Zero History by William Gibson
Zero History is the latest in a series of books by William Gibson focusing on the same disparate group of characters, and whose collective central theme is that of high-tech corporate espionage. The two main characters are Hollis Henry, a faded rock singer who now works as a freelance journalist and investigator; and a man known only as Milgrim, whose knack for remembering details; malleable and trustworthy personality; and the fact that he was incognito for much of his recent past (hence the title of the book) make him a perfect face man on missions involving intellectual property theft.
The book is set in the present, or very close thereto, and features a wide range of emergent and speculative technology. A considerable number of the cast possess iPhones or similar, one of the characters has written a book on augmented reality, and another is introduced to Twitter as a means for covert communication.
The story unfolds by means of alternating perspective, with the first chapter following Hollis and the second Milgrim, and so on in sequence except for when the two characters share a scene. Hollis and Milgrim are independently hired by the inexplicably-named Hubertus Bigend – an eccentric man of indeterminately vast financial means, who founded the ‘coolhunting’ agency Blue Ant – to work together in tracking down the origin of a hyper-cool and near legendarily exclusive range of clothing. Bigend suspects the movers behind this clothing range of evolving his own marketing strategies, and by doing so moving into direct competition with him.
Both of the protagonists have their reasons for signing up under Bigend, although it’s likely neither would have chosen the task had they not felt a certain obligation to the man, whose sphere of awareness covers a gigantic swathe of the globe, and under whom potentially every person they encounter could conceivably be bankrolled.
Gibson is a master of elegantly crafted prose, and his numerous characters – even those who appear for the briefest of scenes – all appear well fleshed-out and full of life. The dialogue is sharp and, for the most part, deliberately brusque. The camaraderie and mistrust between the various players is believable, especially when we are allowed to see most of them from the perspective of both seasoned and serious Hollis, and the nervous, sharply alert Milgrim.
Those who have read Gibson’s Pattern Recognition and Spook Country will recognise several returning characters, particularly the ubiquitous Bigend. A curious, morally ambiguous master manipulator, Bigend’s presence is felt throughout this book, even when seemingly out of sight.
Zero History is an accomplished thriller, deeply but not obnoxiously verbose and with a clever, technologically-savvy story. The cast is large, but each of its members plays a solid part of the story. We are taken to the United States and France, but the bulk of the action takes place in London, and to anyone familiar with London or Paris it is clear Gibson has carefully researched these locations, along with the rest of his subject matter, to give the story an extra level of believability. That said, with this being a Gibson book it should be no surprise that dream-like, Wellesian architecture and fanciful high-tech gadgets are rather abundant here.
If you haven’t read the previous two books in the loose series, you can still happily pick this up and enjoy the story. All the same, to have read all three novels in order will give you something of a deeper insight into what motivates some of the characters. Overall, I can highly recommend Zero History to anyone, although you might want to bring your dictionary for occasional reference (as I did).
It comes out in paperback on Monday, and you can pre-order it from Amazon now for £12.99.
Post by Matt Pitman
