Doctorow on Gibson in Mindjack

My review of WIlliam Gibson's Pattern Recognition is up on Mindjack today.

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." This is, after all, the man who coined the word "cyberspace," a word that appears to have grown so popular as to be embarrassing, at least when Gibson checks into a Manhattan biz-hotel and takes temporary possession a magnetic key-card on which "WELCOM TO CYBER SPACE" is emblazoned.

"The street finds its own use for things." Madison Avenue has found its own use for CYBER SPACE, made itself very WELCOM indeed, as have an infinite and dazzling array of scam-artists whose FATHER, the LATE GENERAL M'BUTO SESE SEKO, has left them with the SUM of $100,000,000. The Dreaded Rear Admiral Poindexter, Congress's favorite convicted felon, is still attempting to convince our lawmakers that they must be Totally Aware of Information, lest the scions of the LATE OSAMA BIN LADEN use our informational supercyberhighways to commit more uniquely mediagenic XXIst Century atrocities.

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(Thanks, Donald!)