Editing Pattern Recognition (novel) (section)

== Background ==
Before writing ''Pattern Recognition'', the author, [[William Gibson]], published seven novels (one co-written) and numerous short stories beginning in 1977. His previous novel, ''[[All Tomorrow's Parties (novel)|All Tomorrow's Parties]]'', was published in October 1999 as the conclusion of the [[Bridge trilogy]].  ''Pattern Recognition'' was written between 2001 and 2002 while Gibson was living in [[Vancouver]], [[British Columbia]]<ref name=Gill>{{Cite news |last=Gill |first=Alexandra |date=February 8, 2003 |title=Back in the here and now |newspaper=[[The Globe and Mail]] |place= [[Toronto]] |pages=R19}}</ref> and released in February 2003.  ''Pattern Recognition'' was originally intended to be a stand-alone novel,<ref name=Graham/> but afterwards Gibson wrote ''[[Spook Country]]'' and ''[[Zero History]]'' which take place in the same universe and use some of the same characters.

Gibson traveled to Tokyo in 2001 to prepare for this new novel, which takes place in London, Moscow, and Tokyo.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Gibson |first=William |date=September 2001 |title=My Own Private Tokyo |newspaper=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]] |volume=9 |issue =9 |url=https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.09/gibson.html |access-date=2008-01-06}}</ref> He did not travel to London or Moscow but used interviews with friends and internet resources for research.<ref name=Lim2>{{Cite news |last=Lim |first=Dennis |date=12 February 2003 |title=Think Different |newspaper=[[The Village Voice]] |url=http://www.villagevoice.com/books/0307,lim2,41824,10.html |access-date=2007-12-30 |archive-date=2008-01-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080115222817/http://www.villagevoice.com/books/0307,lim2,41824,10.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> In September 2001 Gibson had written about 100&nbsp;pages but was struggling to finish. He stopped writing after watching the [[September 11, 2001 attacks]] on television and "realized [the novel] had become a story that took place in an [[Alternate history|alternate time track]], in which Sept. 11 hadn't happened".<ref name=Gill/> He considered abandoning the novel but a few weeks later re-wrote portions to use the attacks as a motivating factor for the distress the main character feels.<ref name=Graham>{{cite web | author = Gibson, William & Graham, Fiona | author-link= William Gibson |title= Finding Faces in the Clouds | format = author interview | url= https://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2003/04/27/bogibson.xml |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20030728215837/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=%2Farts%2F2003%2F04%2F27%2Fbogibson.xml |url-status= dead |archive-date= July 28, 2003 |work= [[The Daily Telegraph]] |date= April 30, 2003 |access-date= 2007-12-16 }}</ref> In a 2003 interview he said, "There I was, in the winter of 2001, with no idea what the summer of 2002 was going to be like. ... In the original post-9/11 draft, London felt more like London is feeling right now. Cayce keeps seeing trucks full of soldiers. But I took that out, because as it got closer to the time, it wasn't actually happening."<ref name=Gill/>