{"id":1768,"date":"2011-02-07T05:09:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-07T05:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2018\/11\/29\/480-revision-v1\/"},"modified":"2019-07-10T12:31:32","modified_gmt":"2019-07-10T12:31:32","slug":"zero-history-br-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2011\/02\/07\/zero-history-br-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Zero History (BR)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gibson and hipster consumerism in\u00a0Zero History<\/em><\/h3>\n

Successful\u00a0as he’s been,\u00a0William Gibson\u00a0has always been something of a\u00a0misfit. Gibson is best known for his first novel and\u00a0cyberpunk\u00a0classic\u00a0Neuromancer<\/em>. But the extent to which Gibson is a cyberpunk author is debatable. Sometimes it feels like the intersection between Gibson and cyberpunk is\u00a0incidental<\/a>. There’s no doubt that Gibson has some sort of interest in a technology-obsessed culture, but I’m not sure that his interest overlaps that of his (subject defined) readers.<\/p>\n

Stories like\u00a0Burning Chrome<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Neuromancer<\/em>\u00a0made Gibson’s books something of a\u00a0fetish\u00a0for\u00a0hackers, not least because of the fact that in the stories hackers themselves are portrayed as nerd superheroes. Hence the alignment between anything Gibson writes and the cyberpunk community. However, with that said, it seems like Gibson’s interest is subtly different from those of his peers: Gibson’s interest in technology is its allure and the desire for the new\u00a0because<\/em>\u00a0it’s new. This manifests itself\u00a0initially\u00a0in a delight and longing for custom-built technologies and products, but becomes more obvious with time, and even more so in his most recent writings. As Gibson’s bibliography crosses into the twenty-first century, we get a shift away from the familiar cyberpunk worlds of\u00a0Neuromancer<\/em>\u00a0and into a world that parallels our own. This brings us to the\u00a0Bigend Trilogy<\/em>\u00a0including its finale novel\u00a0Zero History<\/strong>\u00a0published in 2010.<\/p>\n

In a nutshell<\/a>,\u00a0the plot\u00a0of\u00a0Zero History<\/em>\u00a0tells of two freelancers (of sorts) hired to locate a secret uber-cool clothing company for the purpose of using their designs to win a U.S. military uniform contract<\/strong>. There’s a bit more to it than that, but not too much. The rest is either filler or part of the\u00a0third act\u00a0action sequence with its final\u00a0McGuffin\u00a0reveal.<\/p>\n

Zero History<\/em>, like the\u00a0prev<\/a>ious<\/a>\u00a0novels of the trilogy, is obsessed to a disturbing degree with\u00a0the cool<\/em>. I might not remember the protagonist’s (or anyone else’s) physical features, but I can be sure I’ll always know what they’re wearing. A non-trivial amount of prose is dedicated to describing people’s clothes: its colours, materials, eccentric features, and general\u00a0desirability. This focus is epitomized in the plot trajectory in which\u00a0Hollis Henry\u00a0receives her so-cool-anyone-who-sees-it-wets-themselves Gabriel Hounds jacket (hipster+12), the maker of which she’s to find. When did Gibson become a voice for\u00a0hipster consumerism?<\/p>\n

He probably always was[1]<\/sup><\/a>, the only thing that’s changed is that now’s he’s focusing on a familiar\u00a0milieu.<\/p>\n

\n

A few more general comments:\u00a0Zero History<\/em>\u00a0is a deeply flawed novel. The premise is sound and intriguing: the intersection between the fashion of the military, fashion of the street, and the different control implicit in each. That’s not the problem. One problem is the poor plot progression: the novel proceeds as follows: Protagonists go to A (wherein the clothing\/food\/coolness is described) to talk to someone and get information, then they get a call, \u00a0so they go back to the hotel and then later go to B to talk to someone, repeat some of the stuff they’ve already been told, get told some new stuff, and decide who to talk to next. The other problem I’d mention is the characters: they lack obvious willpower or motivation aside from some underlying sense of being capable, (although it’s never quite clear what they’re capable at). I’d recommend\u00a0this<\/a>\u00a0at Amazon, it’s, well it’s funny.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

