Pattern Recognition

By William Gibson

Book Overview

" Pattern Recognition is William Gibson's best book since he rewrote all the rules in Neuromancer. "--Neil Gaiman, author of American Gods "One of the first authentic and vital novels of the 21st century."-- The Washington Post Book World The accolades and acclaim are endless for William Gibson's coast-to-coast bestseller. Set in the post-9/11 present, Pattern Recognition is the story of one woman's never-ending search for the now... Cayce Pollard is a new kind of prophet--a world-renowned "coolhunter" who predicts the hottest trends. While in London to evaluate the redesign of a famous corporate logo, she's offered a different assignment: find the creator of the obscure, enigmatic video clips being uploaded to the internet--footage that is generating massive underground buzz worldwide. Still haunted by the memory of her missing father--a Cold War security guru who disappeared in downtown Manhattan on the morning of September 11, 2001--Cayce is soon traveling through parallel universes of marketing, globalization, and terror, heading always for the still point where the three converge. From London to Tokyo to Moscow, she follows the implications of a secret as disturbing--and compelling--as the twenty-first century promises to be...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0425198685
• ISBN13: 9780425198681
• Release Date: February 2005
• Publisher: Berkley Books
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 4.3" x 6.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Lies and deception

Pretty good book it was a little hard for me to get into initially. Good pacing that kept me interested but not a whole lot happened.

A SF Novel of the Past?

Pattern Recognition (2003) is the eighth novel by William Gibson. Although all the novels seem to share a common universe, this work does not include any characters from the previous stories and, indeed, is set in the very near future, which might now be the past. In this novel, Cayce Pollard is a design consultant who has the ability to recognize which logos and other designs will be successful, but does not have a conscious...

A probing look at our present society

I decided to read "Pattern Recognition" after I thoroughly enjoyed reading "Conquest of Paradise: An End-Times Nano-Thriller", another novel based on nanotechnology. That book totally blew me away, and I heard William Gibson was the type of author that focused on future technologies and societies. Like "Conquest of Paradise", "Pattern Recognition" is set in the present. The heroine is a fast-living edge of society figure...

Superb, thought-provoking novel

I feel I should start of by stating that this is my first William Gibson novel, so if you're looking for an evaluation of "Pattern Recognition" within the context of his other books, there's no point in reading further. That said, I found "Pattern Recognition" to be a remarkable, moving novel that was a joy to read. Specifically, it is a fascinating look at the paranoia and hope of the post 9/11 world. Gibson deftly considers...

William Gibson's Satisfying, Lyrical Look at the Present

"Pattern Recognition" is William Gibson's best novel since "Virtual Light" and the first set in a present that seems uncannily like the world described in his "Cyberspace" trilogy of novels ("Neuromancer", "Count Zero" and "Mona Lisa Overdrive"). Yet stylistically it owes more to his sparse lyrical prose style that he used so adroitly in his last two novels, "Idoru" and "All Tomorrow's Parties" than any of his previous work...