the background noise

It occurred to me that I never got around to posting my thoughts on the final part of the Blue Ant trilogy so here it is despite me finishing the damn thing several months ago. I'd like to say this is the shocking conclusion that upends your expectations, pulls them inside out and launches them into the stratosphere of critical re-evaluation but that would be an awful, awful lie...

Some thoughts about William Gibson's Spook Country. Minor spoilers ahead. Now it's probably fair to say I had some misgivings about Pattern Recognition, the first book in what is referred to as the Blue Ant trilogy. Indeed upon finishing this follow up I pondered if I could get away with just copying and pasting the same thoughts into this review as much of it still applied. One bout of careful consideration later I was just about to CTRL+V that content over when I paused for thought and realised that it wouldn't be entirely fair or accurate.

A book review why not? Have been reading William Gibson's Pattern Recognition. No particular reason why this and now other than curiosity really. The name casts a large shadow in the sci-fi genre of course. Neuromancer, cyberpunk, skies the colour and texture of white noise, the kind of good stuff that shapes genres and other writers long after its publication. So what is Pattern Recognition? It's bleeding edge human trend detectors. It's the niche within a niche subcultures of the web. It's also copious amounts of interior design lovingly described throughout. Also 9/11. This is an early noughties book and those horrific events loomed large over everything. Truly it has it all! More truly, for me at least it was a sprawling, at times quite interesting but often quite tiresome tale told with variable levels of success.