This is the latest in a long series of novels that blend together the leading edge of societal trends, technology, and a good mystery plotline. I have been enjoying Gibson’s books for many years, like: Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Idoru, and Pattern Recognition. Of late, he has been focused on marketing trends; in Zero History, it’s the clothing industry. He looks at high fashion: what makes it hot? He explores reverse marketing; keeping things quiet. Once a couture dress is shown, it’s copied within 24 hours and mass produced in China within 72. On the other side of the market, there are 100 million men and women under arms in the world, mostly in similar uniforms -- this is an inflation-proof market where prices are famous for the $400 hammer.
Interesting and sometimes insightful observations, but it’s more than good ideas that draw me to Gibson’s writing. Idoru really hooked me fifteen years ago, because all the action took place in San Francisco, Japan, or New York – very cosmopolitan and right up my alley as a technophile. We all know how suspect photographs are, with the advent of Photoshop. People living right now, tend to self-protectively be in denial about this kind of stuff because no one wants to be in a world where you can’t depend on your senses. He flipped the picture thing into a voice/audio thing, virtual bands. All senses are suspect if any one of them can be doctored/tailored by computer reconfiguration – it’s a scary world – close to insanity. Gibson also introduced the real/virtual mosh for his world, ten years before its existence.
Gibson spends his research time thinking, maybe one step ahead of what computer designers will be secretly doing next. Pattern Recognition continued (2005) with the cosmopolitan flavour that is attractive to me because most of my life has been spent in large cities in foreign climes: London, Paris, New York, San Francisco, Jerusalem, and Tokyo. He also doesn’t waste time explaining his rapid-fire, obscure references, at least not right away – he lets them dangle until you’ve had time to Google the phrase and figure out what he meant and how it related. In a uTube-recorded interview available on Amazon, he explains that this is a new facet of writing – faster-paced, abbreviated – let the reader do the research. An example interesting to me was a throw-away line about an IDF-bra. For me, having spent a year in Jerusalem, working for the Israeli Air Force, Ministry of Defense (MOD): Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), I knew exactly what he was talking about. I also looked up dozens of other references and probably missed many others. I like the challenge.
I have a new, only once read, copy of the hard-back for anyone daring enough to try it. I’ll bring it next month, November 2010.
Interesting and sometimes insightful observations, but it’s more than good ideas that draw me to Gibson’s writing. Idoru really hooked me fifteen years ago, because all the action took place in San Francisco, Japan, or New York – very cosmopolitan and right up my alley as a technophile. We all know how suspect photographs are, with the advent of Photoshop. People living right now, tend to self-protectively be in denial about this kind of stuff because no one wants to be in a world where you can’t depend on your senses. He flipped the picture thing into a voice/audio thing, virtual bands. All senses are suspect if any one of them can be doctored/tailored by computer reconfiguration – it’s a scary world – close to insanity. Gibson also introduced the real/virtual mosh for his world, ten years before its existence.
Gibson spends his research time thinking, maybe one step ahead of what computer designers will be secretly doing next. Pattern Recognition continued (2005) with the cosmopolitan flavour that is attractive to me because most of my life has been spent in large cities in foreign climes: London, Paris, New York, San Francisco, Jerusalem, and Tokyo. He also doesn’t waste time explaining his rapid-fire, obscure references, at least not right away – he lets them dangle until you’ve had time to Google the phrase and figure out what he meant and how it related. In a uTube-recorded interview available on Amazon, he explains that this is a new facet of writing – faster-paced, abbreviated – let the reader do the research. An example interesting to me was a throw-away line about an IDF-bra. For me, having spent a year in Jerusalem, working for the Israeli Air Force, Ministry of Defense (MOD): Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), I knew exactly what he was talking about. I also looked up dozens of other references and probably missed many others. I like the challenge.
I have a new, only once read, copy of the hard-back for anyone daring enough to try it. I’ll bring it next month, November 2010.
No comments:
Post a Comment