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William Gibson

Pattern Recognition Paperback – January 1, 2011

by William Gibson (Author)

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Pattern Recognition

Language

English
Publisher

Viking
Publication date

January 1, 2011
Dimensions

5.08 x 0.87 x 7.8 inches
ISBN-10

0241953537
ISBN-13

978-0241953532
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Viking; Re-issue edition (January 1, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0241953537
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0241953532
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.08 x 0.87 x 7.8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #65,454 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,840 in Spies & Political Thrillers
- #3,304 in Women Sleuths (Books)

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William Gibson

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William Gibson is the award-winning author of Neuromancer, Mona Lisa Overdrive, The Difference Engine, with Bruce Sterling, Virtual Light, Idoru, All Tomorrow's Parties and Pattern Recognition. William Gibson lives in Vancouver, Canada. His latest novel, published by Penguin, is Spook Country (2007).

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Chris Hansen

read aloud

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 2, 2023

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Read this aloud and listen to the mastery of voices, the economy of words that comes from internal monologue. Also a great snapshot of the “cool” of the time.

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reader

an exposition of net culture

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 17, 2004

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Gibson is a stylist rather in the Joycian tradition instead of the Proustian writers I usually love. But more importantly Gibson is the voice of our times. His previous masterpiece, Neuromancer, is set in the future and is a violent and male world where the Internet is a place rather like a country. Gibson coined the word cyberspace to describe this "country". Pattern Recognition, his latest work, is set in our times and is non-violent and female but still about the Internet, in this case how its culture is affecting our culture, how the two are merging so to speak.
Here is a quote, slightly elided:
"Of course," he says, "we have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our grandparents had a future, or thought they did. Fully imagined cultural futures were the luxury of another day, one in which 'now' was of some greater duration. For us, of course, things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures like our grandparents' have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile." ... "We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition."
The book has several themes, all connected to the net. One is the nature of friends made over the net, long time friends that is, that one has had many many deep conversations with. These friends have something of the nature of childhood friendships which have survived into adulthood in so far as the people are known for their verbal impact rather than for their image or sociological impact. Children (and dogs) see people in a different way -- they see an inner essence and cannot be fooled by such trappings as wealth, beauty or circumstance. We would call the way children see an "interface" and the way adults see a different interface. Net friendships of long standing have something of the children's interface because what one "sees" is the projection of intellect and emotion in words, in this case words on a screen instead of words on paper.
Another theme is what is called "the footage" -- brief scenes from a strange and compelling film that are posted anonymously to the net. Here is a description:
"How much time have you spent with the actual footage?'
"Not much."
"How do you feel when you watch it?'
He looks down at his noodles, then up at her. "Lonely?"
"Most people find that that deepens. Becomes sort of polyphonic. Then there's a sense that it's going somewhere, that something will happen. Will change." She shrugs. "It's impossible to describe, but if you live with it for a while, it starts to get to you. it's just such a powerful effect introduced by so little actual screen time. I've never felt convinced that there's a recognized filmmaker around who can do that, although if you read the footage boards you'll see different directors constantly nominated."
"Or maybe it's the repetition. Maybe you've been looking at this stuff for so long that you've read all this into it. And talking with other people who've been doing the same thing."
"I've tried to convince myself of that. I've wanted to believe it, simply in order to let the thing go. But then I go back and look at it again and there's that sense of . . . I don't know. Of an opening into something. Universe? Narrative?"
Cayce (the female protagonist, pronounced "case" in analogy to the protagonist of Neuromancer) eventually finds an email address connected with the footage and sends this message to that address:
"Someone showed me one segment and I looked for more. I found a site where people discussed it, and I began to post there, asking questions. I can't tell you why, but it became very important to me, to all of us there. Parkaboy and Ivy and Maurice and Filmy, all the others too. We went there whenever we could, to be with other people who understood. We looked for more footage. Some people stayed out surfing, weeks at a time, never posting until someone discovered a new segment.
We don't know what you're doing, or why. Parkaboy thinks you're dreaming. Dreaming for us. Sometimes he sounds as though he thinks you're dreaming us. He has this whole edged-out participation mystique: how we have to allow ourselves so far into the investigation of whatever this is, whatever you're doing, that we become part of it. Hack into the system. Merge with it, deep enough that it, not you, begins to talk to us. He says it's like Coleridge, and De Quincy. He says that it's shamanic. That we may all seem to just be sitting there, staring at the screen, but really, some of us anyway, we're adventurers. We're out there, seeking, taking risks. In hopes, he says, of bringing back wonders. Trouble is, lately, I've been living that."
So these are some of the themes, all of which have to do with our experience of ourselves as part of the net which means that we experience ourselves as part of something that is virtual. And this, ironically enough, causes us to value those parts of ourselves that are the most human, the most emotionally connected. And we find this, more and more frequently, with those we converse with over the net.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Superb, thought-provoking novel

