Pattern Recognition

by William Gibson, William Gibson (duplicate)

473 pages

English language

Published Oct. 29, 2003 by RB large print.

ISBN:: 978-1-4025-5690-6
OCLC Number:: 52567625

(175 reviews)

Cayce Pollard, a design consultant, is on the trail of the creator of Internet videos that have attained a worldwide cult following. As she draws closer to the truth, Cayce's life is threatened by those who will stop at nothing to protect the secret of the videos.

27 editions

gmc reviewed Pattern recognition by William Gibson (Blue Ant, #1)

None

3 stars

Not Gibson’s finest, in my humble opinion. I had a hard time getting in to the book. For starters, the squared, harsh phrasing grated against my imagination, making it hard to picture the scenes. Getting past that, the first few chapters were simply utterly boring, and exemplary of more to come. The protagonist is a posh high-paid advertising freelancer driving around towns in cabs, which doesn’t make for much excitement. There were some nods to technical concepts, but the inaccuracy of their details had me frowning and threw me out of my suspension of disbelief.
I kept on reading though, and it sort of grew on to me, in the sense that I did want to know how the plot would unfold. But there were plenty of times where I easily put down the book after finishing a chapter, just not interested enough to start the next.
Heavily doubted between …

settingshadow reviewed Pattern recognition by William Gibson (Blue Ant, #1)

Review of 'Pattern recognition' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

I...didn't get it. Honestly, that might be all there is to say. There were a lot of moving parts and a lot of evocative language, but ultimately, it didn't go anywhere to me. I felt like the pacing was so odd, there were topics that Gibson really perseverated on, like: someone broke into Damien's apartment! The apartment was broken into! Was the apartment broken into? We think someone broke into Damien's apartment! All of a sudden, it just occurred to me that the apartment might have been broke into and I need to process it because we've never discussed it before!
The pacing with characters was even stranger: Bigend's ex-girlfriend - who was never introduced on-screen, but was supposedly Cayce's best friend, who would spontaneously send e-mails and I had to remind myself who she was every single time. A lot of characters (like Magda and her brother, Ngemi and Hobbs) appeared from nowhere but somehow were implicitly trustworthy and part of the party?

Also, pilates. So much pilates. And yes, I really side-eye books where the male author spends a lot of time discussion the female protagonist's clothes and workout habits. Also, seriously, what is the obsession of male authors with destroying female character's clothing? This seems to be a trope of male action authors and it's dumb. How does Cayce manage to destroy two priceless jackets, one of which she's had for years in the course of a couple of weeks?

But my biggest problem is that it never went anywhere: the footage, Cayce's surreal logo allergy, her father-the-spy's mysterious disappearance: all of these gorgeous starting pieces didn't grew thematically, didn't grow together and ultimately never felt satisfying on a plot level, metaphysical level or thematic level.

loppear reviewed Pattern recognition by William Gibson (Blue Ant, #1)

Review of 'Pattern recognition' on Goodreads

3 stars

Gibson is great at interpreting near-future/timely trends into well-blended characters and experiences, in this case of pervasive marketing, surveillance, internet affinity groups, and coming to terms with 9/11. But I don't think he can write endings.

Antonis reads reviewed Pattern recognition by William Gibson (Blue Ant, #1)

Review of 'Pattern recognition' on Goodreads

5 stars

This was the second time reading this, almost 10 years later. Probably due to the age difference I enjoyed it much, much more the second time around. Hence the upgrade in stars.

Gibson has patterned a world of cascading dualities, a world of "mirror-worlds" as the protagonist calls them. Mirror-Things that look similar (but not quite) to Real-Things, and sometimes end up looking more real, more substantial, more meaningful and connected. There are patterns of lateral similarity becoming visible every time the protagonist moves her point of view. From city to city, from the online to the offline, from the personal to the ritualistic communal.

Pattern Recognition is his most current work I've read, and leaving aside the 9/11 attacks as a temporal point of reference, the most timeless. It's not SciFi, nor cyberpunk, the events could have indeed happened when published in '02, or they could have happened in '14 as well.

Bits and pieces:

- I knew WG was a fashion nerd, but damn he went overboard in PR. Every single character is described mainly through detailed depictions of their garments. Lots and lots of fashion all somehow playing an actual role in picturing the characters with further connections to other parts of the story

- 3 years before YouTube was created and the online video craze took off, WG portraited the mystic power of anonymous user generated viral content, so powerful that the Advertisers will like to usurp it at any cost

ghostchaser reviewed Pattern recognition by William Gibson (Blue Ant, #1)

Review of 'Pattern recognition' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Okay, I gave up on this book in the first 2 chapters, at the same time I replaced my mp3 player. 7 months later my 'new' mp3 player needs its battery charged and I am desperate to be listening to something, so I dig the old mp3 player out and this book starts where I left off. A couple of paragraphs in the book gets better and I listened to the end.

The heroine is not the shallow self centered person I did not like in the first 2 chapters, By the end of the book she is likable.

Katherine Villyard reviewed Pattern recognition by William Gibson (Blue Ant, #1)

Review of 'Pattern recognition' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

As a non-spoilery comment... This book made me want, very badly, to visit London, New York, and Tokyo.

drizzy reviewed Pattern recognition by William Gibson (Blue Ant, #1)

Review of 'Pattern recognition' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This was amazing. Best read in a loooong time. Ever felt like there are a few puppet masters of "public" opinion? This thriller/detective story (untraditionally non-sci-fi for William Gibson) will take you for a ride and make you wonder what opinions are your own. Follow Cayce Pollard, the hunter of tomorrow's "cool" on her quest to uncover maker(s?) of intricate video footage appearing randomly on the Internet and you will "take a duck in your face".

Don reviewed Pattern Recognition by William Gibson

Review of 'Pattern Recognition' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Gibson is fantastic at managing multiple storylines and weaving them into one. The setting of this book was remarkably non-technical - almost one for the business professions if necromancer is for the geeks. The book excels at the mechanics of story but does not foretell any shifts in society, or show a new side of current trends, which great scifi does.

WorzelFG reviewed Pattern recognition by William Gibson (Blue Ant, #1)

Review of 'Pattern recognition' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I'm re-reading this so I that can read the rest of the trilogy. I was lucky enough to find "spook country" second-hand and I'll have to get hold of his latest somehow.

unsquare reviewed Pattern recognition by William Gibson (Blue Ant, #1)

Review of 'Pattern recognition' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

An excellent book with an amazingly well-drawn main character. The ending itself seemed kind of sudden, but so much of the book up to that point was so excellent, it is easy to overlook this minor fault.