On the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, The Washington Post has published my review of Zero History by William Gibson, an author whose latest trio of books (including the current one) have made much of the short history and long shadow of that fateful day. Zero History seems a fair bit lighter than the preceding books — and heavier on the romance, a point I didn’t mention in The Post — but there’s still much to admire and enjoy. Here’s a quick excerpt from my review:
In many ways, Zero History serves as a sequel to Spook Country by reuniting most of that book’s leading characters and hewing closely to its caper structure — individual missions crossing and complicating one another, ultimately leading toward a showdown with much higher (if somewhat nebulous) stakes.
In Spook Country, what’s at stake is the fate of misappropriated funds from the Federal Reserve, the balance of international economic structures and the truth about U.S. rebuilding efforts in Iraq. In Zero History, it seems to be . . . casual menswear?
Really? Well to get the answer to that last little question, read the full article here.
A QUICK POSTSCRIPT:
KQED, the PBS affiliate in San Francisco, hosted a reading by Gibson from the new book. Check it out here.
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