Pattern Recognition (novel)

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**Pattern Recognition**

Original cover
Author	William Gibson
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Science fiction
Publisher	Putnam Adult
Released	February 3, 2003
Pages	368 (hardcover)
ISBN	ISBN 0-399-14986-4

Pattern Recognition is William Gibson's eighth novel, the first to be set in the contemporary world. Although set in the immediate past and referring to real-world technology, it's still considered a work of science fiction. John Clute of Science Fiction Weekly referred to it as "SF for the new century."^[1]

As is characteristic with Gibson novels, Pattern Recognition is replete with neologisms. Some of the most memorable are gender-bait, a male posing as a female online to elicit positive responses; cool-hunter, which Gibson picked up from the marketing industry, where it had been in use for some years^[2]; and Mirror World, meaning England, by reference to opposite-side driving, etc.

It has been cited as the first major literary work to allude to the events of 9/11. The disaster is mentioned several times and its impact echoes throughout the novel.

A film adaptation, directed by Peter Weir, is currently in production.

1 Plot
2 Trivia
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The novel takes place during the summer of 2002, primarily in London, although the main character, Cayce Pollard, also travels to Japan, France, and Russia. There are also flashbacks to her life in New York City. Pollard has been hired by a London-based firm called Blue Ant supposedly to appraise new logos for their client. She is staying at a friend's flat while the friend is in Russia filming a documentary about an archeological dig. Pollard suffers from a psychological hypersensitivity that causes her to have allergic reactions to brands and corporate logos. She uses this unique sensitivity to gauge how "hip" a pitch or brand is in her work as an advertising consultant.

The plot develops as she is drawn into a mystery surrounding snippets of film footage. An artist has been placing their work at various locations on the Internet, and accumulating a growing fanbase. People have been speculating about the filmmaker's identity, motives, methods and inspirations on several websites. The owner of Blue Ant, Hubertus Bigend, wants to hire Cayce to find the filmmaker so he can exploit their talent for his firm.

Meanwhile, Cayce meets a band of bohemian artists of Russian extract. They show her a unique subculture, and reveal to her the large reach of Blue Ant. One of the artists works nights at clubs and bars engaging in viral marketing. She flirts with men for the hidden purpose of talking about a specific product or campaign. She tells Cayce that she is “talking up” the footage under the orders of a division of Blue Ant.

Also, Cayce begins to be tormented by Dorotea, a woman who appears to be working for the designer Blue Ant hired to create a logo. Cayce begins to think a cigarette burn on her jacket and a break-in at the flat where she's been living are revenge by Blue Ant for her rejection of the first logo she was shown. The intrigue rises as, both at Cayce's flat and at the office, Dorotea assaults her with images of the Michelin Man, the image that elicits the strongest reaction due to her “allergy”.

Succumbing to Bigend’s offer and the opportunity to identify the filmmaker, Cayce joins forces with Boone Chu, an American from Oklahoma, owner of a failed dot-com. The mystery of the footage dovetails for Pollard with the mystery of what happened to her father on 9/11, who had flown to NYC for unknown reasons the day before and was last seen getting into a taxi in midtown Manhattan at 7 a.m. on the morning of the attacks. Reeling in the memory of the events, Cayce flies to Japan to get information through a source connected to Parkaboy, a friend she made on the footage website. There she is accosted by two associates of Dorotea, though she promptly escapes with the help of Boone who has been following her.

Using the information she received in Japan and the connections of her bohemian friends, Cayce tracks down the e-mail address connected to the footage. Cayce e-mails that person and is invited to Moscow to meet. After taking measures to throw off anyone following her, Cayce travels to Moscow and meets who turns out to be the creator’s twin sister, Stella Volkova. Cayce learns that Stella’s sister, Nora, was permanently injured by a mine used to kill her parents in an attack related to organized crime. Their uncle Andrei Volkov, now an extremely wealthy and influential Russian businessman, takes care of the two, enabling Stella’s sister state of the art equipment to produce “the footage”. Before long, Cayce is able to meet Stella’s sister and even observe her creating a snippet of the film.

However, by finding the sisters, Cayce has aroused the suspicions of the uncle’s security force. In one last desperate bid to appease her true employers, Dorotea confronts Cayce and drugs her in an attempt to elicit the resources Cayce used in obtaining the e-mail address that led her to the sisters. Dorotea gives her an overdose, though, and the Uncle’s team steps in to correct the situation. During this overdose, Cayce has a break through, accepting her father’s death, gaining closure, and recovering from her brand “allergy.”

After her recovery, Cayce discovers that the Russians have created a low-security prison for the processing of the footage. Bigend is called in to secure a business deal (outside of the matter of the footage) initiated by the uncle. Boone and Dorotea are both discharged for their duplicity, and Cayce is given leave to visit the sisters. As a parting gift, the Russians give Cayce the research they gathered about her father, which far exceeded any other in completeness. The novel ends with a series of e-mails – a motif used often throughout the novel by Gibson – closing all remaining plot lines except one, which is in bed with her.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Trivia

The novel inspired Sonic Youth to write a song of the same title, which opens with the lyric "I'm a cool hunter making you my way" and appears on their 2004 album, Sonic Nurse.

The seventh season X-Files episode "First Person Shooter" (which was co-written by William Gibson) features a character named Darryl Musashi; he is a video-game champion who is killed while playing in a virtual-reality shooting game. A character of the same name appears in Pattern Recognition as a friend of Parkaboy.