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Zero History reads like a Graham Greene novel penned by The Magnificent Bastard. This is the third entry in Gibson's Blue Ant cycle. His Bigend trope has all the pushes and pops of Zero History's contemporary at the cinema, Inception. Hubertus returns as the puppet master, linchpin, and advertising exec who simultaneously makes Don Draper look like a used car salesman and Saatchi and Saatchi like a mom-and-pop operation. Again Hollis Henry, whom we met in Spook Country, is squarely in his sights. Again she's anxious to get out. And again there's enough branding to make an Italian pro cyclist blush.

The black market produces enough materials to keep all of Dick Cheney's Facebook friends in gold-plated Bugatti Veyrons. However, the knockoffs lack the quality of the "real thing." Will the counterfeit goods ever meet or exceed genuine standards? Could these products become their own brand with their own logo? Would we buy these items for that quality or would we buy inferior products on the basis of brand recognition and reputation? Or better yet, if the military were to require these products, which side of this equation will be chosen for those astonishingly lucrative

I'm no pro from Dover, but I think that there are as many ways of looking at a work by Pynchon as he has storylines in each book. Inherent Vice is definitely one of the more approachable works by a guy who can have the reader wading hip-deep through unbelievably complex prose on one hand and up to your nose in Indica, weapons, and cartoonish character names on the other. On a general level, it'd be easy to say it's closely akin to the other "California" pieces (The Crying of Lot 49 and Vineland), much more so than the sprawling tomes of Against the Day or Mason and Dixon (for page count alone — phew!) or the byzantine plots of V and Gravity's Rainbow.

If I cut out every third word from Inherent Vice and paste it into another book, I'd come up with Cheech and Chong's encyclopedia of '70s L.A. Now I cut out every second word and I have a post-retro-détournement of a serpentine, techie noir, William Gibson-esque thriller. And what I'm left with reminds me of the resonant emotion, individuality, and very personal tone of the likes of Haruki Murakami. But, ultimately, Pynchon's voice is always his

With amazingly lifelike views and short "biographies" of each bug, Bugs in 3-D is recommended for kids of all ages, and comes complete with 3-D glasses that are built right into the book so you won't lose them. Over forty bugs jump right off the page 3 the Zebra Tarantula will look like it's crawling on your nose!