Damien Walter argues that science fiction's "denser stories can seem rebarbative to general readers," so he came up with five books that "tell immediately relevant, compelling tales," including:
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson is quickly becoming historical fiction. It so astutely pinpointed the emerging trends in technology in 2003 that a decade on from its publication it reads more like a documentary record than a work of SF. Cayce Pollard is a 30-something hipster immersed in the new media world of global corporate brands, who finds herself drawn in to a dangerous conspiracy as she tries to track down a mysterious set of video clips on the internet. Gibson's seventh novel pre-empted the YouTube revolution by mere months, and is still required reading for anyone trying to understand the fractured reality of our media-saturated world today.
Read about
the other books that Walter tagged at the Guardian.
Pattern Recognition is one of
David Ulin's five essential 9/11 books.
Learn about
why Gibson decided to set Pattern Recognition in the present, unlike his previous novels.
--Marshal Zeringue
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