Zero History

This is a copy of the Home House Club, Portman Square, which may very well feature in some form in William Gibson's novel in progress Zero History:

Home House Club, Portman Square

At the north west corner of Portman Square, where it meets the southern end of Gloucester Place are three 18th Century town houses, which have been converted into a luxurious private members club.

The Home House Club (pronounced "hume", after the Scottish / Berwickshire aristocratic clan, to whom at least one British Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home was a related) occupies Numbers 21, 20 and 19 Portman Square. The entrance to Number 21 is on the western, Gloucester Place side of the block, and Numbers 20 and 19 are on the main Portman Square façade.

This real life club, may have influenced the fragment of cyberpunk literary author William Gibson's next novel, mentioning as it does the character of Inchmale, who appeared in Spook Country

See some discussion on the official William Gibson board discussion forum
Inchmale's club in Portman Square, which speculates on a fragment of text (which may, or may not actually end up in a novel) released by the author on his blog on 1st January 2009.

CABINET (HAPPY NEW YEAR) posted 12:09 AM

Inchmale's club, in Portman Square, was called Cabinet. It was a peculiarly narrow place, apparently occupying half of the vertical volume of a townhouse whose expensively forgettable façade reminded her of a sleeping face.

[...]

Apart from a futuristic architect designed House bar at Number 21,

the interior decoration evokes 18th Century aristocratic opulence, including

Anthony Blunt Bedroom

Named after a former resident of House No 20 who had an apartment here after the Second World War during his tenure as Master of the Queen's Art Collection.

[...]

This blurb conveniently forgets to mention Anthony Blunt's espionage career as a KGB spook, linked to the notorious Philby, Maclean and Burgess spy scandals, which rocked the British intelligence services in the 1950s and 1960s, and which was covered up by the establishment for many years, and which led to the stripping of his knighthood, when it was eventually made public. The treachery of the Cambridge Five spy ring has been hugely influential on British spy fiction, drama, tv and films.

Latitude: N51:30:59 (51.516433)
Longitude: W0:09:24 (-0.156541)

More images of 21, 20, 19 Portman Square:

Posted by Memetic Engineer at 5:52 PM | Permalink

As with his previous novel Spook Country, the author William Gibson has published some fragments of writing which may or may not find their way into the final version of his next novel, which seems to be entitled Zero History.

William Gibson explains:

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

"WORK IN PROGRESS"
posted 6:05 PM

Those little bits of text I sometimes post are, for the reader, I imagine, a lot like visiting the set of a film. The scene you see shot, and remember, may not be in the film when it's released. Or, owing to the editing process, or even reshooting, it may be there but not remotely resemble what you saw shot.

For example, I titled an earlier fragment "The Gabriel Hounds". In it, a character sees some dogs (of sorts). Those dogs no longer have anything at all to do with that which is called "the Gabriel Hounds" in the draft today.

Apophenia. Faces in clouds.

And I'm actually rather careful not to put up enough to allow you to figure out what's really going on, in terms of the broader narrative.

1. CABINET (HAPPY NEW YEAR) - Thursday, January 01, 2009
2. HOLD THE COPROPHAGIA - Saturday, January 24, 2009
3. CRICKET - Sunday, February 01, 2009
4. THE GABRIEL HOUNDS - Tuesday, February 03, 2009
5. FIFTEEN - Sunday, February 08, 2009
6. SPECIES - Monday, February 09, 2009
7. BOHEMIAN - Thursday, February 12, 2009
8. AMATEUR - Sunday, February 15, 2009
9. GABBLE RATCHETS - Wednesday, March 04, 2009
10. MAQUETTE - Tuesday, May 12, 2009
11. WHAT'S IN A NAME? - Tuesday, May 26, 2009 (includes an image)

The Fragments of a Hologram Bill thread on the William Gibson Books discussion forum collects the published fragments into one thread, which are discussed and analysed on other parts of the forum and elsewhere.

Zero History is an excellent title, laden with many potential meanings, for what appears to be the direct sequel to Spook Country, which followed on from Pattern Recognition.

The fragments so far mention of some previously established characters like Hubertus Bigend, Reg Inchmale, Holly, Milgrim, Sleight, Pamela etc.

Locations include London and Conway, South Carolina (where William Gibson was born).

Posted by Memetic Engineer at 3:31 PM | Permalink

PGP Public Encryption Key for:

blog@ZeroHistory.net

Expiry: 20th May 2010

Copy and paste the PGP key public key block text and import it in to your PGP software.

Free versions of PGP encryption software are available for download,

for multiple platforms, from www.pgpi.org

KeyID: 0x248CEF62

Fingerprint: E72F 0251 F228 3B91 3CA5 6FA6 A4FE EE50 248C EF62

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Posted by Memetic Engineer at 10:52 PM | Permalink