Pattern Recognition

By: William Gibson

Narrated by: Shelly Frasier

The accolades and acclaim are endless for William Gibson's coast-to-coast best seller. Set in the post-9/11 present, Pattern Recognition is the story of one woman's never-ending search for the now....

Cayce Pollard is a new kind of prophet - a world-renowned "coolhunter" who predicts the hottest trends. While in London to evaluate the redesign of a famous corporate logo, she's offered a different assignment: find the creator of the obscure, enigmatic video clips being uploaded to the Internet - footage that is generating massive underground buzz worldwide.

Still haunted by the memory of her missing father - a Cold War security guru who disappeared in downtown Manhattan on the morning of September 11, 2001 - Cayce is soon traveling through parallel universes of marketing, globalization, and terror, heading always for the still point where the three converge. From London to Tokyo to Moscow, she follows the implications of a secret as disturbing - and compelling - as the 21st century promises to be....

©2003 William Gibson (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

" Pattern Recognition is William Gibson's best book since he rewrote all the rules in Neuromancer." (Neil Gaiman, author of American Gods)

"One of the first authentic and vital novels of the 21st century." ( The Washington Post Book World)

A brilliant performance.

I could wish that Shelly Frasier had narrated all of Gibson's novels. But for a very few pronunciation errors, her performance was perfect I would say.

a sea of sensory inputs

This was amazing and the only thing wrong with this book was it ended. fantastic

One of Gibson’s best (if not the)

First read 20 years ago, an exciting of-the-moment post 9/11, post dot com bust, post cyberpunk bit of seriously smart fluff. Now as a pre smart phone, pre social media period piece, it’s even better and more prescient. The reading here is excellent—at first the slightly poor sound production quality was distracting, and the reader’s almost Terry Gross-rhythms distracted me slightly, but her vocal performance really won me over. Never heard “Baudrillard” pronounced quite the way she did (and Baudrillard really lurks in both text and subtext here), but excellent overall.

Fantastic Story with a Truly Gifted Narrator

Wow, wow, wow. If you liked the Sprawl series and Peripheral you will love this. The story and characters are very well developed. The insights on consumerism through the eyes of the main character are still so relevant today in the age of the "influencer."

The language is both lovely and thought provoking --

"[...] simulacra of simulacra of simulacra. A dilute tincture of Ralph Lauren, who had himself diluted the glory days of Brooks Brothers, who themselves had stepped on the product of Jermyn Street and Savile Row ... There must be some Tommy Hilfiger event horizon, beyond which it is impossible to be more derivative, more removed from the source, more devoid of soul."

I went back and listened to a few chapters just for sheer pleasure--that's always a great sign. And the narrator -- thank you to Shelly Frasier for bringing this story, with all its twists and turns, to life. The accents, the tone of voice, and pacing were superb. I am so picky about narrators she is just fantastic. (FYI I lean to Ray Porter, George Guidall, XE Sands, and Frank Muller--may he rest in peace--as a few of my tops picks)

Download today and enjoy! I am on to the next in the series. :-)

This might be my new favorite Gibson novel

A great story with Rich characters with a spot-on performance by Shelly Frasier. Loved it!

Monotonous reading in a voice full of vocal fry.

great book destroyed. how did this woman get cast? the mind boggles. I'm really disappointed.

Love the story, but some mis-steps in performance

These stories are the example of Gibson's maxim, "The future is already here - it's just not evenly distributed" - it's a fantastic story that pulls you out of your world quickly, speaking in a language of science, metaphor and cultural reference.

It's the language he uses that I love so much, and it's the language he uses that cause the mis-steps in the performance. "Ur-footagehead" is pronounced "U-R footage head", neglecting the German "Ur", which means "original". "Kir" is pronounced "Ker" and not "Keer", etc. - it's little stuff, but one of the cool things about Gibson is that he uses these specific words. His fans may be the only ones who will notice, but people coming in new to his work should be exposed and given the full effect of how he crafts his works.

Someone in the production should have been able to listen and correct these mistakes - and it wasn't done.

An odd book for me to like, but I did

When Pattern Recognition started off, I remember thinking "Is this a novel about... fashion?" I hadn't read any Gibson in quite a while, and that was all Science Fiction, so this definitely wasn't what I was expecting. Still, the story, and the artful way it was told, pulled me in. Gibson has a way of making beautiful sentences that remain engaging even when they go on for impressive amounts of time. I also have to credit the narration. I wouldn't normally give 5 stars to an audio book that uses a single narrator for all voices, but this one was so good, both in terms of tone and the variety of accents used, that I felt it was earned. I didn't even come close to losing the thread of who was speaking. Lastly, the book may have struck a chord with me since pattern recognition is something that I feel I'm actually quite good at myself. or at least that patterns that other people usually miss have played an interesting part in my life. Good read.

This was a pleasure

Of course, amazingly well written by William Gibson, and the narration by Shelly Frasier was perfect.

A beautifully written but plot-limited novel

I've enjoyed everything Gibson has written, but I loved this much more for the quality of the writing than the cleverness of the plot (just OK) or the technical innovation (minimal). What if a person could intuit whether a new commercial logo would work? That's the whole speculative innovation! But Gibson has written a lovely story around it that picks up speed as it proceeds to its climax.