Spook Country
Have just finished reading Gibson’s “Spook Country“. Enjoyed it immensely. Gibson’s trajectory is interesting as his early and seminal novels are all in a future not yet arrived, much more plainly sci-fi, but his two most recent books are deeply immersed in the technologically and culturally present. “Pattern Recognition” largely described a proto videoblogging art project while this more recent one combines locative art with post Iraq politics as information exchange and encryption. The cover mentions Chandler, that touchstone of noir writing, but for my money Elmore Leonard is the man here. The mix of characters, their patois of not just voice but practice and a narrative of divergent parts that we just now will converge. Look at his ten rules of writing and then tell me, in “Spook Country” what does Hollis Henry look like? Tito?