[1]<\/sup><\/a> Neuromancer<\/em> was special because it made hacking and (the not-yet-existent) internet cool. It described a world in which underground communities and interests based around software and computing could flourish. What’s more, those early cyberpunk novels already displayed Gibson’s obsession with ownership of the cool, think of all the (especially custom-built) hardware that is caressingly described there.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gibson and hipster consumerism in\u00a0Zero History Successful\u00a0as he’s been,\u00a0William Gibson\u00a0has always been something of a\u00a0misfit. Gibson is best known for his first novel and\u00a0cyberpunk\u00a0classic\u00a0Neuromancer. But the extent to which Gibson is a cyberpunk author is debatable. Sometimes it feels like the intersection between Gibson and cyberpunk is\u00a0incidental. There’s no doubt that Gibson has some sort […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[159,198,204],"tags":[],"metadata":[158],"class_list":["post-1768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-book-review","category-everything2","metadata-shai_footnotes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1688,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2010\/10\/12\/men-and-cartoons-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1768,"position":0},"title":"Men and Cartoons","author":"Pala","date":"October 12, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I hadn't intended to review this book -\u00a0Men and Cartoons: Stories by\u00a0Jonathan Lethem\u00a0- but then, like with so many other things,\u00a0I got thinking. This was the first\u00a0thing\u00a0I'd ever read by Lethem - surely there must be something unique about a person's first introduction to an author? Surely there must be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1181,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2017\/08\/23\/sisters\/","url_meta":{"origin":1768,"position":1},"title":"Sisters!","author":"Pala","date":"August 23, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"[Fraudulent document? -- Editor] Marcus Garvey\u2019s diaries were amongst the improbable finds at Saddam Hussain's ill-financed palaces. Their contents have always been overshadowed, by the incredible story of their theft and doctoring by the Church of Scientology away from the Catholic Church (who were hiding it from common knowledge). They\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1772,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2011\/03\/13\/golden-age-superman\/","url_meta":{"origin":1768,"position":2},"title":"Golden Age Superman","author":"Pala","date":"March 13, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: Shai was always fascinated with cartoon characters and, at least as his written coverage is concerned, mostly with Superman. Between March 2011 and December 2014, Shai writes\u00a0nine articles dedicated to this superhero and in November 2014 he starts a blog dedicated to reviewing Superman novels. Superman\u00a0came first, anyone\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1770,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2011\/02\/08\/the-rise-and-fall-of-societies-in-prehistoric-greece-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1768,"position":3},"title":"The rise and fall of societies in prehistoric Greece","author":"Pala","date":"February 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The Ancient Greeks who presaged our philosophies, political systems, and\u00a0arts\u00a0emerged in a land that had already been settled by mankind for tens of thousands of years. Despite what\u00a0some\u00a0of them\u00a0believed\u00a0the Greeks were not been born out of the Earth, but rather from the ashes of earlier societies. In Greece's prehistory -\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1761,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2011\/01\/29\/revelation-space-universe-br-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1768,"position":4},"title":"Revelation Space Universe (BR)","author":"Pala","date":"January 29, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The\u00a0mythology\u00a0and\u00a0history\u00a0shared by many of\u00a0Alastair Reynolds' books has been called the\u00a0Revelation Space Universe\u00a0(RSU). The world gets its name from the first book to feature it, namely\u00a0Revelation Space. RSU and space opera: Reynolds writes\u00a0space opera, which to me means stories that contrast the heroic\u00a0individuality\u00a0of the protagonist against the enormity of space. That\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39995,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2011\/03\/20\/fortunes-light-tng-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1768,"position":5},"title":"Fortune’s Light (TNG)","author":"pastfarpoint","date":"March 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Fortune's Light is the 15th numbered TNG novel, written by the now well established Star Trek author Michael Friedman. Riker gets a message regarding an old friend who it seems has stolen a politically-significant artefact from the planet Imprima. The minor plot thread sees Data running a holodeck program of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Detail from \"Fortune's Light\" cover","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/fortunes-light-cover.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/padotI-sw","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1768"},{"taxonomy":"metadata","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/metadata?post=1768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}