Spook Country

October 29, 2007
Robertson Dean’s deep, soothing tones anchor this post-9/11 thriller, a follow-up to Pattern Recognition
. Told from three third-person perspectives, the story concerns a journalist backed by a mysterious Belgian industrialist, a young Cuban-Chinese go-to guy from a secretive clan of criminals, and a junkie fluent in Russian, who get caught up in a search for a mysterious shipping container. Gibson reinvents the concept he made famous in his landmark SF novel, Neuromancer
—i.e., cyberspace—creating a more nuanced and up-to-date relationship between the virtual and the real. For Gibson, the nature of the quest object is almost beside the point; it merely serves as a spark for a series of cleverly orchestrated confrontations and interesting meditations about the world and where it’s headed. In a novel that’s light on dialogue and heavy on narration and interior monologue, Dean doesn’t need to create distinct, accented voices. He provides reflective calm for Gibson’s musings, and clarity to detailed, complex action scenes. Although there are a few strange mispronunciations, this is, on the whole, a smooth, intelligent recording of an intriguing and gripping book. Simultaneous release with the Putnam hardcover (Reviews, June 18).

Starred review from June 18, 2007
Set in the same high-tech present day as Pattern Recognition
, Gibson’s fine ninth novel offers startling insights into our paranoid and often fragmented, postmodern world. When a mysterious, not yet actual magazine, Node
, hires former indie rocker–turned–journalist Hollis Henry to do a story on a new art form that exists only in virtual reality, Hollis finds herself investigating something considerably more dangerous. An operative named Brown, who may or may not work for the U.S. government, is tracking a young, Russian-speaking Cuban-Chinese criminal named Tito. Brown’s goal is to follow Tito to yet another operative known only as the old man. Meanwhile, a mysterious cargo container with CIA connections repeatedly appears and disappears on the worldwide Global Positioning network, never quite coming to port. At the heart of the dark goings-on is Bobby Chombo, a talented but unbalanced specialist in Global Positioning software who refuses to sleep in the same spot two nights running. Compelling characters and crisp action sequences, plus the author’s trademark metaphoric language, help make this one of Gibson’s best. 8-city author tour.

December 15, 2007
Gibson, author of the award-winning archetypal cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, has returned with a book that demonstrates yet again his ability to select from the trends of tomorrow's artifacts that will grab us today. In Spook Country, characters collideseemingly at randomand interact in a multilayered fashion that has become Gibson's signature style. Hollis Henry, a former singer with a defunct indie rock band, has been hired by Node, a shadowy British version of Wired magazine, to write an article on locative art, an artistic innovation that uses virtual reality environments placed via GPS-tagging into the real world. She crosses paths with a Cuban Chinese Santerìa-worshipping martial artist, various hackers, conceptual artists, and several spooks whose loyalties are complex and sometimes nebulous. This slow unfolding of motive and plot may annoy those who dislike being lost for several minutes as it titillates others. Robertson Dean brings a sonorous, classically disciplined bass-baritone voice to the reading; his ability to read the narrative passages with precise diction and careful pacing is contrasted by his use of accents and inflection when conveying conversations. Recommended for public and academic libraries with medium to large collections of speculative fiction.David Faucheux, Louisiana Audio Information & Reading Svc., Lafayette

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