It's a small surprise that this is his first collection of non-fiction, considering that he, albeit briefly, had the mantle of Chief Prognosticator, back when we thought the future would be delivered to us through VR googles and sensory pads. He explains his discomfort at non-fiction in the introduction, claiming that he wants to spend time writing fiction. Fair enough, and those most of the pieces in this collection slim, there are some excellent insights on Japan, eBay, and Borges. The best part is the author's comments afterwards, placing the piece in some kind of context. The piece on Singapore for Wired caused the magazine to be banned there for a number of years, a fact that I only knew through the comments. My favourite one is about Tokyo, also for Wired, which the author dismisses in the comments (saying that he feels guilty of using most of the good material he gathered on the magazine's dime for his novel Pattern Recognition) but to me conjures about Japan in a way that only those who have been there can fully understand.
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