Zero History

De: William Gibson

Narrado por: Robertson Dean

The iconic visionary returns with his first new novel since the New York Times bestseller Spook Country.

Whatever you do, because you are an artist, will bring you to the next thing of your own...

When she sang for The Curfew, Hollis Henry's face was known worldwide. She still runs into people who remember the poster. Unfortunately, in the post-crash economy, cult memorabilia doesn't pay the rent, and right now she's a journalist in need of a job. The last person she wants to work for is Hubertus Bigend, twisted genius of global marketing; but there's no way to tell an entity like Bigend that you want nothing more to do with him. That simply brings you more firmly to his attention.

Milgrim is clean, drug-free for the first time in a decade. It took eight months in a clinic in Basel. Fifteen complete changes of his blood. Bigend paid for all that. Milgrim's idiomatic Russian is superb, and he notices things. Meanwhile no one notices Milgrim. That makes him worth every penny, though it cost Bigend more than his cartel-grade custom-armored truck.

The culture of the military has trickled down to the street- Bigend knows that, and he'll find a way to take a cut. What surprises him though is that someone else seems to be on top of that situation in a way that Bigend associates only with himself. Bigend loves staring into the abyss of the global market; he's just not used to it staring back.

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Reseñas de la Crítica

“[Gibson] weaves an unnerving tapestry of technology, violence and anxiety.”—The Daily Telegraph (London)

“Fascinating.”—The Seattle Times

“Uncanny.”—San Antonio Express-News

“Brilliant, entertaining, and bittersweet.”—io9

“Zero History is another smartly scouted roadmap of alternate routes through today’s global culture, as powered by what a friend of mine used to call the military-industrial-greeting-card complex. It’s a world where cool is king, but also the key to power—and the future.”—Milwaukee Sentinel Journal

“What matters [about Zero History] are the highly textured, brilliantly evocative prose and the stunning insights Gibson offers into what we perceive as the present moment—the implication being, per the title, that’s all we have left. Unsettling and memorable.”—Kirkus Reviews

Not as good as Spook Country

The story was quite slow-moving the first two-thirds. Character development to be charitable, but no forshadowing at all about what conflict might arise. Set in Europe, with Gibson's signature flair for detailed narration.
About the narrator: Robertson Dean has a wonderful voice.
But the story: Basically an epilogue continuation of Spook Country, with Milgrim on center stage. His character redeemed after a lengthy rehab center. Only read this if you are a complete-ist fan of William Gibson.

Artfully written but boring

If this wasn’t the 3rd and final in a series, I would have stopped reading halfway through.

Gibson's Amazing Zero History

Gibson's most famous quote (which I'm sure he's tired of by now) is, "the future is already here – it's just not very evenly distributed". If Gibson's next book is to be on higher education he would not find a better place to start his research than at EDUCAUSE.
Zero History, the 3rd book in Gibson's Bigend trilogy, is about fashion (or anti-fashion), military contracting, inflatable spy drones, and much else. If you read Pattern Recognition and Spook Country (and if you have not you should), I'm betting that Zero History is already on your reading device. If you are not a Gibson reader you should become one.

What would Bigend, the multimillionaire founder of the viral advertising / cool hunting agency Blue Ant, want to know about higher education?

In Pattern Recognition, Blue Ant is described this way:
"Relatively tiny in terms of permanent staff, globally distributed, more post-geographic than multinational, the agency has from the beginning billed itself as a high-speed, low-drag life-form in an advertising ecology of lumbering herbivores."

Perhaps in the next book, Gibson will have Bigend create a similarly nimble and agile university. Or perhaps he will advise existing institutions on how to become more like Blue Ant.

great!

another in gibson’s catalogue that defines tech in ways imaginary
and not, Truthfully this trilogy is one i revisit often, superb.

Great book by one of the best in the business

William Gibson is pure genius. I enjoy all of his stuff immensely and this was no exception

good reading, not very good book

The narration is quite good, but this book needs editing. I have been a fan of Gibson for most of my life, and I quite liked the first of his recent books set in the present day, Pattern Recognition. But the second one was less interesting , and this, the third in the series, has every character speaking almost exactly alike, constantly asking each other to explain things that were just explained in the narration, and way, way too much detail. The color and texture of every object in the book is noted. And if you're not that into fashion, you're going to find the whole premise mystifying. Anyway, l recommend Pattern Recognition instead.

Not quite as good as Pattern Recognition, but better than Spook Country

A fitting end to the Bigend Trilogy. The members of The Curfew are more real. The prose are just excellent.

Bigend needed a little more Blomkvist

The Bigend trilogy could have been a smarter version of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - essentially this is that series if Delillo (circa White Noise) had been at the keyboard. They are both fun and sharp, but what one lacks in sticky insights the other lacks in action, and each (like the reader) suffers a bit. Bigend is a great idea for a character, but there isn't much "there there" - HH's endless soul searching is fatiguing and Milgrim (who ought to be a little more like Bourne, imho) just comes across as muddle minded. All that said, it is filled with good stuff about what would best be characterized as a long rumination on the nerd hive mind. If you are interested in memes, gear/fashion fetish culture and corporate design espionage, this is the only game in town.

Just skip this one

Look, I love Gibson and habitually read everything he writes. I first read this a few years ago and thought it poor, but figured maybe I missed something. Now, a few years later just confirming - it's not good. Typical Gibson feel but poor - not just aimless and boring - story line with a great deal of extraneous, irrelevant detail that just highlights how he wanders a long path through little interesting to find absolutely nothing in the end.

Seriously, do yourself a favor and just skip this one. Or, if you're of a mind, hunt down his editor for this book and slap them - hard. Because even the greatest writers need someone to honestly tell them when it's not working.

Brilliant Synthesis

I believe Gibson achieved the pinnacle of character, technical, and plot synthesis in this trilogy, and Zero History reaches the crowning culmination. The speculative aspects are ingenious and illuminating, all the more so for their grounded feasibility. (Perhaps the order flow is a stretch, but an understated one.) This spoken Audible rendition does it justice - no small achievement in itself, and the combination is among my very favorite fiction entertainment ever. Yay!!