Spook Country [Perfect Paperback]

William Gibson (Author)

Product Details

• Perfect Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Putnam (2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670914967
• ISBN-13: 978-0670914968
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (199 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,038,465 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

William Gibson was born in the United States in 1948. In 1972 he moved to Vancouver, Canada, after four years spent in Toronto. He is married with two children.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars character-driven, thoughtful novel, September 1, 2007

By 

Constant Reader (Gloucester MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spook Country (Hardcover)

I have always been a fan of Gibson's, and so I was surprised by some of the negative reviews of this book-- and even more surprised now that I've read it! Gibson's writing hallmarks are here-- deft characterization, gorgeous writing, a way of presenting the world of (as one reviewer put it) product placement through a new perspective. In this book, echoes of other characters can be found-- musician-turned-journalist Hollis reminded me of Marly, and tranquillizer-addict Milgrim drifts through his experiences with a distance much like Laney's in Idoru. What's changed, however, is that instead of projecting his story into the future, it's set in a present-day which is as much science-fiction to most people as the future could be-- a world where wartime corruption, Malay straits pirates, artists working in GPS, and Ativan addicts come together and drift apart again. Gibson himself pokes fun at his own Neuromancer vision of VR, and suggests that we are all doing it now-- just without the gloves and goggles. This book was clever, thought-provoking, and surprisingly gentle in the end, with its characters and also with its vision of our (possibly not all that bleak) world, with lots of possibilities for redemption or at least continuing forward-- and, I thought, well-paced from beginning to end.

One warning: a lot of the reviews below, esp. the negative ones, have spoilers in them.

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It's Gibson, but not great Gibson., September 20, 2007

By 

Adam Z (San Francisco) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spook Country (Hardcover)

Okay, let's start by acknowledging the truth: you are going to read this book, because it's William Gibson, and you and I both read everything he writes.

That said, this is not Gibson at his best. Some of the characters are brilliant, and others are either sketched in or shouldn't have arrived on-scene at all. The plot, such as it is, is basically an excuse to create scenes and have characters react to them. He hasn't lost his voice, but he hasn't got much to say with it here.

So, go ahead and read it, but it will be most satisfying if you go into it not expecting too much.

101 of 125 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Pattern Recognition this is not, September 15, 2007

By 

Geoffrey Kleinman (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Spook Country (Hardcover)

Gibson's Pattern Recognition is brilliant, Spook Country is not. While not a particularly awful book, it's just not a very good one. Gibson tries to tell 3 disconnected stories in parallel - a narrative device that never seems to really connect. When the 3 story lines of the novel do finally collide, the payoff is so weak and anticlimactic that it makes the arduous journey through this book feel even more worthless.

There are some interesting moments in Spook Country and some good characters, but just when you start to connect with them Gibson yanks them away. The problem here is focus, Gibson seems
to be trying to do too much in Spook Country and he isn't able to do all of it well. Had he picked one thread and developed it better he would have had a much better book.

I bought this book in Hardcover right when it was released with the expectations that it would be in the league of Patter Recognition. Unfortunately it isn't. I won't completely warn people off this book because there are so many books out there that are much worse. But I don't feel like I particularly got my moneys worth.