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Spook Country

by William Gibson

Tags: art, gps, scifi, virtual reality

Started reading:
20th April 2008

Finished reading:
17th May 2008

You can view this book's Amazon detail page here.

William Gibson looms large over the scifi scene, yet his latest, Spook Country, is not so much “scifi” as “modern mystery”. He tells the story of techno-whiz artists experimenting with GPS, virtual reality, and locative artworks. He also tells the story of the world’s smallest criminal family and the world’s most secretive advertising agency.

Unfortunately, all of this sounds much better in summary than it comes off in execution. For the most part, Spook Country reads like a lightweight airplane novel. At times, some overwrought turn of phrase or painfully convenient introduction of high technology made me cringe as a reader. Gibson is overly fond of pop-cultural references (the very minor plot element of steganographically encrypted iPods is a good example).

But whenever I’d find myself, as a reader, getting too hard on Gibson, I’d pull back and realize that I had to give credit where credit is due: Not enough writers attempt the whole tech-art heist/government conspiracy plotlines. So from that point of view, Gibson is a smashing success. And it is very refreshing to read a relatively hard-boiled story using such artsy-fartsy fodder. It fits with the wannabe-bad-boy attitude of much avant-garde digital art, too.

In all, Spook Country is not a bad read. But it is certainly not a great read. It is what it is, and that’s a pretty kick-ass novel as far as art world heist stories go.