Meeting Science Fiction/ Internet and the Prospects of Online Social Networks

Meeting Science Fiction

When I started reading the book, the only thing I knew that it was classified as a science fiction novel. That’s when I thought cool – looking forward to futuristic aspects like in Star Wars or the typical movie that is set in 2050. But as I turned each page, I didn’t see any laser guns or flying cars. I guess, I could do without the laser guns and flying cars but at this point in the novel, I really didn’t see anything that would seem to exist in the future that already didn’t exist. After paying a little more attention, I understood that Pattern Recognition wasn’t the typical science fiction novel that we are used to seeing. In a way, Gibson writes science fiction about the present time. He describes a world that we live in but in a different perspective than anyone is used to seeing it in. In this type of science fiction novel the world Gibson presents plays a crucial part in the story. Gibson wouldn’t be able to convey his themes without establishing a foundation – this futuristic-present world.

Internet and the Prospects of Online Social Networks

I believe Gibson constantly emphasizes the internet and the online social networks throughout the novel. In the first chapter, after Cayce finishes describing Damien’s apartment, she goes on her computer to check her blog. And when she does so, she gives the reader an insight about the importance of the forum, “It is a way now, approximately, of being home. The forum has become one of the most consistent places in her life, like a familiar café that exists somehow outside of geography and beyond time zones” (4). The forum has become a place that she can turn to no matter in what corner of the world she is in. This is becoming true for more and more people in the world we live in. People feel more comfortable socializing online than in person but this might be due to the fact that one can be anywhere and still talk to the people they know. The forum symbolizes the consistency people want to have in a world that far from consistent.