In the mid 90's I got really into Gibson, as I've always liked the whole cyberpunk mythos...and was just astonished by his writing style and sense of futurism. However, I had read this was a very different novel than his usual stuff.

In a nutshell, how would you describe Pattern Recognitions? From a brief description, it sounded like the Ring meets a David Lynch film?

Pockybot
wacky cyberpunk manga webcomic

nah...
not really.
you gotta try read. if it isn't too much

I would describe it as being difficult to fit in a nutshell.

It would work as a Cornell box though.

If forced at gunpoint I might describe it as a story of a woman, a micro-culture, marketing, jet-lag, tragedy, paranoia (sometimes justified), petty betrayal, finding things, creating things by the act of searching, and a love story of a mouth-breathing otaku and a hot drunk barmaid, heavily mediated. But that really doesn't do it justice (and would probably get me shot).

The only part of The Ring that I could connect it to would be the detective-story bits, but in a way I guess it could remind one of David Lynch's style.

________
You have to give up.

In few words:

A peculiar woman is looking for one thing instead of what she really wants to find. After interacting with several commonplace weirdos she finds both what she was looking for and what she wanted to find.

Add WGs clinical eye for dissecting a culture or business and frequent off hand social analysis.

José

thanks!

I heard it was about someone seeing a short clip of some crytptic disturbing film, and the Ring came to mind. I definately want to check it out...weird how its set in modern times, heh.

Pockybot
wacky cyberpunk manga webcomic

hard to compress

main character pays for her innate marketing savvy with "icon allergies" sort of...
futuristic in the sense that these characters encounter technologies available mostly to the upper uppers on the class ladder.

on the one hand the ususal "search for the missing father" story, on another the the main character seems constantly waiting for her soul to catch up to her

oh and almost everyone lives happily ever after

but there are ghosts

dethbird

Girl with Trend/Fashion/Icon super-awareness aaccepts mission backed by shady/surreal advertising exec to source the distributors/creators of a serial film clip which enjoys maxiumum attention on the web via discussion sites like this one. On the way, she encounters many wierd and wired folk until she tracks the clips back to their origins.

Its a departure from his usual style of prose. Different and difficult, it pushes back your expectations of a new Gibson book. Don't expect MLO. Its more of a stripped Idoru in many ways.
It alludes to certain conditions, taps at the window of familiar frailties.
Its spine is a discussion group like this one. Cayce has joined a community to talk about the film clips, to explore meaning and fathom out patterns. Gibson recognises the web can grow ideas from many vines but that the fruit can sometimes only be digested by a few obsessives; it can bring worlds together but that proximity can shatter relationships.
There are many signposts in the work.
I find it nods in JG Ballards direction a lot with the theme of pattern, of ciphers not yet translated but beautiful in form and in mystery.
Charlie don't surf - the Apocalypse now angle, Cayce the protagonist, a journey down her own personal river to meet the originators of disturbing messages.
PR has got the lot. If Gibson has always turned you on, you'll find it a bit more meaty and a bit less modernist than his other novels.
But then, cyberspace is now our own reality. I'm living there right now by typing this...er...thought.Have we caught up with Gibson or has Gibson slowed down his message?