Spook Country feels like a period piece. It was set in the exact present when it came out, full of details about various products, notably iPods and televisions. Now that both of those have gone ahead a generation or two it’s receding into the past.

It’s a thriller. A very good one. It’s well paced and stylishly written. Gibson really can write exceptionally well.

There are three main story strands. Hollis Henry, who used to be in a bad but now writes about art and technology, is looking at a new genre of sculpture. Locative virtual figures are fixed in space using GPS and hacked-open grids from Wifi, mobile phones and shop security systems.

There we have the second strand, Hubertus Bigend, head of the Blue Ant advertising agency who has created a fictional magazine for Henry to write for and wants to use the locative artists for commercial purposes. Art, media, advertising and technology blend together under Bigend’s patronage. He’s a great big Belgian metaphor for creativity and the modern world. In the hands of lesser writers he’d be unbearable but Gibson makes me want to read about him, for which I’m thankful.

Then we have Tito, an information courier who works for his uncle’s shady Chinese (or Cuban or something) criminal organisation. He’s being investigated by Brown, who’s keeping Milgrim prisoner to translate the volapuk (text messaging mixed with Cyrillic characters) codes they use.

As Gibson’s a modern sort of a guy he doesn’t feel the need to tie everything together as defined at the beginning of the book but there’s progression and unexpected twists and turns. It’s satisfying to read if a little less demanding than I’d like. I’m not sure what it is, I just seemed to whizz through it without touching the sides as much as I have with previous Gibson novels.

It’s a good read, witty and fantastically well observed. The cyberspace future that he predicted long ago has arrived and moved into the real world, and he’s moving with it.

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