bookofjoe: Reading William Gibson

bookofjoe: Reading William Gibson:

"I've been at his latest book, 'Zero History, for about a week now, and a phenomenon that previously was present but unvoiced finally broke into my consciousness today.

Namely, that I read Gibson more slowly — far more slowly — than any other authors of fiction."

I noticed the same thing when I was reading Spook Country. There was no impatience associated with the slower pace of reading. There was also no sense of obligation (or dread) in picking the book up again after leaving it for a day or two. I'll see if the same is true with Zero History when I crack it open in the next week or two.

William Gibson - Spook Country

Book Review: William Gibson - Spook Country

I was pretty disappointed with the book. The near-future genre is only interesting if the technology/societal changes are interesting in some way. The helmet technology that superimposes itself over the real world was not really all that interesting as it was only presented as generic artwork. Augmented Reality is already here and already more provocative than the glimpse we saw in Spook Country.

The thriller plot itself was reasonable, but dry. Not knowing whats going on is integral to maintain tension, but this was taken too far. Nothing happened in the first 90% of the book as far as I was concerned. That may explain why it took me months and months to finish the book. It was just too easy to put down.

The characters were unique and interesting and the alternating flow of characters and threads was handled reasonably. There was just too much weak dialog and action for my tastes. A little more violence and debauchery would have gone a long way to loosen up the story. Too many characters were stone-faced and without any interesting character flaws.

Overall, Spook Country is a plain thriller with a slow start, little action, and an uninspiring vision of the "future".

The iPad makes julienne fries

My favourite review of the new iPad tablet is by Cory Doctorow entitled Why I won't buy  an iPad (and don't think you should either). His first point is the most important and all his subsequent arguments reinforce it: Incumbents made bad revolutionaries. Apple has essentially modified the iPod a bit to lock more consumers into a restrictive marketplace of content and applications.

My favourite quote in Doctorow's article is in fact a reference to William Gibson's description of a "consumer" as "something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth... no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote."

The iPad is, in fact, not a product designed with consumers in mind, but designed to maximize the profits of corporate content providers. This is why there has been so much positive buzz about this product in the traditional media.

You know when something is fishy when someone reports that the lack of multitasking is a feature so that the user can concentrate on one thing at a time. Another article tried to claim that writing on an iPad is practical except he had to use an external bluetooth keyboard and a desktop PC to complete the experiment.

This is not a computer for people, its a product for sweaty potatoes.