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 12, 2003

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I feel I should start of by stating that this is my first William Gibson novel, so if you're looking for an evaluation of "Pattern Recognition" within the context of his other books, there's no point in reading further. That said, I found "Pattern Recognition" to be a remarkable, moving novel that was a joy to read. Specifically, it is a fascinating look at the paranoia and hope of the post 9/11 world. Gibson deftly considers the difference between crass consumer culture and genuine art, and then swirls them together via our information saturated culture.

As his protagonist, Gibson creates Cayce Pollard, something of a marketing prodigy whose claim to fame is that she can unerringly determine whether or not a brand logo will be successful on first sight. It is therefore intensely ironic that she has a phobia of all commercial branding that manifests itself through something that is akin to a cross between a panic attack and a migraine. Her revulsion to consumer culture is so intense, she goes so far as to remove labels from everything she owns, and dresses in the most stripped down manner possible.

Wrapped inside this duality is the additional one that Cayce, despite her odd phobias, who seems to be an inherently trusting and positive person, is grappling with the death, or more accurately the disappearance of her father in the events surrounding 9/11. Thus her vision of the future is touched by the background, but pervasive, fear that seems to have become part and parcel to our new century.

Cayce's escape from these twin phantoms is an oddly alluring film that is being released piece by piece on the internet (those familiar with Mark Danielewski's "House of Leaves" may see an echo here). The "footage", as it is known, enjoys a grass roots fascination globally that borders on cultish, except that the reaction is overwhelmingly positive, and disconnected from pop culture. The footage is apparently being released out of sequence, and seems to take place out of time and in some undefined location. As chatroom battles rage over whether it is a work in progress or a completed film, there seems to be no argument that the footage is a thing of shocking, pure beauty, totally untainted by popular culture.

However, it is when Cayce is asked by her enigmatic and enormously influential colleague to track the footage to the source that things get weird. It would be impossible to recount the plot here without spoiling it, but the dualities mentioned above, art and pop-culture, past and future, act, react and interact in fascinating ways. Gibson argues eloquently that the future is informed by the past, but not determined by it. Moreover, he seems to be arguing that there is no such thing as consumer-culture or art, but rather that they are all part of one increasingly global CULTURE. This blurring of the lines is neither good nor bad, but instead a consequence of the Information Age. As such, the definitions and boundaries of art are shifting.

I could go on, but I suspect that this is the type of novel that allows (and encourages) a multitude of conclusions. So I will finish by saying that on top of the fascinating, puzzling plot, and the interesting thematic elements, this is also a very cathartic book to read. While 9/11 plays a relatively small role in terms of lines of text, the horror of that day saturates Cayce, and the themes of the book. At it's conclusion, however, "Pattern Recognition" points the way to a release of those emotions, or more accurately of a way to place them within a personal historical context. Thus, this remarkable novel points to a chance for hope in our troubled brave new world.

Jake Mohlman

216 people found this helpful

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David Barnett

The Most Verbose IKEA Catalogue I've Ever Read...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 13, 2022

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Bleeding edge human trend detectors. The niche within a niche subcultures of the web. Copious amounts of interior design lovingly described throughout. Also 9/11. It has it all! For me it's a sprawling, at times quite interesting, often tiresome tale told with variable levels of success.

It does a decent job of bringing the multiple threads of intrigue together but it never quite gels by the time it finishes. There's lots to think about to be sure, there are some potentially interesting ideas alluded to throughout but it never connected with me beyond that.

Everything is listed, itemised, described in a functional manner that feels lifted from a showroom catalogue. Perhaps it's the point that it's all empty signifiers only as meaningful as we make them but its never really examined as the plot unfolds onwards.

As for the plot, it probably read better at the time it was published in the early noughties where there was a lot more novelty to certain items of technology that are now fundamentally part of the fabric of everyday life. Now it reads like a dad trying a little too hard to be down with the kids, teetering on the edge and often falling over it.

A note about the language, now the following isn't applicable to the entire book but there are some odd attacks of verbiage here. Somewhere early on I read of 'horizonless horse latitudes' and realised I wasn't going to be bridging the gap of meaning with the author at all points of this story.

