First off, I'm an avid (re)reader of anything that Gibson writes, counting him among my favourite half-dozen authors. So, of course, I picked up PR when I noticed it in a bookstore. (Ha! Pattern recognition by me of the author's name)

A few days later I'm a bit torn about whether to like this book or not. As many have already pointed out this book seems like a rehash (or more bluntly: copy) of numerous motifs/patterns previously established in Neuromancer, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Count Zero, Idoru, All Tomorrow's Parties, etc.

Is this a joke? Did Gibson simply give the editors/distributors 'more of the same' which they have been clamoring for and they didn't realize it? Is it a (weak) double play of the title on the readers - intentionally weaving in the patterns from past books for us to recognize?

All the praise in the book's preface seem somehow 'bought' (or written by people who have not read any previous books by Gibson). How can you call a plot/character-ripoff from previous books a masterpiece that eclipses those books? How can you call something 'more accessible' when it's just the same thing as last time?

The only worthwhile pattern recognition going on in the book seem to be the parallel between the maker of the footage and the way Gibsons own novels seem to be connected/disconnected to some extent to each other.

But at least with the other novels there were things we could get excited about (AIs emerging , copies of humans, immortality and other kinds of silent, yet momentous, changes). But here we get 'the footage ' : Something that is hard to care about - from a readers POV - for a good portion of the book. Cayce (pronounces 'Case' - oh my, that one made me cringe) just seems like a Otaku groupie hunting for the band who plays her favourite songs, because she has no life of her own. Is this supposed to get me to identify with her? Make me empathise with her efforts? No way.

I'll give the book another go. Maybe I missed some underlying stuff. But as for now I'd tentatively classify this book as Gibsons weakest effort. (which still makes it an OK book by most other author's standards - but then again: I was expecting a book which would measure up to Gibson's standards) Oh well, every author has to have a weakest book by definition.

I just hope this one is it.

That is interesting, No. 1 Guest.

It was my first read of Gibson, and I loved it. A quiet carefully written finger-on-the-pulse book.
I disliked Neuromancer... so..

On another subject, and not to derail your thread, are oyu any good with Restroom Pictures?

lol..no. I 'm not in the habit of viewing my life through the finder of a camera

I can believe that, if PR is your first Gibson after Neuromancer, you'd like it. Then the repetition of how he's writing hasn't gotten to you, yet. If you're not into the cyberpunk genre then you may even want to forego reading any of the other books. If you like cyberpunk then I'd say: give them a try.

The nitty gritty brand-name realism finger-on-the-pulse is something that many admire (myself included) but it takes a light touch.

I once read a book called "Sewer, Gas, Electric" in which one of the protagonists was in the process of writing a book himself. The problem was that he would prepend every word with at least 5 adjectives and so never find a publisher. PR seems like this to me. There's just too many brand names gratuitously thrown in. Where in previous books this enhanced the atmosphere with the occasional 'click' of recognition from the reader, in PR it seems to serve as filler material to pad out the book.

Maybe it's because I am myself allergic to brand names and marketing/advertising (and have been since childhood. Never a 'fan' of any one pop-group or one to buy a label because it was 'in' ). Maybe PR is just overkill for me. Certainly - from what I gather after browsing this forum - others see this differently.

I don't think it's a joke. If it is, a very very good one.

Soooo what can we interest you in here?

There is some literature, actually: November Reading thread...

Gossip & Scandal: So what happened..

Cookery, the stock market, meat meets ..

cars, guitars ...

We don't HAVE a brand name thread-- at least not at the moment, unless ...I think only Apple has one.
So oyu are safe.

It was also the first book I read by Gibson. I think it's part of his master plan to gain female Scandinavian readership!

(High Five, Aisha!)

Yes, it is getting obvious sistah. After that videoclip from the Fuldog Documentary.

Haah faaahv!

Harassin' the Gibson!

I enjoyed Sewer, Gas and Electric.

I have liked all of Gibson's work. I take what the author gives me and enjoy it based on its own merits, I don't freak out when one book is different from the others. I'd be worried if he were writing Neuromancer Part VII, frankly.

But isn't that exactly the point? PR feels like it just took old stories and renamed the characters. Virek becomes Bigend, Marly becomes Cayce, Rice/Conroy becomes Boone, Alain becomes Dorotea, The Finn becomes Baranov ...the list goes on and on. It's just his old books hashed together and barely glossed over with new names.

