Spook Country\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Zero History<\/em>\u00a0form a loose trilogy with one of Mr Gibson’s earlier works\u00a0Pattern Recognition<\/em>, which I read long enough ago to have completely forgotten the plot to. Fortunately each book seems to stand fairly independently.<\/p>\n Zero History<\/em>\u00a0is told from the perspective of two main characters, both of whom featured in Spook Country<\/em>:<\/p>\n The plot involves both characters finding themselves in the employment of the somewhat enigmatic Bigend, this time searching for a elusive secret brand of clothing. By the end of the book, you are a long way from where you started but the quality of writing kept me in the willing suspense of disbelief zone.<\/p>\n Each short chapter alternates between Hollis and Milgrim’s point of view. This time I took my own advice<\/a> and read the book in longer bursts, which did make the story flow a lot better.<\/p>\n Like Spook Country, <\/em>there is not a lot of science fiction in\u00a0Zero History<\/em>. There were no real fantastical elements at all in the story (unlike the description of systema in Spook Country<\/em>). Current technology is pushed to plausible but extreme limits.\u00a0Again, the story in very explicitly of its time – the difference from Spook Country<\/em>\u00a0is that my reading happened while the technology is still fresh. I still have the same concerns about longevity, but I found myself not being distracted as much by dated references to products and brands.<\/p>\n The plot was much more compelling – it seemed to build much more satisfyingly to a conclusion. The last 20% or so of the book kept me hooked in and I read it in one session.<\/p>\n Overall I had a very pleasurable reading experience on this one, and would recommend it. If you’ve read Pattern Recognition <\/em>and\/or Spook Country<\/em>\u00a0you’ll know if you’ll enjoy this book though – it has a very similar style to it.<\/p>\n I also reviewed this book on Goodreads.\u00a0View all my reviews<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" <\/p>\n <\/p>Hi,\n Welcome to Mark Webb’s author website. At this point the site is rather sparse – I’ve only recently started writing and there isn’t a lot to show for it right now. You can check out\u00a0my biography<\/a>, see …<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,15,94],"class_list":["post-545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-review","tag-specfic","tag-william-gibson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwebb.name\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwebb.name\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwebb.name\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwebb.name\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwebb.name\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=545"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwebb.name\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1739,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwebb.name\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545\/revisions\/1739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwebb.name\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwebb.name\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwebb.name\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n