robilad (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} robilad) wrote,@ 2009-06-12 17:12:00 |
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Books: William Gibson - Spook Country
Gibson, Neuromancer, Cyberpunk, open drawer, close drawer. Well, not quite - Spook Country doesn't really have any super-futuristic gadgetry. It's set in the present, describing a post-9/11 world of dispersed, interconnected knowledge, where reality can have many layers, which ultimately end up meeting in the book. So far, so standard. A nice idea from the book is locative art, that takes the concept of tagging OpenStreetMap maps with useful information to adding interactive 3d virtual models representing different artists' work that can be seen as an overlay on reality. That's probably just one iPhone app away, these days. That kind of layering of meaning upon subjective realities takes place throughout the book, as the characters follow their fates and orders.
It is a book about shipping containers, money laundering, organized crime and corruption, and mysterious men that are rich and invisible enough to play practical jokes at the expense of the players in the system. It's also a book about the lack of anonymous superheros fixing a world where the distribution of power and responsibilities between organizations, individuals and governments has become highly dispersed and nontransparent, allowing large sums of money and people to disappear without a trace. As Gibson's characters try to work out their subjective identities and allegiances, their dislocation in the fading old system of the world is what they have in common, and it keeps the short chapters turning.
It's a quick read, and not bad at all. The themes of globalization, (dis)location, identity, surveillance, etc. are not pushed too hard in the reader's face, but ultimately, the book doesn't manage to reach out of the contemporary conspiracy theory literature niche to teach something new about the human condition in an increasingly virtual world. It's complicated - Well, yeah.
But the writing style, with fast paced chapters of a few pages at best, is something that's fun to dive into - almost like reading a web of short blog posts.
Gibson, Neuromancer, Cyberpunk, open drawer, close drawer. Well, not quite - Spook Country doesn't really have any super-futuristic gadgetry. It's set in the present, describing a post-9/11 world of dispersed, interconnected knowledge, where reality can have many layers, which ultimately end up meeting in the book. So far, so standard. A nice idea from the book is locative art, that takes the concept of tagging OpenStreetMap maps with useful information to adding interactive 3d virtual models representing different artists' work that can be seen as an overlay on reality. That's probably just one iPhone app away, these days. That kind of layering of meaning upon subjective realities takes place throughout the book, as the characters follow their fates and orders.
It is a book about shipping containers, money laundering, organized crime and corruption, and mysterious men that are rich and invisible enough to play practical jokes at the expense of the players in the system. It's also a book about the lack of anonymous superheros fixing a world where the distribution of power and responsibilities between organizations, individuals and governments has become highly dispersed and nontransparent, allowing large sums of money and people to disappear without a trace. As Gibson's characters try to work out their subjective identities and allegiances, their dislocation in the fading old system of the world is what they have in common, and it keeps the short chapters turning.
It's a quick read, and not bad at all. The themes of globalization, (dis)location, identity, surveillance, etc. are not pushed too hard in the reader's face, but ultimately, the book doesn't manage to reach out of the contemporary conspiracy theory literature niche to teach something new about the human condition in an increasingly virtual world. It's complicated - Well, yeah.
But the writing style, with fast paced chapters of a few pages at best, is something that's fun to dive into - almost like reading a web of short blog posts.
