William Gibson's "Spook Country"

Just finished reading William Gibson's "Spook Country." Like his previous book "Pattern Recognition," "Spook Country" takes place in the here and now but still manages to squeeze in lots of nerd-worthy gadgets and futuristic concepts. While reading "Pattern Recognition" I hit up Google more than once trying to figure out if something depicted was real or not. This time around I knew better.

Is a book still considered "Science Fiction" if you remove the element of speculation?

(Years ago someone - maybe Forry Ackerman - made a credible case for calling sci-fi "speculative fiction.")

"Neuromancer" took the idea of virtual reality and extrapolated it to the Nth degree, but Gibson's last few books have turned actual reality inside-out and assembled a fantastic world out of bits and pieces of preexisting technology. Maybe it's the kind of stuff any old hack could find on "Boing-Boing" but Gibson knows what to do with it.

Even prosaic stuff like wi-fi connections and high tech sneakers become bits of magic in the right context. Parkour, cryptology and Santeria all make it into the book at various points, and it all makes perfect sense in Gibson's world. Maybe this is magic realism for people who dont like too much hocus-pocus in their mumbo-jumbo.

And like "Pattern Recognition" a big theme here is post-9/11 anxiety and the gulf between homeland security & liberty.

'Spook' is filled with buzzed-about, topical concepts but somehow you don't get the feeling that it's going to feel dated 10 years down the road. It's fast and funny (at times) and Gibson writes lean and breezy passages without a speck of the hoopty-doodle.

The protagonist, Hollis Henry is a bit of a reboot of "Pattern Recognition" lead Cayce Pollard. But having a smart and cool female framing a story like this is pretty refreshing - so you can excuse Gibson for relying on a stock character. Hubertus Biggend from 'Pattern' figures in the story. Strange, because I thought Biggend was kind of a cartoon. Not entirely believable, but he served the story in 'Pattern' well. Here, he's more of a deux ex machina.

And if you can pull off a character named Hubertus Biggend you are more than capable of holding my attention.