This was not a typical Gibson novel. Even though the themes and plot involved the Net and computing, it is set in the present day, and the style and content are a departure for Gibson. I had trouble getting into the story not because of these things, but because it felt too close to the World Trade Center tragedy and the writing felt almost forced. Despite the almost constant attempts to do so on television news, I think it is still too soon to examine 9/11 in a historical context, yet that is what I feel Gibson is trying to do here. His themes of pattern recognition and the human condition in the 21st century are almost – but not quite – realized. The results are both tantalizing and disappointing, as if this could have been a really good book if he had only waited a few more years to write it. (Note: This review was originally written in February 2004.)