Playboy.com - Book Review - Spook Country (original) (raw)

It's gratifying when a writer -- especially one who writes about the future -- doesn't allow himself to be limited by his past. William Gibson may be the father of the cyberpunk style of science fiction, but like any properly restless novelist he's been marching away from his best-known tropes ever since they put him on the map. His newest novel, Spook Country, continues this transformation, painting a subtle and discomfiting portrait of the present.

In his initial far-future "Sprawl" trilogy (Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive), space travel is commonplace and consciousnesses can be uploaded into computers. His follow-up works, the near-future "Bridge" trilogy (Virtual Light, Idoru and All Tomorrow's Parties) focused on the social issues that emerge around the technology of 20 years from now. His last novel, Pattern Recognition, as well as Spook Country show him moving calmly and comfortably into today, but in a way that's as thought-provoking and dystopian as the most vertiginous sci-fi.

Technology, while omnipresent, is not the star of the show. Rather, Gibson has learned to trust his characters and their inner lives, allowing the action to come from their personal dramas rather than dazzling feats of futurism. The inside-out approach allows him to play with characters with a true solidity and throw weight. They may swim at the new and fertile intersections of technology and society, but they are not ruled by them.

Gibson's pulp noir roots can still be felt faintly in the staccato edges of his writing, but they are tempered by an axial expository style that builds a kaleidoscopic, almost meditative tone. Thus, Spook Country reads like a Buddhist action movie, deftly weaving together Cuban Chinese intelligence shamans, the L.A. avant-garde art scene, New York City junkies, international organized crime and the equally sinister world of modern advertising. It's a novel concerned with obsession, ways of seeing and the shifting realities that manifest when maps compete to define a common territory. It's also glorious proof that cyberpunks sometimes grow up into truly excellent novelists.

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