Overall it's a mixed recommendation from me. A tale with a lot of interesting setup that never quite pays off. Clearly there's a fascination here with the concept of cool, branding and online culture as one might read about it in essays on the subject but it never connects far beyond the superficial. Give it a go but bear in mind that 2003 was a long time ago now.

3 people found this helpful

Marsh-P

Contemporary novel given the WIlliam Gibson treatment - excellent

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 10, 2016

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This isn't scifi or cyberpunk; know that before you buy. It's a contemporary novel about the ubiquity of brands, the "new espionage" after the Cold War, and about the commodification of everything that's cool, especially on the Internet.

It already feels a little like a lost world, being set before smart phones and after 9/11 but before the 2003 war and all that followed. But that won't lessen your enjoyment; it's a period novel, not dated. It contains everything you want in a Gibson novel: constant motion and fatigue, leaps around the world, an interesting female protagonist, and Cool dripping off everything like a spilled substance.

It contains some stuff you haven't seen before in a Gibson novel, too. Deep examination of the personal effects of international events, and that as metaphor for the way ripples from those same events run out around the globe an subtly change... everything in the modern world.

11 people found this helpful

James Brydon

William Gibson redefines the science fiction novel

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 5, 2014

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Since I started listing them back in my rather autistic teens I have now read just over four thousand books, and this could very probably my favourite of them all.

There are other contenders for that title, of course: John Buchan's 'John Macnab', for its beautifully written amalgam of a rattling good adventure with its passionate evocation of an Elysian age largely of his own imagining; J. I. M. Stewart's superlative 'Young Pattullo' with its glorious portrayal of an Oxford that is simultaneously so reminiscent of, yet remote from, my own Oxford experience; and David Mitchell's 'Cloud Atlas' with its intricately concentric structure and mind-blowing melding of plotlines across ages.

There is also, of course, Anthony Powell's 'Dance to the Music of Time'. I tend to think of my life as falling into two distinct phases: that dull sepia-tone stretch of tedium and woe before I met my wife and the glorious 64 bit kaleidoscopic years that followed. I sometimes wonder, however, whether reading 'A Dance to the Music of Time' was a similarly significant watershed moment (well, scarcely a moment as there are twelve volumes). Still, as it occurs to me that Catherine might read this I had better scratch that last thought. Phew, that was close but I think I got away with it.

Anyway, I am rambling. William Gibson is probably best known for his cyberpunks novels, and in particular for 'Neuromancer' which really launched the genre. His cyberpunk works are set in a technology-ridden, post-apocalyptic near future with anarchy threatening all around. 'Pattern Recognition' is very different. Written in 2003 it is set in an unspecified but very close future in a world immediately recognisable to us.

It was also one of the first novels to engage meaningfully with the events of 11 September 2001. Gibson was about halfway through writing the novel when 9/11 happened. As Cayce Pollard, the novel's amazing protagonist, is from New York it was utterly implausible for her not to refer to such a cataclysmic event, and Gibson reworked the book to feature 9/11 in her back story in a very sensitive and moving manner.

Other aspects of the novel include an alarming dissection of the lupine mores of the world of advertising agencies where industrial espionage and intimidation are all grist to the copy mill. Gibson also invents an early form of viral advertising and throws in an immensely readable history of mechanical computing.

Gibson's writing is economic, even sometimes austere, but he has a great capacity for conveying his heroine's emotions. Cayce Pollard is one of the most empathetic and credible characters I have read.

Advertising consultant Cayce Pollard, renowned as a “coolhunter” because of her ability to assess the likely success of new logos and brand insignia though she actually reacts to branding and advertising as if to an allergen, arrives in London in August 2002. She has been retained by innovative new marketing consultants Blue Ant to judge the effectiveness of a proposed corporate logo for a major sportswear company. During the presentation, graphic designer Dorotea Benedetti acts towards Cayce in an especially hostile manner as she rejects the first proposal. After dinner with some Blue Ant employees, the company founder Hubertus Bigend offers Cayce a new contract: to uncover who is responsible for producing and distributing a series of anonymous, artistic film clips which have been released periodically in obscure backwaters of the internet. Cayce had already become obsessed with these clips (referred to by fellow fans just as “the footage”) and has been a leading participant in an online discussion forum theorizing on their provenance and meaning, setting, and other aspects. Wary of the risk of corrupting the artistic process and mystery of the clips, she reluctantly accepts.