Whereas his other books were different, this one somehow is not. It has no 'merits' of its own

This has been commented here before (sorry, lack the engery now to dig the link). Like other authors, he may seem to keep 'writing the same story' over and over. Is that so? Yeah, there's the patron, the seeker, the quest, the fallen heroes, the addicts and obsessives... ok, there's recurrence in themes and stereotypes, but what I like is the writing itself, the coating, the way he molds and glues sentences, and how new ideas are integrated into his 'usual' plots.

He left cyberspace because it's not the future anymore. He evolved from that phase, and so has his readership, I'd like to think. Plus, haven't you heard, c-space everted? It's all around us, now.

For one I think you're missing the concept that ios Pattern Recognition in context of our present and highlighting notable , and true, similarities between it and other works at the expense of the different. Pattern Recognition is a book about the search for menaing, in a way that his others have never really been about. The maker can satnd in for God, the fottage F:F:F: board for the theological debate over teleology vs. emergent chaos and Cayce's quest as one of the odlest mankind has to offer. It may help to look at Pynchon's Crying of lot 49 which is what PR is clearly modeled after more than any of his own books.

You are right, Gibson's own patterns emerge again and again i his work but that is perhaps a part and function of every artist. I can think of few who break new realms with every piece of art, most find difficult terrain and continue to spelunk it at length.

What elevates Pattern Recognition for me is how the actual emotional climax isn't when Cayce gets drugged, or when she finds her way, finally, to the twins (though that's a close second) but instead when she visits the Dig.

PR stands eloquently on its own because it has a different set of obsessions: with the texture and fabric of history and our (Cayce's) interaction with it. Count Zero, for all of its similarities, comes nowhere near the historical and emotional weight PR does. If PR is a rewrite of CZ, it is (to my mind) the better novel.

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Originally posted by Justy:
If PR is a rewrite of CZ, it is (to my mind) the better novel.

I concur.

"I concur, vehemently!"

Sorry Marshdrifter, you brought a funny line from last week's "Bones" to mind.

I was heading back here to add that: for someone who probably hadn't been anywhere near any of the events of 9/11 personally, Gibson nailed the experience. But then, that's probably because, in living through the 1960s, he'd seen his own share of mediated and personally-experienced tragedies. I also think that, if the product placement stuff is a joke, it's an effective one. Cayce's allergy is the stuff of absurdist traumatic comedy, with a bit of Pynchonesque magical realism thrown in.

"He took a duck in the face at 200 knots."

In this, Gibson fulfills what the British always understood about him: he writes very good black/absurdist comedy.

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but what I like is the writing itself, the coating, the way he molds and glues sentences, and how new ideas are integrated into his 'usual' plots.

No problem there. But for me a good book is a novel story (even if the setting is familiar) and good writing. I agree that PR is written better than CZ. But then again: Cloning the Star Wars story with better actors wouldn't make it a better movie. Part of the appeal of a book/movie is the novelty factor, the new ideas - and in this regard PR is seriously lacking. (one of the reasons why Star Wars I-III were so lousy. better effects (writing) don't make a better movie )

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I can think of few who break new realms with every piece of art, most find difficult terrain and continue to spelunk it at length.

This is why I only have a half dozen favourite authors. They manage to do this. At least one of which accross dozens of books (with the odd failure). To me it seems that PR is the odd failure.

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He left cyberspace because it's not the future anymore.

I agree. I wouldn't have expected him to keep writing cyberpunk. The setting really isn't important (contemporary, historical, future, alternate universe ... ). It's the new ideas that are explored with each new book. In his other books he tackled some of these philosophical ideas and I don't agree that in this book he tackled something else (if he was thinking of the 'search for god' - which I seriously doubt - then he had already explored that one in CZ )

I wasn't looking for a 'directors cut' of CZ when I picked up this book. I was looking for an original book. Though I think it's an OK book I still feel somehow that this might have been a joke at the publisher's (and reader's) expense. Maybe a cheap shot designed to garner a readership that didn't dare to pick up a cyberpunk novel? For them (as has been noted by others) it was a wonderful experience.
I hope he doesn't do it again - or at least puts some more effort into the next book - or he's going to start losing old fans.

Welcome, guest1.

You do realize that Pattern Recognition is not Gibson's latest book, don't you?

(just wondering, that's all)

Damn dude did you really read it. Because _PR_ is structured in an entirely different way than _CZ_. Some of the premise is familiar but WG was experimenting with steganography in a book about steganography which is in my mind a new concept for WG. I'm not qualified to be a WG apologist either but the ideas that I gathered from _PR_ were far reaching from _CZ_; if anything the use of gods in _SC_ is more similar to _CZ_ but in no way are the books even close to the same. So that's my 2 cents worth and let Google and Wikipedia take you on a whole 'nother ride the next time you pick up _PR_. (check out "list your apophenic sidetracks here" for some places that _PR_ took some of us).
Anyway, Welcome! later and all that.

