I started "Picoverse" today. I'm in "idea fiction" mode; some of the more brazenly "literary" titles I've had in mind will have to wait.
The front-sale reviews of "Jennifer Government" are amusing: It's obvious the reviewers who read it haven't read science fiction in years, if ever. Yes, Barry's book is clever. But from what I've read it's not great; by humorous SF standards (think Douglas Adams) it's downright substandard. Reviewers obligingly compare it to "1984" and "Brave New World" when in fact "Neuromancer," with its fiercely globalized future society, is a vastly closer relative.
It's increasingly ironic that mainstream critics refuse to acknowledge there's more to literary science fiction that Orwell and Huxley, especially as Gibson has become a lauded cultural fixture on a par with Burroughs. "Pattern Recognition" wasn't even SF, and elicted comparison to Thomas Pynchon, of all authors.
But the stuffy critical establishment won't bite; contemporary mainstream reviewers will go to their graves clutching moth-eaten copies of "acceptable" genre fiction, never knowing what "cyberpunk" is.
Nothing against "1984," by the way -- it's one of my all-time favorites.
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