Spook Country

By: William Gibson

Narrated by: Robertson Dean

Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

Tito is in his early 20s. Born in Cuba, he speaks fluent Russian, lives in one room in a NoLita warehouse, and does delicate jobs involving information transfer.

Hollis Henry is an investigative journalist, on assignment from a magazine called Node. Node doesn't exist yet, which is fine; she's used to that. But it seems to be actively blocking the kind of buzz that magazines normally cultivate before they start up. Really actively blocking it. It's odd, even a little scary, if Hollis lets herself think about it much - which she doesn't. She can't afford to.

Milgrim is a junkie. A high-end junkie, hooked on prescription antianxiety drugs. Milgrim figures he wouldn't survive 24 hours if Brown, the mystery man who saved him from a misunderstanding with his dealer, ever stopped supplying those little bubble packs. What exactly Brown is up to Milgrim can't say, but it seems to be military in nature. At least, Milgrim's very nuanced Russian would seem to be a big part of it, as would breaking into locked rooms.

Bobby Chombo is a "producer" and an enigma. In his day job, Bobby is a troubleshooter for manufacturers of military navigation equipment. He refuses to sleep in the same place twice. He meets no one. Hollis Henry has been told to find him.

©2007 William Gibson (P)2007 Penguin Audio, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc. and Books on Tape. All rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“Part thriller, part spy novel, part speculative fiction, Gibson’s provocative work is like nothing you have ever read before.” (Library Journal)

"Set in the same high-tech present day as Pattern Recognition, Gibson’s fine ninth novel offers startling insights into our paranoid and often fragmented postmodern world....Compelling characters and crisp action sequences, plus the author’s trademark metaphoric language, help make this one of Gibson’s best.” (Publishers Weekly [starred review])

"Gibson excels as usual in creating an off-kilter atmosphere of vague menace.” (Kirkus Reviews)

Difficult to get through

I’m a big fan of William Gibson but this was a very difficult book to slog through, I’m still not sure I grasped the storyline but I’ll give it another listen in a couple years.

Spook Country unveils its mystery one facet at a

time, making you wonder if you are even asking the right questions, keeping you hooked.

So, What’s the Point??

On one hand, Gibson is an excellent writer, but on the other hand he’s an utterly egocentric author. His writing is spot on grammatically, but he writes for his own sake (because making words on psilocybin is fun?), seemingly without any inclination to develop an intelligible story.
If you enjoy waiting and waiting and waiting for nothing to happen, then Gibson is the perfect author for you.
Robertson Dean’s narration is superb.

a mess

I found this book to be a mess. The different characters seem to live in different worlds and it never comes together into one sensibility. Parts of it are set in real places (though the places are not really described - just a lot of brand-name/store-name/hotel-name dropping). A lot of the plot feels like a an internet startup that is taking it self too seriously as Art or as the center of a "DiVinci Code" conspiracy. The sections that are supposed to be about high end hotels, design and art seem particularly thin and unreal. I would give it a miss.

Boring story, bad direction

This is certainly not Gibson at his best. I found the story boring, really. It meandered all over the place and eventually went nowhere of importance. The ending was a huge let down. I felt it was a waste of time and money.

And what the hell is with audio directors these days? This is the second book I've listened to in the past two months that had mispronunciations all over the place. I can't totally fault the narrator as they're just actors who are reading the text of someone else and may not be familiar with all the words/terms. So all I can say is that the director must've not actually been there in the studio when it was recorded.

I mean, who in the last 20 years would not know that Adidas should be pronounced "uh-DEED-uhs" and not "AHH-deed-dahs"?

Skip this one and find something more intriguing to spend your time with.

New floor for narration

Despite having listened to this audio book I have no idea about the quality of the book. Robertson Dean's performance turned this into a slog. A series of scenes of faceless chatting and narration, each apparently unrelated to the rest except for two characters that are only occasionally present.

I regret purchasing the third book in this series knowing that he is also narrating it.

A good feature to consider would be a blacklist so that a customer can be reminded that they're not fond of a particular author or narrator before completing a purchase.

Tried twice - couldn't get through it

This is one of the few audio books on which I have given up about an hour in. I even took a break of a few months and tried to start over to no avail. The story just drones along and I kept tuning out while driving in the car, which is not usually a problem. I have read everything by William Gibson and am thinking this one would be better on paper. Not recommended.

UUGGGHHH

Could not even get past 2 hours of this book, wishy washy, story line ALL over the place, don't recommend at all.

not great

had a very hard time paying attention. not what i hoped for. i felt like i had just listened to next by crighton, also a bad book

Boring

I'm an hour in and I just cant get into it. The narrator is boring me as well as the story.