Zero History by William Gibson

Zero History

William Gibson
404 pages
G.P. Putnam's Sons
Sep 2010
Hardcover
Mystery & Thrillers WSBN
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<b>The iconic visionary returns with his first new novel since the <i>New York Times</i> bestseller <i>Spook Country</i>.</b> <br><br> <i>Whatever you do, because you are an artist, will bring you to the next thing of your own...</i> <br><br> When she sang for The Curfew, Hollis Henry's face was known worldwide. She still runs into people who remember the poster. Unfortunately, in the post-crash economy, cult memorabilia doesn't pay the rent, and right now she's a journalist in need of a job. The last person she wants to work for is Hubertus Bigend, twisted genius of global marketing; but there's no way to tell an entity like Bigend that you want nothing more to do with him. That simply brings you more firmly to his attention. <br><br> Milgrim is clean, drug-free for the first time in a decade. It took eight months in a clinic in Basel. Fifteen complete changes of his blood. Bigend paid for all that. Milgrim's idiomatic Russian is superb, and he notices things. Meanwhile no one notices Milgrim. That makes him worth every penny, though it cost Bigend more than his cartel-grade custom-armored truck. <br><br> The culture of the military has trickled down to the street- Bigend knows that, and he'll find a way to take a cut. What surprises him though is that someone else seems to be on top of that situation in a way that Bigend associates only with himself. Bigend loves staring into the abyss of the global market; he's just not used to it staring back.<br><br>Watch a Video<p></p>

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A delight, and delightfully weird

Gibson gets beneath the reader's surface. Reading his books becomes somehow personal. I think that's why so many of these reviewers are split, some loving it and some seeing it as only so-so. With Zero History, I'm in the former camp: I loved it. As for his more recent works, I loved Pattern Recognition but thought Spook Country was a muddled, dispirited mess. So it was with some trepidation that I began Zero History. Who wants to be disappointed twice by an author with such potential? Well, I wasn't disappointed. Gibson's prose is dense and intricately woven, and when his writing is supported by good plotting the result is almost magical. In other words, you can simultaneously enjoy the writing and the story, something I find very rare. The one doesn't get in the way of the other. However, when the plot is confused and the characters seem to be aimlessly wandering around, it's a slog. For me, that was the problem with Spook Country. Zero History suffers none of these ailments. The book is simply wonderful. I suppose it's natural to compare it to Pattern Recognition (arguably his best). Is Zero History better? Not in my opinion, but neither is it a lesser work. It's different enough to defy easy comparisons. I would love to see more of Bigend, Hollis, Milgrim, Fiona and the rest, but I suspect Gibson is moving on. Wherever he goes, I'm sure it will be, as Bigend would say, "interesting." Read more

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