I read Zero History many books ago now, but I can't stop thinking about it. Even after reading Freedom...but that's another post that still sits, unfinished, in my queue, awaiting further clarity, further research, further backing up of my claims that William Gibson has blown my mind. More, anon. (And less gross misuse of commas.)
There's so much to say about Zero History and some of it is big and lofty and bold and won't touch on the little gems littering this fantastic novel. Here are *almost* more quotes from the book than I should really include, but they'll give you a peek into all that awaits you should you decide to take up Zero History. Even as I type them, I'm reminded of the moment I first read each one. If ever there was a collection of reader-writer moments, of passages a reader reads and immediately thinks "This writer gets me, makes me smile, is divine, I love him" these passages (among many others I'm forcing myself not to include) are it for me:
"Pearlescent silver, this one. Glyphed in Prussian blue, advertising something German, banking services or business software; a smoother simulacrum of its black ancestors, its faux-leather upholstery a shade of orthopedic fawn."
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"'Call him,' he repeated, wrapped in Japanese herringbone Gore-Tex, multiply flapped and counterintuitively buckled."
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"Everything about his personal presentation was intended to convey an effortless concision, but nothing quite did."
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"The Neo rang while he was still trying to grasp Twitter."
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"There were a few expensively bound and weirdly neutered magazines here, rearranged daily by the housekeepers, but he knew from glancing through them that these were bland advertisements for being wealthy, wealthy and deeply, witheringly unimaginative."
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"Reading, his therapist suggested, had likely been his first drug."
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"When you want to know how things really work, study them when they're coming apart."
On their own, these aren't quotable passages (ok, maybe a few) that many will highlight. Yet, together, they begin to hint at the language and insight and coolness and precision with which Gibson tackles his subject in this book. I think it's swoon-worthy.
