Pattern Recognition

Pattern Recognition; William Gibson (Putnam, 2003. ISBN 0-399-14986-4).

Written after and influenced by the events of 9/11, Pattern Recognition is more a work of mainstream fiction than science fiction. In fact, despite what folks like John Clute might say, I can find nothing really "science-fictional" in it. Gibson seems to be trying to break out of label, but the label keeps putting him back. You'll find Pattern Recognition on the SF shelves, not the general fiction shelves; the latest, Spook Country, is there and Gibson (as of when I heard him this morning) is still being called a "science fiction author".

So how is the book? This was my second time through. When it first came out, it was billed (by Gibson) as a standalone novel, now it is the first part of a trilogy. So, I felt compelled to read it again before tackling Spook Country.

For plot, I'll refer you here. It's not science fiction...but a mainstream novel with a science fiction eye. And that's why I enjoyed it.

Look at some of the elements. It's about a "cool hunter", a person who tries to spot early trends so that her clients, mostly in the advertising field, can exploit those trends. It's about a group of people who obsess over "The Footage", a series of film clips that get posted and discussed on the internet. It's about power struggles within an advertising firm.

O.K. So?

Luckily, thanks to that science fiction eye, Gibson can make this stuff interesting. As with the sub-culture of bike messengers in Virtual Light, Gibson uses a combination of writing, interesting secondary characters and odd bits of information to weave a good tale. In Pattern Recognition, you have retired spies, dealers in odd things like the Sinclair ZX80 and the Curta Calculator (good luck buying one of those since the book came out!) and Russian capitalists and The Footage.

The first time through, I found this bit among the oddest bits of the book. Would people really spend endless hours online discussing something like this? Since the book, we've seen MyTube and Flickr and endless other communities where people do such a thing. Score one for Gibson.

Faults? The whole bit about the main character's father being lost on 9/11 could have been jettisoned easily. The book is set not long after 9/11, but the sense of loss from the event just wasn't there for me. I think Gibson tried, but failed here. Some of the secondary characters were more interesting than the main character. Maybe they'll show up in Spook Country or the third book. Heck, maybe Cayce Pollard's father will show up.

As with the so-called Bridge Trilogy, it may take another reading or so of the books for it to jell in me. When I first read Virtual Light, I was not at all impressed. By the time the third book in that sequence came out, I was hooked. The first time through Pattern Recognition, I wasn't all that impressed. This time through I saw more and enjoyed more. We shall see if it rates "classic" in my list in a few years time.