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Spook Country
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Manufacturer: Berkley Trade
Author: William Gibson
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Average Customer Rating:
Our Price: $10.20
You Save: $ 4.80 ( 32% )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Berkley Trade
Author: William Gibson
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Average Customer Rating:
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Spook Country Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780425221419
ISBN: 0425221415
Label: Berkley Trade
Manufacturer: Berkley Trade
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 384
Publication Date: 2008-06-03
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Studio: Berkley Trade
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780425221419
ISBN: 0425221415
Label: Berkley Trade
Manufacturer: Berkley Trade
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 384
Publication Date: 2008-06-03
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Studio: Berkley Trade
Editorial Review of Spook Country
The New York Times bestseller from “one of the most astute and entertaining commentators on our astonishing, chaotic present.”( Washington Post Book World)
Hollis Henry is a journalist on investigative assignment for a magazine called Node, which doesn’t exist yet. Bobby Chombo is a producer working on cutting-edge art installations. In his day job, Bobby is a trouble-shooter for military navigation equipment. He refuses to sleep in the same place twice. He meets no one.
Hollis Henry has been told to find him.
Hollis Henry is a journalist on investigative assignment for a magazine called Node, which doesn’t exist yet. Bobby Chombo is a producer working on cutting-edge art installations. In his day job, Bobby is a trouble-shooter for military navigation equipment. He refuses to sleep in the same place twice. He meets no one.
Hollis Henry has been told to find him.
Customer Reviews of Spook Country
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Another in the Gibson formula
Review: Spook Country is in the same formula as Pattern Recognition. A young hip female protagonist is pulled into a job to find a shipping container for an unknown reason. The organization that is funding her is a secretive advertising agency with an over funded over bearing own who keeps showing up at improbable times. We never learn who the mysterious container belongs to, nor do we learn much about the other group competing for the container.
So Spook Country like Pattern Recognition features a number of mysterious organizations, a strange activity being done for a vague reason. These things are never really explained in the book, or if they are the explanation is not satisfying.
Gibson is a good writer so Spook Country is engrossing. It features his vivid descriptions of the objects and locations that help set a scene. In my opinion it has very little else to recommend it.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Still good, but far from the best
Review: Since Pattern Recognition, Gibson is bringing his stories to the present time, leaving his previous choice of staging the plot in a nebulous future. But there are some strange things going on in the present; in Pattern Recognition, storie moved around the social network space - more precisely, a group of people the followed some posts of movie fragments. In this "Spook Country" the forward-looking feature is the geolocation, and the action moves around a group of artists that create their work aroun GPS-enabled devices. There are also lots of military types - the spooks from the title - and the story goes back and forth from the art to the war. I think that Gibson's main point is described somewhere in the book - technology advances through the army and the artists.
The starting point is intersting, but for the readers that enjoyed Pattern Recognition this new work lacks action and chemistry. The idea is indeed original and well crafted, enough to make you keep the interest until the end of the story. But don't expect a new Pattern Recognition.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Pick up idoru instead
Review: I've read all of William Gibson's recent books and I think this one is the least enjoyable. The unique subcultures in most of his recent books have been engrossing but in comparison spook-country's art scene seems cobbled-together and tacked-on. Entirely too normal to be a Gibson book.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Brilliant, but not perfect
Review: The good: This book has some brilliant characters which ultimately intertwine around a caper based climax at the end. The writing is clever and a joy to read, and paints a very realistic and plausible world, once you get past the first chapter, which was like another reviewer mentioned like wading through overly descriptive mud.
The reason it isn't perfect was that I felt the climax, which had been building nicely, didn't come to as much resolution as I would have liked. Of course there is enough material to do some sort of sequel, but that is up to Mr. Gibson.
All in all, worth the read, but not his best work.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The Future is Now and Gibson is still there!
Review: The "follow the bouncing Character" is always enjoyable for me. Gibson links it so well that I can read a chapter or 3 late at night and enjoy every minute of reading and the anticipation of the next chapter!Interesting people, nice yarn; Gibson always come through for me!
Review Summary: Another in the Gibson formula
Review: Spook Country is in the same formula as Pattern Recognition. A young hip female protagonist is pulled into a job to find a shipping container for an unknown reason. The organization that is funding her is a secretive advertising agency with an over funded over bearing own who keeps showing up at improbable times. We never learn who the mysterious container belongs to, nor do we learn much about the other group competing for the container.
So Spook Country like Pattern Recognition features a number of mysterious organizations, a strange activity being done for a vague reason. These things are never really explained in the book, or if they are the explanation is not satisfying.
Gibson is a good writer so Spook Country is engrossing. It features his vivid descriptions of the objects and locations that help set a scene. In my opinion it has very little else to recommend it.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Still good, but far from the best
Review: Since Pattern Recognition, Gibson is bringing his stories to the present time, leaving his previous choice of staging the plot in a nebulous future. But there are some strange things going on in the present; in Pattern Recognition, storie moved around the social network space - more precisely, a group of people the followed some posts of movie fragments. In this "Spook Country" the forward-looking feature is the geolocation, and the action moves around a group of artists that create their work aroun GPS-enabled devices. There are also lots of military types - the spooks from the title - and the story goes back and forth from the art to the war. I think that Gibson's main point is described somewhere in the book - technology advances through the army and the artists.
The starting point is intersting, but for the readers that enjoyed Pattern Recognition this new work lacks action and chemistry. The idea is indeed original and well crafted, enough to make you keep the interest until the end of the story. But don't expect a new Pattern Recognition.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Pick up idoru instead
Review: I've read all of William Gibson's recent books and I think this one is the least enjoyable. The unique subcultures in most of his recent books have been engrossing but in comparison spook-country's art scene seems cobbled-together and tacked-on. Entirely too normal to be a Gibson book.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Brilliant, but not perfect
Review: The good: This book has some brilliant characters which ultimately intertwine around a caper based climax at the end. The writing is clever and a joy to read, and paints a very realistic and plausible world, once you get past the first chapter, which was like another reviewer mentioned like wading through overly descriptive mud.
The reason it isn't perfect was that I felt the climax, which had been building nicely, didn't come to as much resolution as I would have liked. Of course there is enough material to do some sort of sequel, but that is up to Mr. Gibson.
All in all, worth the read, but not his best work.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The Future is Now and Gibson is still there!
Review: The "follow the bouncing Character" is always enjoyable for me. Gibson links it so well that I can read a chapter or 3 late at night and enjoy every minute of reading and the anticipation of the next chapter!Interesting people, nice yarn; Gibson always come through for me!