Reread Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. Highly recommended, it has most everything I like about cyberpunk in a modern day real world setting. Without losing the Gibson world-building, world-building as a collage of interesting ideas and perspectives on things.
When I first read it, I thought this was his best book, right up until the end of chapter 37, I disliked chapters 38+ about as much as the epilogue of HP: Deathly Hallows. (And with similar belief that the book would be far better with those pages removed.)
Since then I’ve re-read the Bridge Trilogy, and read the sequels to Pattern Recognition. And this time I didn’t find the ending frustration at all. Maybe because I could see the shape of things to come, or because I had different expectations.
The metaphor that struck me is that the structure of this book is like a certain kind of origami; much folding and unfolding, leaving you—just before the climax—with a flat sheet of paper covered in creases. Then all of a sudden it crumbles up, or seems to, but in actuality it all comes together in a new and unexpected shape.
Reread Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. Highly recommended, it has most everything I like about cyberpunk in a modern day real world setting. Without losing the Gibson world-building, world-building as a collage of interesting ideas and perspectives on things.
When I first read it, I thought this was his best book, right up until the end of chapter 37, I disliked chapters 38+ about as much as the epilogue of HP: Deathly Hallows. (And with similar belief that the book would be far better with those pages removed.)
Since then I’ve re-read the Bridge Trilogy, and read the sequels to Pattern Recognition. And this time I didn’t find the ending frustration at all. Maybe because I could see the shape of things to come, or because I had different expectations.
The metaphor that struck me is that the structure of this book is like a certain kind of origami; much folding and unfolding, leaving you—just before the climax—with a flat sheet of paper covered in creases. Then all of a sudden it crumbles up, or seems to, but in actuality it all comes together in a new and unexpected shape.