Book Review: Spook Country
It’s not often I review a book only published a couple of weeks ago. But some strange twist of fate, I was able to get it from the library on the same day it was published.
I like William Gibson, but kind of lost hope for him in his second trilogy. I didn’t care that it wasn’t scifi, but it seemed to lose focus. I read Pattern Recognition with little anticipation and was greatly surprised. I thought Pattern Recognition was his best book since Neuromancer. While I think Pattern Recognition is a better book, Spook Country is still very, very good.
It’s hard to talk about the plot without giving anything away. Let’s say it starts with three divergent plot lines, which is typical in a Gibson novel. But two are connected very early on, in a very fascinating way. Mysteries are revealed, tension gets high, and many questions are answered in a the end. A few, however, are not.
I like the world that Spook Country takes place in because it’s the one I live in — I’ve gone war-driving, I tend to Google people to see how what comes up about them, I love to see where the new tech trends are, etc., etc. This world is the same one Gibson writes about.
There are a lot of people that are going crazy about this being Gibson’s first book that takes place in New York City and L.A. I would also like to say that Spook Country is Gibson’s first book that mentions Nebraska, even though no plot really happens here.
I give Spook Country 4 out of 5 stars.
What others have said
Corey Doctorow has one of the best reviews out there. He’s right when he says this is a weird, futuristic world. But it’s also the world we live in. What makes it so weird is that we barely recognize it.
Tim Bray likes this too. He likes the Vancouver setting in the climax of the novel. I love Vancouver too! And he likes Gibson’s use of language, which I also admire great admire.