Spook Country

So is William Gibson becoming the new Edward Whittemore? This description of his upcoming novel, Spook Country, via BoingBoing sure sounds like he is mining the same territory.

I am, of course, the only person who did not think that Pattern Recognition (the first in now what is a trilogy) was the greatest thing since sliced bread. On the other hand, my first go through of Virtual Light left me cold. It wasn't until I re-read it, in conjunction with Idoru and All Tomorrow's Parties that I thought it was interesting. Even then, it wasn't quite the bolt out of the blue that the "Sprawl" stories were for me (Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive, plus some shorts) were for me.

Perhaps it is because those tales were so fresh, at the start of a wave. Perhaps it is because the Bridge Trilogy was a lot closer to our "now" than the first works. Pattern Recognition was "our now", but (at this point) is dated by subsequent events. Can Spook Country retain anything more than a brief amount of freshness and relevance given that it also takes place "now"?

Other items: William Gibson interviewed at Amazon.com. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. William Gibson at College Crier.

Addendum: Checking a couple of eBook sites (what would be more natural than to read the tales of the Father of Cyberspace on a PDA?), I'm puzzled. For the Sprawl tales, we have Neuromancer and Count Zero but no Mona Lisa Overdrive or Burning Chrome. For the Bridge Trilogy, we have Idoru and All Tomorrow's Parties, but the first book, Virtual Light is missing. For the new trilogy, we have Pattern Recognition, but (not surprisingly, since it is not out yet) no Spook Country. Is Gibson's agent asleep at the switch? Why are chunks of the first two sets missing at this late date? Prices are not quite Baen Books Webscriptions level for eBooks, except for Pattern Recognition which is wildly overpriced for a book that has been a paperback for a few years. Sigh. Get a clue, folks. People shouldn't pay hardcover prices for a bunch of electrons!

Addendum: I've started re-reading Pattern Recognition as preparation to reading Spook Country. I'll post a review soon. Interview with William Gibson at The Observer.