Spook Country

Author: William Gibson
Published: 2007

Has the future caught up with William Gibson? Or perhaps all of us? It is a testament to his vision that so much of our Western culture, media, and technology, resembles what Gibson has been writing about for over twenty years.

I wavered before starting his latest book. Reviews that I came across ranged from the usual stuff (Gibson does it again, another masterpiece) to so-so responses and finally one review that was as negative as anything I've seen. If books had them, that bad review would have ripped Spook Country a new one.

It's not as if anyone should be surprised that this latest book isn't set in the future. Gibson's last two (three?) books have been trending in our direction, our present. Seems to me the books are exploring a deep back story that leads all the way up to Neuromancer.

Reading Spook Country, I did feel like I'd been there before, similar technology, female lead character, as in Pattern Recognition. But, so what. The guy is an incredible writer. If the next book is set in the late 70's, I'll still read it.