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And (apologies for the double post- hit POST and then remembered how slowly mod actions go through in Books)-
I just finished it. It's ace.
SPOILERS FOLLOW
Unusually for me, instead of crying on the bus, I ended this one with a big fuck-off grin that probably made me look like a serial killer. The pay-off is wonderful- all these machinations are there purely to make laundering some Iraq cash impossible- and not a huge amount in the greater scheme of things, either, the old man does it as a point of principle. We're told it's an obsession of his.
I also love the fact that many of Gibson's imitators have used the whole "cyberpunk" thing as an excuse for extreme violence- with which there's nothing wrong, fictionally, I guess- but that he's now writing really fucking hardcore, totally Gibson-esque, thrillers, in which, unless I'm counting wrong, NOBODY ACTUALLY DIES.
And I LOVED it when Inchmale turned up at the end. He was my favourite character throughout, and while I liked the idea of the best character being one who never appears, it would have been a disappointment if we'd never actually met him.
And I liked that Gibson's politicisation (not saying he was never political before, but it's never been manifest in his novels in the way it has been in his blog over the last couple of years) has become overt without screaming itself from the rooftops. Not that screaming from the rooftops is bad, but if I'd known there was more of a current affairs angle to this one it could have spoiled the ending for me.
Like a heist novel in reverse. It fucking ruled.
END SPOILERS
Ah well. Here begins another FIVE FUCKING YEARS of waiting. His prose is, as ever, fucking great. And getting beter by the novel. (I once read someone describing Mishima's prose as "crystalline", which I didn't quite get, but it's an adjective I'd apply to Gibson from All Tomorrow's Parties on). |
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