Putnam, Feb 2003, 25.95, 368 pp.
ISBN: 0399149864
Market researcher Cayce Pollard is considered a guru when it comes to selecting potential products and advertising campaigns that will make it. Recently hired by advertising giant Hubertus Bigend to evaluate a new logo, Cayce travels to London to meet with her client. She pulls no punches when she informs him that she thinks it will fail.
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Impressed by her fortitude and insight, Hubertus hires Cayce to look into a series of Internet film clips attracting a large world-wide cult following. Hubertus believes the pixel filmmaker is an advertising genius. Cayce's preliminary work leads to someone breaking into the London flat she is temporarily staying at and hacking into her computer. Soon the investigation sends Cayce global as she quickly links her inquiries to that of her spook father presumed dead in the World Trade Center disaster
Unlike his usual futuristic global paranoia caused by Big Brother surveillance, PATTERN RECOGNITION is a present day thriller focusing on the same themes but through real world elements and patterns. The story line is more cerebral than action loaded as William Gibson paints a “cyber” tale that allegorically tears into the soulless patterns of modern society including email. Cayce is a heroine representing the hope that the dismal patterns of the present will not lead to an even bleaker future as the trends seem to imply. Mr. Gibson provides a taut thought provoking tale, but not for action fans.
Harriet Klausner
The review of this Book prepared by Harriet Klausner