A friend from the discussion group, who uses the handle Parkaboy, privately emails her saying a friend of a friend has discovered an encrypted watermark on one clip. They concoct a fake persona, a young woman named Keiko, to seduce the Japanese man who knows the watermark code. Cayce, along with an American computer security specialist, Boone Chu, hired to assist her, travels to Tokyo to meet the man and retrieve the watermark code. Two men attempt to steal the code but Cayce escapes and travels back to London. Boone travels to Columbus, Ohio to investigate the company that he believes created the watermark. Meanwhile, Blue Ant hires Dorotea who reveals that she was previously employed by a Russian lawyer whose clients have been investigating Cayce. The clients wanted Cayce to refuse the job of tracking the film clips and it was Dorotea's responsibility to ensure this.

Through a completely random encounter Cayce meets Voytek Biroshak and Ngemi; the former an artist using old ZX81 microcomputers as a sculpture medium, the latter a collector of rare technology (he mentions purchasing Stephen King's word processor, for example). Another collector, and sometime 'friend' of Ngemi's, Hobbs Baranov, is a retired cryptographer and mathematician with connections in the American National Security Agency. Cayce strikes a deal with him: she buys a Curta calculator for him and he finds the email address to which the watermark code was sent. Using this email address Cayce makes contact with Stella Volkova whose sister Nora is the maker of the film clips.

Cayce flies to Moscow to meet Stella in person and watch Nora work. Nora is brain damaged from an assassination attempt and can only express herself through film. At her hotel, Cayce is intercepted and drugged by Dorotea and wakes up in a mysterious prison facility. Cayce escapes; exhausted, disoriented and lost, she nearly collapses as Parkaboy, who upon Cayce's request was flown to Moscow, retrieves her and brings her to the prison where the film is processed. There Hubertus, Stella and Nora's uncle Andrei, and the latter's security employees are waiting for her. Over dinner with Cayce, the Russians reveal that they have been spying on her since she posted to a discussion forum speculating that the clips may be controlled by the Russian Mafia. They had let her track the clips to expose any security breaches in their distribution network. The Russians surrender all the information they had collected on her father’s disappearance and the book ends with Cayce coming to terms with his absence while in Paris with Parkaboy, whose real name is Peter Gilbert.

11 people found this helpful

Andrew Stonebridge

Ok

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 15, 2018

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I've heard this on radio four extra a few times and liked it, so decided to experience the full version. A heroine a man can relate to, maybe because it was written by a man. I like the main characters obsession with black, dislike of branded things. A complex and convoluted plot, similar to Raymond Chandler for its wandering complexity. I remember reading Chandler being consulted on one of his book plots by a film director, and being unable to remember it himself. You might have to re-read this more than once. Enjoyable anyway. There are a couple of later novels which continue with these same characters which I have yet to read.

4 people found this helpful

Tom

jetlagged melancholia

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 20, 2016

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Like a perfect, rich gravy, there isn't one identifiably standout ingredient in this novel. It's Gibson as we know him and love him and the plot is a thiller whose currency has been bought and sold a hundred times before. And there's the McGuffin we've come to expect, that dark, dense gravitational centre the whole thing needs in order to have something to spin around - in this case, 'the footage' - although it's no mere object like all the best McGuffins aren't. There was just something that much more personal here, for me; some intimacy in that technology-as-melancholy where you start thinking with your heart as you read it, which is surprising as the ideas flit past a dozen after the other.

I slightly stumbled before writing this review as I read a newspaper's take on the book which accurately described its shortcomings, as held up to its fairest siblings in The Sprawl trilogy, and that was fair, but for some reason I can't or won't see the overall picture any differently. Love is blind. Why do I love this book, then? When I was a little boy growing up as the son of a graphic designer, once in a while these grey obelisks would show up in our home with the Apple logo, and they were utter magic. And as the years crawled by, the grey cases became the translucent millennial plastics that heralded the true arrival of the net and soon after I left home for university and home has never really been one fixed location in space and time since then. So the peculiar sadness of this book, for me, intersects with the definition of 'nostalgia' (i.e. a pain that longs for home). This book, you will eventually discover, is about something buried in your head, in your psyche, that organises everything you make, and about meaning-making itself. Revisiting Neuromancer fairly recently, I found these two books above all of his others have this truly saddening and utterly gorgeous emotional nucleus. The only difference is, Neuromancer is his best book and this isn't, but at a certain level of writing, if you really feel it, that fact doesn't matter at all. So all I can really say from here on out is that I truly loved this book because it is pure jetlagged melancholia distilled into something so bittersweet and, should you decide to give it a go, I hope you feel it too.

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