) but Spook Country was more fun. Certainly, Milgrim's plight was horrifying, but it was cushioned by his fanciful imagination.

I also happen to find Gibson easy to read, but that's just the luck of the draw, I think.

I didn't find either gloomy but I WAS weirded out by both happy endings.

Why? Every Gibson books had a happy ending, more or less.


I started to sum up the endings, but this is a non-spoiler section.

But they all do have happy endings.

quote:

Originally posted by Aisha:

quote:

Originally posted by Fashionpolice:

quote:

Originally posted by UberDog:
Rausch" said the voice in Hollis Henry's cell. "Node," it said.

2nd time I read it I wondered why Hollis Henry's hotel room was being described as a (jail) cell.

We call those phones, mobile phones on this side of the pond.

Snap!
Did a double-take too-- especially cuz really, should it be "in" ? -- it's on the phone, so..
Deliberate by teh Man

No. A person can be "on the phone" in which case they are physically on it. A voice comes from inside the phone.

I would say "the voice on the phone" not "in the phone"

Yes, you would. But what would grammar Minx say?

Is the voice "on" the phone, or is it rathe r"in" the phone.

Anyway, in the phone conjures a better image of displacement and oddity to modern life.

Like the haunted wax recordings of singers that made the priest have a crisi of fiath, or the religious swaying of the zealot palm trees on their way to apocalypse.

It works less if you say "on." Or, rather, if Gibson had written it as "on."

Why I say it is deliberate, to make u think of the cell and the cell.

I'm absolutely sure it was deliberate, and I have no quibble, it's just not colloquial usage.

WG must think we're real tools right about now.

I imagine that point was reached long ago!

Yes, but he is also constantly reninded of his original assessment.

He's sitting there, in a bathrobe with coffee next to his Mac and he's reading this thread, thinking: "I don't know why the fuck I wrote "in" instead of "on"... who cares?"

Then he clicks onto EBay to cleanse his pallette.

On second thought, maybe he wears old t-shirts and sweat pants instead...

There's a good thread.

Any consensus yet?

Only that he wears electrodes to bed.

quote:

Originally posted by UberDog:
Why? Every Gibson books had a happy ending, more or less.


I started to sum up the endings, but this is a non-spoiler section.

But they all do have happy endings.

Well, I had only read Neuromancer, Idoru, and Burning Chrome (and the stories certainly do not all have happy endings), and neither Neuromancer nor Idoru was about horrible violence (World War 2, 9/11, bombs blowing up innocent people, etc.) the way Pattern Recognition was.

And Neuromancer's ending is rather ambiguous, whereas in Pattern Recognition, even that otaku dude got a happy, completely unbelievable ending.

I am not including the short stories.

SPOILERS!!!!!


Neuromancer has a faily happy ending though.

Case is able to punch deck again, he has learned to feel again. He has money, he isn't suicidal anymore.