Bigend Books

The "Bigend Books" are a series of novels (three, so far) by William Gibson. They each revolve around the efforts of Belgian advertising executive Hubertus Bigend to learn the secrets behind strange and interesting things, chiefly by hiring a "cool-hunter" or reporter to investigate. Unlike other William Gibson books, the Bigend Trilogy takes place in the present day (relative to when they were written) and do not involve anything especially world-changing. Instead, they are basically mystery novels involving the fringes of the technology and culture of the Turn of the Millennium and The New Tens.

The books include:


 * Pattern Recognition (2003) - Bigend hires Cayce Pollard, a professional cool-hunter with a brand-logo allergy whose father went missing on 9/11/2001, to investigate a series of mysterious - but connected - video clips posted to the Internet.


 * Spook Country (2007) - Under pretense of starting a magazine, Bigend hires musician-turned-journalist Hollis Henry to investigate "locative art", a new kind of GPS-locked virtual sculpture, though he's actually looking for the guy who helped invent the technology that made it possible. meanwhile a Chinese-Cuban family are transporting secret information on iPods and being tracked by a spook named Brown and his drug-addicted translator Milgrim.


 * Zero History (2010) - Hollis Henry is again roped into working for Bigend, investigating a secret streetwear brand. This time, she's partnered with Milgrim, whom Bigend had put through rehab in exchange for working for him. During the search, however, Hollis discovers her daredevil ex-boyfriend was badly injured jumping off the world's tallest building. Meanwhile, Bigend must attempt to fend off a corporate coup aiming to steal Blue Ant's business from him.

Each one is explicitly set in the year prior to its publication.

These books provide examples of:
""Dense," said Heidi, "but no match for wolfram. Old name for tungsten. Should've been a metal band: Wolfram.""
 * A Good Name for a Rock Band - Hollis Henry's former band, The Curfew, and in Zero History, the Bollards, the band being produced by former Curfew guitarist Reg Inchmale.
 * Heidi (the drummer in The Curfew) is talking about about materials for making darts:

"Heidi shrugged out of her leather jacket, tossed it aside, and pulled her black T-shirt off, revealing an olive-drab bra that looked as combat-ready as any bra Hollis had ever seen.
 * Author Appeal : Reading the Bigend trilogy is like reading a history of 21st-century Apple products.
 * Badass Israeli: From Zero History we learn that even Israeli underwear is Badass.

"Nice bra."

"Israeli.""

""The French pronunciation would be 'Bayh-jhan', I think. But he seems to favor the other.""
 * Biker Babe: Fiona in Zero History.
 * Cluster F-Bomb -- Heidi Hyde, one of Hollis Henry's old bandmates, always speaks this way.
 * Cool Plane: Bigend owns an Ekranoplan - specifically, an A-90 Orlyonok
 * Driving Question -- For Pattern Recognition, what is the pattern behind some mysterious Internet videos? For Spook Country, what are the spooks trying to find in the country and how do the characters' storylines relate? For Zero History, what is the secret behind Gabriel Hounds clothing?
 * Dumb and Drummer: Averted - Heidi Hyde is a former drummer, but it doesn't seem to have caused any lasting mental handicap.
 * Eccentric Millionaire - Bigend is a shining example.
 * Fail O'Suckyname - Cayce says in Pattern Recognition that if Bigend knew how silly people could find his last name to be, he would be even more obnoxious.
 * Intrepid Reporter -- The cool-hunters, Cayce Pollard and Hollis Henry.
 * It Is Pronounced "Tro-PAY" - Inverted by Bigend, as explained by Milgrim in Zero History:


 * Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: there are hints in Spook Country that Tito's Santeria gods are genuinely supernatural. They are carefully kept ambiguous.
 * McGuffin -- while the footage from Pattern Recognition was used by Bigend in his marketing schemes and he uses Bobby Chombo from Spook Country to, he does virtually nothing with Gabriel Hounds secret brand and is not really disappointed.
 * Additionally, Tito's mission in Spook Country involved delivering data the most secure way possible: by physically transporting the data. That he uses iPods for this makes Rule of Cool, given the recognition iPods where getting when Spook Country was published, and Awesome Yet Practical, since very few security guards wonder why a kid has an iPod.
 * Mr. Smith: Milgrim's handler is known only as "Brown".
 * Mysterious Employer - Bigend starts out as this to Cayce and Hollis, before they know much about him aside from his reputation.
 * Mythology Gag -- Cayce Pollard pronounces her first name as "Case".
 * In Zero History the relationship between Milgrim and Fiona is reminiscent of that between Case and Molly, not to mention Milgrim himself resembles Case in some ways
 * Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot -- Tito, the Santeria-practicing Chinese-Cuban courier ninja (trained in Le Parkour and Russian systema martial arts) in Spook Country.
 * The Nineties -- Hollis Henry was the lead singer for a fictional punk/alternative rock band named "The Curfew"; their heydey is implied to have been the early-to-mid-90s. A portrait of Hollis, taken by real-life music photographer/video director Anton Corbijn, shows up in a few places in the books.
 * No Name Given: Tito's contact "the old man".
 * Otaku -- The pitiful Takei, who is emotionally manipulated by Parkaboy to help decode watermarking.
 * Plot Device -- The Driving Question of each book centers on them: viral video clips in Pattern Recognition, a shipping container of unknown contents and reclusive locative-technology expert Bobby Chombo in Spook Country, and the Gabriel Hounds clothing in Zero History. Only the last really is a MacGuffin, though (see above).
 * Post Cyber Punk: on the bleaker end of the scale but a definite progression from his early Cyberpunk
 * The Reveal: In Zero History, the Gabriel Hounds designer turns out to be
 * Shown Their Work: The fandom parts of Pattern Recognition are eerily well-researched.
 * Zero History includes discussion of very specific fashion terminology, regarding cuts, colors, types of fabric, etc.
 * Sliding Scale of Anti-Heroes -- Milgrim is a Type 1, while Bigend is in the area of a 3 or 4.
 * This Loser Is You -- In Spook Country, Milgrim represents the average American when it comes to the stuff that the post-9/11 government did.
 * Title Drop: In Zero History, Defence Criminal Investigative Service agent Winnie Tung Whittaker is telling Milgrim how little of a trail he has left over the years: "Zero history as far as Choice Point is concerned. Means you haven't even had a credit card for ten years."
 * The War on Terror - A definite backdrop to and influence on the series. Cayce Pollard's father was a CIA agent who went missing on September 11, 2001, and the books are heavily concerned with surveillance and military contracting.
 * Weaksauce Weakness -- Cayce Pollard is allergic to strong brands, logos and distinctive styles of any kind, with Nazi imagery being the most deadly.
 * Cursed with Awesome - She uses this to her advantage as a cool-hunter and advertising consultant.