by William Gibson
(Putnam)
As in his previous novel, Gibson abandons the futuristic dystopias that have sustained most of his career, picturing instead a dystopic present—specifically, a post-9/11 America, which, in thrall to ubiquitous media and vague threats of annihilation, has “developed Stockholm syndrome toward its own government.” The convoluted and politically insistent plot involves a missing shipping container, a former rock star, a Cuban-Chinese crime-facilitating family, and an Ativan addict coerced into domestic espionage. Fanciful touches include the creation of virtual art in public spaces using satellite mapping and Wi-Fi; texting in Volapuk, a Cyrillic-Latin amalgam; encrypting data within songs on an iPod; and the C.I.A.’s recruitment of sea pirates in the war on terrorism. (All but the last are verifiably real.) If Gibson’s vision has got bleaker, his eye for the eerie in the everyday still lends events an otherworldly sheen.
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