William Gibson, arguably the king of science fiction for the past two decades, has written a new book! Spook Country, a stand-alone sequel to 2005’s Pattern Recognition, continues Gibson’s tradition of incorporating cutting-edge technology into his books. When he sat down with NPR over the weekend, he cited two specific examples that heavily inform the book: “Locative Art”, which involves creating a blended reality that combines aspects of the real world with a virtual one. Early on in the novel, an artist attempts to convince the managers of the Virgin Mega Store to allow him to set up a virtual recreation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s lethal heart attack. Unbeknownst to the managers, though, the piece was already displayed and looping endlessly, but nobody could access it because they did not have what Gibson calls “the URL”.

Spook Country also examines post 9/11 “Big Brother” technology, and the increasing lack of privacy for both the watcher and the watched. Says Gibson, “If you’re a crooked politician, and you’re lying about something, we’re going to know about it, because in the digital world…everything is porous, and its not easy to keep a secret for very long.”

I’ll say this, though: after listening to the interview, which was one of the more interesting I’ve heard recently, I still have absolutely no idea what this book is about. See if you can figure it out.