''Zero History'' is a novel by

William Gibson William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian speculative fiction writer and essayist widely credited with pioneering the science fiction subgenre known as cyberpunk. Beginning his writing career in the late 1970s, his ear ...

published in 2010. It concludes the informal trilogy begun by ''

Pattern Recognition Pattern recognition is the task of assigning a class to an observation based on patterns extracted from data. While similar, pattern recognition (PR) is not to be confused with pattern machines (PM) which may possess PR capabilities but their p ...

'' (2003) and continued by ''

Spook Country ''Spook Country'' is a 2007 novel by speculative fiction author William Gibson. A political thriller set in contemporary North America, it followed on from the author's previous novel, ''Pattern Recognition'' (2003), and was succeeded in 2010 by ...

'' (2007), and features the characters Hollis Henry and Milgrim from the latter novel as its protagonists.

Plot

Hollis Henry and Milgrim find themselves in London working for

Hubertus Bigend Hubertus Bigend is a fictional character appearing in the third trilogy of novels of science fiction and literary author William Gibson. Bigend is the antihero of Gibson's ''Pattern Recognition'' (2003), ''Spook Country'' (2007) and ''Zero History' ...

, unaware that their lives previously crossed in ''Spook Country''. One of Bigend's current interests is fashion, particularly the intersection between streetwear, workwear and military clothing. Milgrim is sent to South Carolina to take photographs of a pair of Army

BDUs The Battle Dress Uniform (BDU) is a camouflaged combat uniform that was used by the United States Armed Forces as their standard combat uniform from the early 1980s to the mid-2000s. Since then, it has been replaced or supplanted in every bra ...

where he gains the notice of a federal agent named Winnie Tung Whittaker employed by DCIS. Winnie photographs Milgrim and intimidates him into working as an informant. Bigend asks Henry and Milgrim to investigate a secret brand, named Gabriel Hounds after the English legend. At the same time, he becomes aware that a coup is being plotted within his company, Blue Ant. When Milgrim realizes his cell phone is being tracked by rogue elements in Blue Ant, he slides the phone into a pram belonging to the moll of a member of the Russian mob, which leads to one of the mercenaries involved in the coup, who followed the pram, being captured and beaten. Revenge against Milgrim then becomes the top priority of the mercs. A parallel subplot follows Hollis as she tracks down the Gabriel Hounds designer. Joined by her boyfriend Garreth, the mysterious daredevil featured in ''

'' who had been severely injured in a

BASE jump BASE jumping () is the recreational sport of jumping from fixed objects, using a parachute to descend to the ground. BASE is an acronym that stands for four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump: buildings, antenna (radio), antenna ...

, Hollis Henry offers to help Bigend gain the release of Bobby Chombo, who has been captured by the mercenaries to force Bigend to swap him for Milgrim, but as part of the deal, Bigend must allow the Hounds designer to remain anonymous. Garreth, because of his knowledge of tradecraft, assists Hollis in this, and in doing so calls in favors from an old man, implied to be the same person Garreth worked with in ''

'' (who, via implication in both books, might be Cayce Pollard's father), to help ensure secrecy. Bobby Chombo is critical to Bigend's plan to gain the ability to foresee stock market prices by a number of minutes. Events reach a climax at night in

Wormwood Scrubs Wormwood Scrubs, known locally as The Scrubs (or simply Scrubs), is an open space in Old Oak Common located in the north-eastern corner of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in west London. It is the largest open space in the borough ...

(an open space in London) where the mercs demand the prisoner exchange take place.

Collaboration

Gibson acknowledges the help of other authors: *

Cory Doctorow Cory Efram Doctorow (; born 17 July 1971) is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who served as co-editor of the blog ''Boing Boing''. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of th ...

provided the description of a

smartphone A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multi ...

. *

Bruce Sterling Michael Bruce Sterling (born April 14, 1954) is an American science fiction author known for his novels and short fiction and editorship of the ''Mirrorshades'' anthology. In particular, he is linked to the cyberpunk subgenre. Sterling's first ...

provided the concept of a T-shirt that is not recorded by

CCTV Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of closed-circuit television cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signa ...

Reception

James Purdon, writing in the Guardian, called the series "one of the first great novels of 21st-century data culture", while criticizing them for lack of depth and technological innovation.

References

External links

''Zero History''
at WilliamGibsonBooks.com (official website)
"Prepare for ZERO HISTORY by William Gibson"
excerpts from the novel read by the author accompanied by promotional images at

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

Portal of Reviews of Zero History
{{William Gibson 2010 American novels Novels by William Gibson 2010 speculative fiction novels Speculative crime and thriller fiction novels Novels set in London Techno-thriller novels Viking Press books