Pattern Recognition - Hardcover

Gibson, William

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399149864 ISBN 13: 9780399149863

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2003

Synopsis

Hired to investigate a mysterious video collection that has been appearing on the Internet, market research consultant Cayce Pollard realizes that there is more to the assignment when her computer is hacked. By the author of Idoru and Neuromancer. 100,000 first printing.

About this title

Review

The first of William Gibson's usually futuristic novels to be set in the present, Pattern Recognition is a masterful snapshot of modern consumer culture and hipster esoterica. Set in London, Tokyo, and Moscow, Pattern Recognition takes the reader on a tour of a global village inhabited by power-hungry marketeers, industrial saboteurs, high-end hackers, Russian mob bosses, Internet fan-boys, techno archeologists, washed-out spies, cultural documentarians, and our heroine Cayce Pollard--a soothsaying "cool hunter" with an allergy to brand names.

Pollard is among a cult-like group of Internet obsessives that strives to find meaning and patterns within a mysterious collection of video moments, merely called "the footage," let loose onto the Internet by an unknown source. Her hobby and work collide when a megalomaniac client hires her to track down whoever is behind the footage. Cayce's quest will take her in and out of harm's way in a high-stakes game that ultimately coincides with her desire to reconcile her father’s disappearance during the September 11 attacks in New York.

Although he forgoes his usual future-think tactics, this is very much a William Gibson novel, more so for fans who realize that Gibson's brilliance lies not in constructing new futures but in using astute observations of present-day cultural flotsam to create those futures. With Pattern Recognition, Gibson skips the extrapolation and focuses his acumen on our confusing contemporary world, using the precocious Pollard to personify and humanize the uncertain anxiety, optimistic hope, and downright fear many feel when looking to the future. The novel is filled with Gibson's lyric descriptions and astute observations of modern life, making it worth the read for both cool hunters and their prey. --Jeremy Pugh

About the Author

As the author of Neuromancer, William Gibson is credited with having coined the term "cyberspace" and envisioned the Internet-and its effects on daily life-before any such things existed. Many of his descriptions and metaphors have entered the culture as images of human relationships in the "wired" age. This is his first novel set firmly in the present.

Edition details

• Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0399149864
• ISBN 13: 9780399149863
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368