Pattern Recognition (2003)

It's a section lifted out of the life of the main character. There's not so much with the traditional beginning, buildup, climax, and end. The flow of the book isn't as severe as you'd generally expect, and seems less forced because of it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The references to East Lansing, Michigan, where I work, were icing on the cake. ( )

Set a few minutes in the future, this is the story about marketing, paranoia, stalking, and crime. For me, a lot better than Neuromancer ( )

I give this three instead of two stars only because Gibson had some lovely prose in this work, some excellent turns of phrase, moments where I went, "Ooh, that was nice." It felt like reading a Murakami novel, except Gibson remains too Western, and the inchoate mood never quite settled correctly. Murakami gets away with this somehow, drawing a plot and a character along a plot as through a dream. But I wanted something more concrete from Gibson. In particular, I was annoyed that Cayce's "allergy" didn't play more of a central role – it provided emotional subtext for her, but in the end seemed like a cool idea Gibson imagined, but couldn't figure out how to properly exploit. ( )

I give this three instead of two stars only because Gibson had some lovely prose in this work, some excellent turns of phrase, moments where I went, "Ooh, that was nice." It felt like reading a Murakami novel, except Gibson remains too Western, and the inchoate mood never quite settled correctly. Murakami gets away with this somehow, drawing a plot and a character along a plot as through a dream. But I wanted something more concrete from Gibson. In particular, I was annoyed that Cayce's "allergy" didn't play more of a central role – it provided emotional subtext for her, but in the end seemed like a cool idea Gibson imagined, but couldn't figure out how to properly exploit. ( )

This took a while to build on me but it definitely has Gibson's signature world building weirdness. Not as prophetic as neuromancer but it still has that same cyberpunk noir setting I love. In a world not unlike our own in the not at all future. Looking forward to reading more. ( )