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'''Pattern Recognition''' is William Gibson's eighth novel, the first to be set in the contemporary world. The protagonist is a corporate cool-hunter, who searches for the source of mysterious film footage on the internet, becoming entangled with various subcultures in the process.
As is characteristic with Gibson novels, ''Pattern Recognition'' is replete with neologisms. Some of the most memorable are ''gender-bait'', a male posing as a female online to elicit positive responses; ''cool-hunter'', which Gibson picked up from the marketing industry, where it had been in use for some years;^[1] and ''Mirror World'', meaning England, by reference to opposite-side driving, etc.
It has been cited as one of the first major literary works to allude to the events of 9/11. The attacks are mentioned several times and their impact echoes throughout the novel.
Although Gibson has stated that the world of the novel is "more or less the one we live in now"^[2], some critics have classified it as science fiction. John Clute of ''Science Fiction Weekly'' referred to it as "SF for the new century."^[3]

Contents

Plot

Chasing the footage

Resolution

Allusions to the novel in popular culture

Adaptations

Film adaptation

Radio adaptation

References

External links

Plot

The novel takes place during the summer of 2002, primarily in London, although the main character, Cayce Pollard, also travels to Japan, France, and Russia. There are also flashbacks to her life in New York City. Pollard has been hired by a London-based firm called Blue Ant supposedly to appraise new logos for their client. She is staying at a friend's flat while the friend is in Russia filming a documentary about an archaeological dig. Pollard suffers from a psychological hypersensitivity that causes her to have allergic reactions to brands and corporate logos. She uses this unique sensitivity to gauge how "hip" a pitch or brand is in her work as an advertising consultant.
The plot develops as she is drawn into a mystery surrounding snippets of film footage. An artist has been placing their work at various locations on the Internet, and accumulating a growing fanbase. People have been speculating about the filmmaker's identity, motives, methods and inspirations on several websites. The owner of Blue Ant, Hubertus Bigend, wants to hire Cayce to find the filmmaker so he can exploit their talent for his firm.
Meanwhile, Cayce meets a band of bohemian artists of Russian extraction. They show her a unique subculture, and reveal to her the large reach of Blue Ant. One of the artists works nights at clubs and bars engaging in viral marketing. She flirts with men for the hidden purpose of talking about a specific product or campaign. She tells Cayce that she is “talking up” the footage under the orders of a division of Blue Ant.
Also, Cayce begins to be tormented by Dorotea, a woman who appears to be working for the designer Blue Ant hired to create a logo. Cayce begins to think a cigarette burn on her jacket and a break-in at the flat where she's been living are revenge by Blue Ant for her rejection of the first logo she was shown. The intrigue rises as, both at Cayce's flat and at the office, Dorotea assaults her with images of the Michelin Man, the image that elicits the strongest reaction due to her “allergy”.

Chasing the footage

Succumbing to Bigend’s offer and the opportunity to identify the filmmaker, Cayce joins forces with Boone Chu, an American from Oklahoma, owner of a failed dot-com. The mystery of the footage dovetails for Pollard with the mystery of what happened to her father on 9/11, who had flown to NYC for unknown reasons the day before and was last seen getting into a taxi in midtown Manhattan at 7 a.m. on the morning of the attacks. Reeling in the memory of the events, Cayce flies to Japan to get information through a source connected to Parkaboy, a friend she made on the footage website. There she is accosted by two associates of Dorotea, though she promptly escapes with the help of Boone who has been following her.
Using the information she received in Japan and the connections of her bohemian friends, Cayce begins to close in to the mysterious maker. But the cybersecurity employed in his endeavors is apparently very high. Thus it's only through the aid of an ex-NSA spook/genius turned alcoholic that she is able to obtain the breakthrough e-mail address connected to the footage. The address is obtained by the ex-NSA type through some of his contacts, people who owed him favors who are working inside the Echelon mass-surveillance system.

Resolution

Cayce e-mails and receives an answer. She is invited to Moscow to meet. After taking measures to throw off anyone following her, she travels to Moscow and meets who turns out to be the creator’s twin sister, Stella Volkova. Cayce learns that Stella’s sister, Nora, was permanently injured by a mine used to kill her parents in an attack related to organized crime. Their uncle Andrei Volkov, now an extremely wealthy and influential Russian "businessman" - more like extremely wealthy and influential Russian mobster - takes care of the two, enabling Stella’s sister state of the art equipment to produce “the footage”. Before long, Cayce is able to meet Stella’s sister and even observe her creating a snippet of the film.
However, by finding the sisters, Cayce has aroused the suspicions of the uncle’s security force. In one last desperate bid to appease her true employers, Dorotea confronts Cayce and drugs her in an attempt to elicit the resources Cayce used in obtaining the e-mail address that led her to the sisters. Dorotea gives her an overdose, though, and the Uncle’s team steps in to correct the situation. During this overdose, Cayce has a break through, accepting her father’s death, gaining closure, and recovering from her brand “allergy.”
After her recovery, Cayce discovers that the Russians have created a low-security prison for the processing of the footage. Bigend is called in to secure a business deal (outside of the matter of the footage) initiated by the uncle. Boone and Dorotea are both discharged for their duplicity, and Cayce is given leave to visit the sisters. As a parting gift, the Russians give Cayce the research they gathered about her father, which far exceeded any other in completeness. The novel ends with a series of e-mails – a motif used often throughout the novel by Gibson – closing all remaining plot lines except one, who is in bed with her.

Allusions to the novel in popular culture

The novel inspired Sonic Youth to write a song of the same title, which opens with the lyric "I'm a cool hunter making you my way" and appears on their 2004 album, ''Sonic Nurse''. The seventh season ''X-Files'' episode "First Person Shooter" (which was co-written by William Gibson) features a character named Darryl Musashi; he is a video-game champion who is killed while playing in a virtual-reality shooting game. A character of the same name appears in ''Pattern Recognition'' as a friend of Parkaboy.

Adaptations

Film adaptation

In April 2004, the production company Anonymous Content and the studio Warner Bros. Pictures hired director Peter Weir to helm a film adaptation of the novel. Weir and screenwriter David Arata were originally set to co-write the screenplay for the film.^[4] In January 2007, author D. B. Weiss completed an adapted screenplay for Weir and Warner Bros.^[5]
However, Weir's involvement may be in doubt. In May, 2007, Gibson noted on his personal weblog: "I
★ do
★ believe, though, that Peter Weir will not be going forward with Pattern Recognition. That is one utterly solid little factoid of film news, alas."^[6]

Radio adaptation

In February 2007, online radio station BBC7 broadcast an abridged version of the novel, voiced by Lorelei King.^[7]

References

1. See the 2001 PBS documentary, ''The Merchants of Cool''
2. February 6 2007 PC Magazine Interview
3. http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue305/excess.html
4. WB holding 'Pattern'
5. HBO turns 'Fire' into fantasy series
6. I'VE FORGOTTEN MORE NEUROMANCER FILM DEALS THAN YOU'VE EVER HEARD OF
7. http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/drama/7thdimension.shtml

External links

★ William Gibson Books: ''Pattern Recognition''; author's site

★ PR-Otaku: Logging and annotating William Gibson's ''Pattern Recognition''

★ "The Case of the World", by John Clute, ''Science Fiction Weekly'', February 24, 2003

★

★ Buzz Rickson “Pattern Recognition” Black MA-1 Intermediate Flying Jacket