Zero History – William Gibson
Apparently the final piece in the Pattern Recognition trilogy. I have to admit, I got a bit lost. It took a long time to really get going, I didn’t really remember the characters properly (I thought Hollis Henry was the same girl as from Pattern Recognition itself, but clearly not), the main plot points didn’t seem to be strong enough to base a whole book on (non-brand brands, some kind of military clothing design espionage nonsense…) and the writing didn’t really pop the way I usually find Gibson’s does.
However, it was mostly set in London, so that was nice. Always strange when you’ve actually been to the locations in a novel, because so often they don’t really exist, or aren’t where the author says they are. This was real.
The other stuff, I really wasn’t so sure about. How does Milgrim get so many bots following him on Twitter? He doesn’t tweet anything publicly. Admittedly, his handle is GAYDOLPHIN2, so maybe there’s that.
In the end, though, I kind of got into the action when it started (although quite what they were all after…) and you have to admire Heidi (except for the insistence on calling her ex Fuckstick, which is neither big nor clever*).
*Although maybe that’s the point.
See also:
The other books in the series, guy
The Getaway – Playstation 2, for that visceral “this is really London” moment
