Pattern Recognition
by William Gibson
Berkley $76
The first novel in three years from the man who coined the word 'cyberspace', and his first to be set in the present day. The message is that the future is already here - but it's not evenly distributed. Cayce, our heroine, is addicted to Hotmail. She travels with an iBook and logs into her ISP with a tethered GPRS. She also suffers from a mental disorder: an allergy to bad marketing. She nearly has a nervous breakdown when confronted with a Tommy Hilfiger logo and grinds the trademarks off the rivets in her Levi's. She works as a 'coolhunter'. An ad agency hires her to discover the mysterious maker of a series of cult MPEG files circulating on the internet. Gibson's cutting-edge technology and relentlessly cool characters feel dated, but he still keeps you turning the pages with false clues, snappy dialogue and a surprising ending.