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Book Review: Pattern Recognition (Gibson)

Once again, William Gibson reminds me that he is one of my favorite authors. The book started a little slow for me, but once I got into it I had to read it straight through. I love the main character's most obvious trait - an allergy to certain popular brands - and how it isn't exploited or used as the only defining characteristic for the main character. The book is a gentle reminder of the prevalence of advertising and advertising strategies everywhere in our lives. But it is also a reflection on people's need to search for things, especially origins (who made this thing I find fascinating?) and resolutions (what happened to the person that disappeared?). The payoff for this book isn't the actual answer to these questions, which avoid the more obvious sci-fi aspects of most of his other books, but do rely on Japanese otakus and mysterious Russians and a few too many coincidences. The payoff is the emotional scenes in the middle of the book, where the main character isn't sure what is going on, isn't sure who to trust, isn't sure what to do next, but knows that she needs to keep going anyways. She is a very sympathetic and likeable character and it is enjoyable to see her confront obstacles and overcome what she can. The conclusion does get to be too expository, but maybe that is why this book got categorized as a mystery - the final resolution scene with all the players gathered together by someone who knows what is going on. But even if the end was a little too nice and neat, it didn't detract from my enjoyment, it felt like a solid resolution to what had happened. And the book makes me think I should pay more attention to the details of what is going on around me, because there is always something interesting to be learned.