Nothing and a cleric-thief can use a blade in my world (pinknives, jackknives, switchblades preferred) I guess I was trying to get at the ending backstory of _Spook Country_ and churches laundering money (McCain's buddy). Cleric-thieves were either nick-named Oral Roberts or Jimmy Swaggart or some other '80's cleric-thief when playing, backstabbing in the day

Ahh... I never saw a cleric-thief in a game. I never saw a lot of clerics, period.


They make sense though, after a fashion.

Forgive me for resurrecting a moribund thread (and getting it back on-topic,) but I had been wondering about my own reaction to Spook Country as compared to Pattern Recognition. In my first post ("Slope Trope") I noted that SC seemed less accessible than PR. Here're my two cents.

Pattern Recognition, aside from (and in addition to) being a quest story and Gibson's usual social trend extropolation, was a 9/11 commemorative. The terrorist attacks were still clearly fresh on his mind and his reaction to it was poignant and tender. He applied his gift for pathos, melancholy, and lonliness to our collective grief and scored big.

Spook Country is arguably Gibson's worst book.

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I give it an "A-minus-MINUS!" -- Wernstrom

Written by anyone else, it would be an "A", and a commendable effort. Coming from Gibson, it was noticably off. I loved the Milgrim and Brown chapters, but I found Tito and his family cryptic to the point of being tiresome, and I could never figure Hollis out. Was Curfew a 70s band? 80s? Was Hollis in her 30s or 40s? Was I supposed to recognize a referenced real-life band in them? I couldn't.

I did enjoy the book. But I'm looking forward to the conclusion of the "Bigend Trilogy."

The Curfew was from the 90's and Hollis is 36 as I recall. These facts were in the text, you just missed them.

I can agree that the characters had less depth than I has come to expect of late. They served more as windows onto Gibson's crafted world and the usual societal commentary took a back seat to his political commentary, but I still liked the book.

While I enjoyed Tito's Systema and his family, his character was rather blank. The emotion in the last two previous books (ATP and PR) was largely lacking here. We glimpse only in Hollis and mostly in reaction to memories of Jimmy resurfacing.

Otherwise the text was rather more clinical than he has moved in of late.
I have always found the middle books in the trilogy to be the weakest in my opinion.

But, for me, it's the same way that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was the weakest of the three. Sure it was, but it was still Indiana Jones!

It's entirely possible my obsession with both clouds my more reasonable judgments.

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Pattern Recognition, aside from (and in addition to) being a quest story and Gibson's usual social trend extropolation, was a 9/11 commemorative. The terrorist attacks were still clearly fresh on his mind and his reaction to it was poignant and tender. He applied his gift for pathos, melancholy, and lonliness to our collective grief and scored big.

Spook Country is arguably Gibson's worst book.

I agree with every iota of the above, and add that SC was also in many ways Gib's most profoudf literary achievement. One loses a certain amount of momentum when one makes a significant turn, as Gib has.

In many ways, SC is to me the most 'real' of Gib's books.

Don't ask me what 'real' means, please. I would go on for hours, inconclusively.

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I found Tito and his family cryptic to the point of being tiresome

And Tito is my fave character.

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While I enjoyed Tito's Systema and his family, his character was rather blank. The emotion in the last two previous books (ATP and PR) was largely lacking here.

And I felt his emotions intensely, even though what he felt was mostly the strangely narrow richness of his isolated life.

Methinks empathized with Tito's zenlike access to outside his own shell

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Originally posted by Boomer1911A1:
and I could never figure Hollis out. Was Curfew a 70s band? 80s? Was Hollis in her 30s or 40s? Was I supposed to recognize a referenced real-life band in them? I couldn't.

Answers: 80s. Hollis was in her late 30s (I'd put her at 40 on the outside; it depends on if the Curfew had their period of greatest exposure in the early 80s or late 80s. The "at least you aren't Morrissey" comment to Hollis from another character implies mid-to-late 80s to me--but then, I prefer when fiction implies rather than states).

Who says Gibson has to reference a real-life band, or that you have to get the reference to appreciate it? I think people are putting too much weight on the Damien==Chris Cunningham analogy, or how Lo/Rez were supposedly U2, somehow.

I put Pattern Recognition and Spook Country at a similar level, quality-wise.

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Originally posted by Justy:

quote:

Originally posted by Boomer1911A1:
and I could never figure Hollis out. Was Curfew a 70s band? 80s? Was Hollis in her 30s or 40s? Was I supposed to recognize a referenced real-life band in them? I couldn't.

Answers: 80s. Hollis was in her late 30s (I'd put her at 40 on the outside; it depends on if the Curfew had their period of greatest exposure in the early 80s or late 80s. The "at least you aren't Morrissey" comment to Hollis from another character implies mid-to-late 80s to me--but then, I prefer when fiction implies rather than states).

Who says Gibson has to reference a real-life band, or that you have to get the reference to appreciate it? I think people are putting too much weight on the Damien==Chris Cunningham analogy, or how Lo/Rez were supposedly U2, somehow.

I put Pattern Recognition and Spook Country at a similar level, quality-wise.

Pattern Recognition is the better book in my eyes and I believe that posterity will bear that out.

But, as for Hollis, she is 36 or 37 and the band was big in the 90's. This is deducible from other clues with firm dates but I'd have to go in and scour.

I wasn't speculating or giving my opinion (at least not intentionally) I am almost positive he fills this information out in the book.

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I believe that posterity will bear that out.

AH, poor posterity. It has to bear so much.

I hear it's coming back as a prophet in a beard.

For me, who encountered this site after reading PR, some months after its release, I have to admit that I was a little disappointed with the initial lack of debate when SC launched.

I read Spook Country after not having read WG for several months. I so enjoyed it that I went straight back into Neuromancer before clipping a few Gaiman novels. I'm just about to finish Pattern Recognition again... kinda holding out on the last chapters to prolong the sweet cybercandy that just drips off the page. In fact, I'll not be able to not read WG for a while, so I'm going straight into SC for a second time.

My seeming dependance on Mr Gibson's literature is clouding the stories! Ah!!!