Spook Country

Tickets $5 @ Pages Books & Magazines, 256 Queen St. West, Bakka Phoenix, 697 Queen St. West, and Soundscapes, 572 College St. **** in-person ticket sales only, no holds or reserves ****

Legendary sci-fi author William Gibson launches his new novel Spook Country in an exclusive This Is Not A Reading Series event, presented by Pages Books & Magazines, Penguin Group (Canada), and EYE Weekly. In his only Toronto event, Gibson appears on stage in conversation with Mark Askwith, producer, SPACE. Audience Q&A and book signing to follow.

Spook Country: Set in the same high-tech, present-day society as his bestselling Pattern Recognition, William Gibson's new novel, Spook Country, offers startling insights into our paranoid and often fragmented postmodern world. When a mysterious magazine, called Node, hires indie rocker-turned-journalist Hollis Henry to do a story on a new art form that exists only in virtual reality, Hollis finds herself investigating something much more dangerous. Meanwhile, a mysterious cargo container repeatedly appears and disappears on the worldwide Global Positioning network, never quite coming to port. At the heart of the dark goings-on is Bobby Chombo, a talented but disturbed specialist in Global Positioning software who refuses to sleep in the same spot two nights running. Compelling characters and crisp action sequences, plus the author's trademark metaphoric language, make this one of Gibson's best.

William Gibson is renowned as a leading pioneer of the cyberpunk movement. His first novel, Neuromancer, won three major science-fiction awards (Nebula, Hugo, and Philip K. Dick Memorial Award). Gibson's recent work has evoked critical praise and comparisons to such other major contemporary writers as Don DeLillo.

Mark Askwith is a producer at Canada's SPACE, the Imagination Station. He is one of the creators of the celebrated television and radio series, Prisoners Of Gravity. Askwith contributes to many ongoing projects, notably the annual Schuster Awards.