Just Finished Reading: Pattern Recognition by William Gibson

Cayce Pollard is cursed (or blessed) by an almost pathological allergic reaction to brand names. At the sight of Prada or especially the Michelin Man she goes into intense panic attack. Fortunately this is a talent she can sell to advertising companies as she can instantly tell if a new brand is effective – or not – saving companies millions in potentially failed advertising costs. Cayce is also obsessed with the Footage – an Internet viral video depicting what might be a fragmented movie of outstanding quality. Cayce spends most of her on-line time discussing the Footage on Forums and by e-mail. After a job finishes in London she’s hired by an advertising mogul to track down the creator of the Footage which takes her first to Tokyo and then to Moscow. On the way she begins to unravel what happened to her father who disappeared in New York on September 11th.

I clearly remember the effect Gibson’s Sprawl series had on me in the late 80’s. The sheer imagination surrounding the world he created was breath taking. SF was never the same again after Cyberpunk crashed onto the scene. I miss those books and wish Gibson would write more of them. However he’s of the opinion, I’ve heard, that there’s no need to write science fiction based in the future – because the future we dreamed of (or had nightmares about) is already here. Hence Gibson now writes contemporary fiction. But you can still discern his Cyberpunk style even as he writes about the early 21st Century. He sees the world through slightly different lenses than the rest of us – seeing cities that are at once familiar and yet subtly different. His characters are outstanding, especially Cayce herself. She’s hip, knowing, sassy and yet vulnerable at the same time. I’ve known people like her sans the pathology of course. The other characters that litter the book are equally well drawn and about as diverse as you can imagine from a ex-Soviet oligarch mafia gangster to a Japanese cyber-geek afraid of his own shadow, from an American art-house film producer to a Eastern European market trader who works part time ‘infecting’ people in bars with viral advertising. Some of the book is laugh out loud funny or more often downright strange. After I was halfway through this book I had, by osmosis, become more sensitive to the sheer amount of branding we see everyday. It’s everywhere. We just don’t normally notice it.

This book was wonderfully written, wonderfully constructed and wonderfully executed. It was just plain wonderful. A rich, adult, knowing book that felt like drinking fine wine whilst having a intelligent conversation with people you really want to get to know. I shall savour my other Gibson books for next year I think. It’ll give me something to look forward to if I hit another stinker like my last book!