SPOOK COUNTRY

William Gibson sees the future in the present

By JOHN BOWKER

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Best known as one of the founding fathers of cyberpunk, William Gibson changed the face of science fiction in the 1980s. His hard-edged tales of drug-addled fringe elements, ubiquitous hyper-technology and corporate corruption inspired a generation of geeks to abandon their Starfleet uniforms and dive headlong into their computers in preparation for the coming internet revolution. Recently, though, he seems to be taking a different approach. Instead of positing possible futures, his most recent novel, Spook Country, offers readers a hallucinatory glimpse of the present, a backstage pass into the world of high-tech eccentricity and intrigue lurking just beneath the surface of 21st-century America.

In its fascination with satellite tracking systems, virtual art and gee-whiz electronics, the book could easily be mistaken for a techno-thriller. Really, it's more of a techno-elegy, a literary ghost story filled with characters disconnected and adrift in Gibson's lonely shadow country. Balancing three subplots, he brings together a retired-rock-musician-turned-journalist, the Chinese-Cuban son of a family of Cold War operatives still selling tradecraft to the highest bidder and a kidnapped addict who translates Russian text message intercepts for an abusive government agent in exchange for antidepressants. As the story moves between low-rent artists' studios and Philippe Starck-designed hotels, all of the characters are connected by a shipping container drifting across the Pacific -- whose contents have multiple generations of intelligence operatives making ripples that spread out to break in unexpected places in the everyday world.

Gibson has always had a gift for description, and he uses it to great effect here. Early on, he describes a character's tattoo: a Tokyo artist's interpretation of an alphabet abstracted until meaningless. Throughout the book, his characters and settings are warped in a similar manner, mundane environments and random bystanders unexpectedly made exotic by his focus on the least likely details. The results are simultaneously wonderful and maddening. Through Gibson's lens, everything -- a takeout meal, an empty hotel room, a stained-glass window -- becomes an alien artifact, unfamiliar and disconnected from its intended purpose. What seem like tantalizing details are dangled, then abandoned; interesting characters are introduced only to be left largely unexplored; and as the book drifts toward its conclusion, it's hard not to wonder just how much any of it really matters.

These literary stylings and the book's ambiguous resolution may not satisfy readers seeking a straightforward thrill ride, but if you've begun to notice that that the lines between reality and science fiction are becoming strangely blurred, you can cling to Spook Country as proof you're not alone.

William Gibson is right there with you.

WILLIAM GIBSON

SUNDAY, 8.19.07

BRATTLE THEATRE (SPONSORED BY HARVARD BOOK STORE)

40 BRATTLE ST., HARVARD SQ., CAMBRIDGE

617.876.6837

6PM/$5

BRATTLEFILM.ORG, HARVARD.COM

MONDAY, 8.20.07

COOLIDGE CORNER THEATRE (SPONSORED BY BROOKLINE BOOKSMITH)

290 HARVARD ST., BROOKLINE

617.734.2500

6PM/$5

COOLIDGE.ORG, BROOKLINEBOOKSMITH.COM