But isn't it the beauty in the arts market: the subjectivity of the perceptions of the public ?

I read many of WG books. What I see is that the "objective quality" (in terms of what scholars can "measure") averages the same and I guess that's what makes him working in "cycles" of three books (after that point other books would become recurrent?).

Then, there's what people expect to read. Many people don't like changes and that's exactly what makes the "Hollywood franchises" so successful.

Besides, many works of art take some time to be "swallowed". I guess that Neuromancer and other WG books that were more focused in "leisure reading" are easier readings that his last two books.

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You do realize that Pattern Recognition is not Gibson's latest book, don't you?

It takes a while for Gibsons books to be found (in english) in german bookstores. Anything newer I'd have to order through amazon or somesuch. But I don't really 'plan' my reading schedule ahead of time. I go to a bookstore and buy whatever catches my eye.

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ecause _PR_ is structured in an entirely different way than _CZ_. Some of the premise is familiar but WG was experimenting with steganography in a book about steganography which is in my mind a new concept for WG.

So what did the steganography thing amount to (storywise)? Bloody little. Nothing that hasn't been done to death by authors like Neil Stephenson.

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So that's my 2 cents worth and let Google and Wikipedia take you on a whole 'nother ride the next time you pick up _PR_.

This is something I always found interesting about Gibson (and it is the hallmark of all my favourite auithors) that when I read their books there come points where I just have to put it down to think of the enormity of the import of what they just wrote. Sometimes this leads to downright interesting philosophy (one of my hobbies). No such moment far and wide in PR (or only very trivial ones or somesuch which have bee touched on in previous books of his).

I'm not saying it's not an OK book. There just isn't anything novel or engaging about it.

I really think Gibson has changed targets since Neuromancer, Count Zero, or even All Tomorrow's Parties. In those novels, he tended to look for the moment when "everything changed". In the Cyberspace trilogy, it hinges around the Newromancer/Wintermute union and its products. In the Bridge Trilogy, it ends up being about how nano-tech can level the field of production in favor of the itinerant and interstitial. And along the way we get variations on the theme of embodiedness, mediation, and information overload.

PR and Spook Country, being set *now*, seem less concerned with all of those things. Though, of course, since Gibson's earlier works have been one of the better attempts at laying out the issues of disembodiedness and what it means to live in the era of "Late Capitalism", the issues of mediation and (dis)(em)bodiedness are simply part of the fabric of existence. Thus, they aren't foregrounded as they were in the previous novels. Hence, some readers' disappointment.

Instead we have, as Eric says, "steganography." Which I'd say is less about steganography and more about apophenia as a human tendency. On top of this is the feeling I get from both PR and Spook Country (and life as *I've* experienced it) that the moment "when everything changed" has either happened (was it 9/11? Fat Man and Little Boy? The Holocaust? when DarpaNet went online? When DarpaNet became a public service?), or is always just about to happen, and when we pass that point, we start dealing with the previous trauma only to be blindsided by the next one. Thus my position that Gibson, who has always been at least somewhat obsessed by history and the texture of lived history, approaches something rather grand in PR: representing the experience of lived history.

quote:

Originally posted by guest1:This is something I always found interesting about Gibson (and it is the hallmark of all my favourite auithors) that when I read their books there come points where I just have to put it down to think of the enormity of the import of what they just wrote. Sometimes this leads to downright interesting philosophy (one of my hobbies). No such moment far and wide in PR (or only very trivial ones or somesuch which have bee touched on in previous books of his).

I'm not saying it's not an OK book. There just isn't anything novel or engaging about it.

Pattern Recognition has plent of riffs on Baudrillard and french Philosphy in general. Who do you read, philo-wise?

You said you had about six fave authors, who are they if you do not mind?

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I really think Gibson has changed targets since Neuromancer, Count Zero, or even All Tomorrow's Parties. In those novels, he tended to look for the moment when "everything changed". In the Cyberspace trilogy, it hinges around the Newromancer/Wintermute union and its products. In the Bridge Trilogy, it ends up being about how nano-tech can level the field of production in favor of the itinerant and interstitial. And along the way we get variations on the theme of embodiedness, mediation, and information overload.

I have to disagree insofar as Gibson is clearly using 9/11 as the demarcation point for the 21st century and another nodal point when it all changed. History will bear him ought I think. The 21st century began on Sept. 11, 2001. Not that his idea is revolutionary, I think most people recognize this to one degree or another.

Also like Bones, the new gen Mulder/Scully sexual tension in that show works very well.