Zero History

Zero History. The perfect blanket for the novels of William Gibson (well, all two that I have read, upon which it is feasible to develop a seasoned opinion. Shush). Less out-there than Philip K Dick (and perhaps more sensical), but more cryptic than Margaret Atwood, with worse dialogue than Robert Heinlein. (These being the authors of the canon I have read, with a few sidekicks - and no, I'm not including Hugh Howey here, because obviously success, even when unedited, is to be scorned.)

(I did read all nine, fyi, and didn't hate the ending. Did hate the editing.)

Corralling mind back to point. It's not thrilled. (Ok, I'll stop interrupting.)

Book first. You may remember that I am one of the few people I know who rate Neuromancer highly. Or not. I do. I suspect this is partly because success is to be scorned, as aforementioned. We love an underdog precisely because he is not top dog (notice how the movie always cuts off before the dog reaps his rewards). It doesn't help that they made a movie tenuously linked to the book which itself is within arm's reach of a philosopher's thought experiment.

I rate it (not because others don't, although I am otherwise like that) because it had a wider lens than the Matrix - it didn't depend on the premise that we are all slaves to 'the machines' (get it? Very subtle) and need to sign up to fight a war that requires shooting surprisingly unintellegent artificial intelligences (that always surprises me). In fact, that felt like a B or C plot. An A plot in my books, but D plot in others', is that question I don't have the answer to and am beginning to suspect won't ever be answered.

In Zero History, there are so many moments like these, forming an undercurrent (ridden by red herrings) of suspicion. For example, I am still waiting for the fruition of an exchange where a hotel receptionist takes one of the protagonists'  (Milgrim - again, very subtle, my man Gibson) passport into the back to photocopy. To justify my paranoia, American passports are microchipped and can be read by devices in the vicinity, so Milgrim keeps it in a pouch designed to tangle those signals.

Maybe I'm missing something? Maybe I'm not. As a person, I don't like surprises. As a reader, I do, but I prefer to have the satisfaction of figuring it out first. (I'm just otherwise like that.)

And here we have Gibson's skill: of immersing you in paranoia, until you're paranoid about being paranoid. Which is incidentally crucial to the plot. The two main characters, Milgrim and Hollis (really), are being manipulated by two or three (it's very confusing) deeply dodgy and steeply wealthy conmen, who are fighting against one another to get a military contract. Or sell adspace. Or clothes. Surveillance technology is built into everything, including a figurine of an ant and a phone, but not laptops apparently.

A government agent (of some underground agency, for which y'all are paying taxes, congrats) has also taken personal leave to jump into the fray. She's mostly interested in... Clothing piracy, I think.

One of the main characters (let's keep some surprises in our relationship) seems to be morphing into an autonomous being. Which is disturbing pretty much every involved who should be disturbed by their own behaviour. Like a dog chewing its tail. Maybe an hyaena. Except their tails are short. The other main character has pretty much been spared the drama, except as tales over breakfast and that bug in her ant figurine.

As mentioned, the dialogue is like cardboard. Every character uses one of two modes: one-word answers or staccato but meandering sentences. Usually the response does not tie in with the previous utterance, so people often have to ask one another to explain what they just said, to which they usually get a feint. But this works nicely to raise the paranoia up like the baboon raising the cub in The Lion King, forehead marking and all. It's not clear whether they're being evasive or just distracted, or in the case of the dodgy dealers (I couldn't resist the alliteration) are setting up situations in which to test others.

Love it. You can't pick at a single characteristic of this book that doesn't unwind into pure mind effortness. Technology, autonomy, power, lack of power, progress... All themes that have and will continue to keep philosophers busy (and out of politics), wrung up but not released. Sometimes, these themes are really flung in your face (hence the marking), but usually while you're distracted by something else, maybe a something that has flown into your eye to keep the metaphor afloat.

I'd bet money on the author laying these wrung-up themes down in a pattern locked in his mind. And I don't gamble. Perhaps he is really good at poker and keeping a straight face, his 'tells' under control, but I hope not because then I've just lost some cash. Which is why I don't gamble. (The house always wins. Always. And when it doesn't, it phones your parents, pretends to be the government and says he's going to break your legs. True story.)

Neuromancer told a similar story: a character or two controlled by some dodgy conmen with some cash, squished in with a drug addiction, motorbikes and leather. In that one, though, the story is set in an unrealised future. Zero History was published in 2010 and features iPhones (no mention of Samsung, Sony, Huawei or HTC), as well as other surveillance technologies that are plausible. Except for a floating silver mercurial penguin. As a result, there is much the narrative doesn't need to explain, leaving room for the undercurrent with the flying red herrings.

Oeuvre next. Beginning each book requires a reset, to make space for whatever world awaits you, futuristic or modern. It is a bit like having no history, which incidentally, now that I think about it, is how Milgrim appears at the beginning of the book, acquiring memory by memory. You have to keep resetting as you read, to take in new information but also anticipate it. You can't take anything for granted, which takes up a lot of trunk space.

The word 'zero' is loaded - thanks philosophers. It's completely abstract, since what isn't there, well, isn't there. There are languages that don't have a word for it (English being one of those that names everything, including the things that aren't there). It occurs meaningfully in Descartian geometry, where it gets a partner, and where it fits so well within a flat world and you can draw its portrait.

But meaningful it is not when it describes human experience. Swapping philosophers for English lit students, everything has an history, even stories. Some of the paranoia of Zero History is that there are allusions to events that have bearing on the story but are omitted. Everyone knows some of the story but not all (except the author, who I am betting writes like he might put a jigsaw puzzle together). And as all good lit students know, absence is where the juicy stuff is (not meaty, because I am a vegetarian).

This Point is disappointing in its focus - I apologise. My mind is settled with a clump of carrots and a horse blanket. Perhaps it is just worn out.

Zero History is part of a trilogy, which will probably bend to include more, if the publishers have anything to do with it. I haven't read the other two, so perhaps I will have to put this post down to an erratum and write you a new one. Regardless, and regardless of Gibson's success and un-underdog-ness, and considering no one has made a movie of this (yet and I think), I'm betting a set of handmade how-to origami diagrams hang above the author's desk: an ant, an hyaena and a baboon, and a horde of dodgy conmen and confused protagonists.