Review - Zero History

I'm a huge fan of William Gibson, have been since I picked up Neuromancer, read three pages, and realized that I'd only understood about half of what I'd read.

But I persisted and I fell in love. Sometimes the harder we have to work, the brighter the romance, and that's always been true with me and Bill - I allow myself to call him that because that's what his fabulous website calls him. You can check it out at http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/index.asp.

I often think of Bill as the dark side of Bill Gates - showing us the possibilities of what might happen in the new world we're arriving in right this minute.

I finished Zero History yesterday afternoon and I have returned it, as I do with only a very few books (and his are always included) to my to be read pile, to read again sometime in the next few weeks. He's in that pile along with Michael Ondaatje and Suzanne Brockmann and Pat Conroy and Nora Roberts' romantic suspence. I read them once - fast - because I'm dying to find out what happens (and I can't read the last few pages first) and then I read them again, lovingly and delightedly and slowly so I can enjoy every minute of the process.

Zero History is terrific. I've told you the above because you'll know you're unlikely to get a bad review out of me of books by any of my favorite writers. But this book, for me, is terrific for a whole bunch of reasons.

• the book itself is beautifully designed, each page is a delight with the footers and the opening page of each chapter
• I'm fascinated by the chapter titles - I know when I reread the book, the titles will give me insight that I didn't have the first time, especially since I kept going back because I was in such a hurry to find out what happened, I kept forgetting to read them
• several characters appear in this book who were in previous books - and I was so happy to find out what had happened to them
• I learned, as always, many things about how the world is changing and I know, as I have with every one of Bill's books, that I will soon see in advertisements and news stories and stores exactly what he's writing about

If you haven't read Gibson and you're ready for a book that's going to blow your mind, READ THIS BOOK. Or Neuromancer or Pattern Recognition or... Or, if you want to start with a movie, you could try Johnny Mnemonic, based on a short story of Bill's.

Try it. Hang in there. It's worth it.

Kate