Pattern Recognition (Blue Ant, #1)

367 pages

English language

Published May 10, 2005

ISBN:: 9780425198681
Goodreads:: 22320

(1 review)

Pattern Recognition is a novel by science fiction writer William Gibson published in 2003. Set in August and September 2002, the story follows Cayce Pollard, a 32-year-old marketing consultant who has a psychological sensitivity to corporate symbols. The action takes place in London, Tokyo, and Moscow as Cayce judges the effectiveness of a proposed corporate symbol and is hired to seek the creators of film clips anonymously posted to the internet. The novel's central theme involves the examination of the human desire to detect patterns or meaning and the risks of finding patterns in meaningless data. Other themes include methods of interpretation of history, cultural familiarity with brand names, and tensions between art and commercialization. The September 11, 2001 attacks are used as a motif representing the transition to the new century. Critics identify influences in Pattern Recognition from Thomas Pynchon's postmodern detective story The Crying of Lot 49. Pattern …

Pattern Recognition is a novel by science fiction writer William Gibson published in 2003. Set in August and September 2002, the story follows Cayce Pollard, a 32-year-old marketing consultant who has a psychological sensitivity to corporate symbols. The action takes place in London, Tokyo, and Moscow as Cayce judges the effectiveness of a proposed corporate symbol and is hired to seek the creators of film clips anonymously posted to the internet. The novel's central theme involves the examination of the human desire to detect patterns or meaning and the risks of finding patterns in meaningless data. Other themes include methods of interpretation of history, cultural familiarity with brand names, and tensions between art and commercialization. The September 11, 2001 attacks are used as a motif representing the transition to the new century. Critics identify influences in Pattern Recognition from Thomas Pynchon's postmodern detective story The Crying of Lot 49. Pattern Recognition is Gibson's eighth novel and his first one to be set in the contemporary world. Like his previous work, it has been classified as a science fiction and postmodern novel, with the action unfolding along a thriller plot line. Critics approved of the writing but found the plot unoriginal and some of the language distracting. The book peaked at number four on the New York Times Best Seller list, was nominated for the 2003 British Science Fiction Association Award, and was shortlisted for the 2004 Arthur C. Clarke Award and Locus Awards.

7 editions

Aneel reviewed Pattern Recognition (Blue Ant, #1) by William Gibson

Review of 'Pattern Recognition (Blue Ant, #1)' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Oddly, the hardcover of this was cheaper than the paperback.

My mother thought I'd like this one. She was right. Gibson has captured a certain feel of the early 21st century and put it on paper. The plot follows a "coolhunter" named Cayce (pronounced like the very different protagonist of another Gibson novel...) whose talent is being able to tell marketers whether a new branding concept will be effective. In her free time, she's been obsessing over mysterious videos that have been distributed on the Internet. Gibson nails a lot of details. He's at least as good a "coolhunter" as Cayce, and he works the theme of recognizing patterns (of cool and of other types) into the novel in an amusing variety of ways.

A lot of this book is about traveling. Normally, lots of travel in a book really annoys me (Bungee ruined much of the fantasy genre for …

Oddly, the hardcover of this was cheaper than the paperback.

My mother thought I'd like this one. She was right. Gibson has captured a certain feel of the early 21st century and put it on paper. The plot follows a "coolhunter" named Cayce (pronounced like the very different protagonist of another Gibson novel...) whose talent is being able to tell marketers whether a new branding concept will be effective. In her free time, she's been obsessing over mysterious videos that have been distributed on the Internet. Gibson nails a lot of details. He's at least as good a "coolhunter" as Cayce, and he works the theme of recognizing patterns (of cool and of other types) into the novel in an amusing variety of ways.

A lot of this book is about traveling. Normally, lots of travel in a book really annoys me (Bungee ruined much of the fantasy genre for me by pointing out that they're books about walking. Or perhaps saved me from it.), but Gibson actually talks about the travel, rather than just talking about it happening. The description of the feeling of entering a culture where you can't read the signs reminded me of some of my travels, and I liked the thread about jet lag being soul delay. I may have appreciated the travel writing more because I read the book over the course of a trip and finished it just as we landed at SFO.