Before I say anything else, since this might get lost in the literary discussion, this book is really funny. People looked at me weird when I was reading it in cafes and buses because I laughed so much.

Where Gravity's Rainbow was a work of sometimes impenetrable (or incoherent) genius, Bleeding Edge is just a really good book, one of the best I've read this year. It has one main character, Maxine, a fraud investigator/private eye, and everything that happens is a close third person narrative from Maxine's point of view. The story takes place in New York City, from spring 2001 to spring 2002. If you were in NYC during that time, or if you were in any way involved in the first dotcom boom (boom or bust part), you'll very likely enjoy it. The feeling of NYC and of dotcom excess is all very spot-on parody. It is parody not mimesis though. I got caught by that at first.

I kept coming across references to bits of late 90s cultural minutiae and thinking things like "How the fuck do you know all this, Pynchon?" I mean he's 77 how can the guy be some incredibly hip to everything? How? How does he know all this? But I have to say, getting almost all the references in a Pynchon novel feels amazing. Give it a try.

The one weakness of Bleeding Edge is the bits that take place inside the weird underbelly of the Internet called DeepArcher. DeepArcher is basically a really romanticized version of second life and just doesn't feel as right on as the rest of the story. It's nice and it's done well, but it just doesn't ring true. It's a bit of a stretch.

And I'll leave you with some choice quotes because that's what's best about this book, the actual language, the twists and turns of phrase.
"Maxine somehow got in an argument with a local bozo about Deloitte and Touche, which the bozo, who turned out to be Horst, insisted on calling Louche & De Toilet, and by the time they had this sorted, Maxine wasn’t sure she could even stand up let alone find her way back to the hotel"

"The most recent of these problematical payees is a little operation downtown calling itself hwgaahwgh.com, an acronym for Hey, We’ve Got Awesome And Hip Web Graphix, Here. Do they? Somehow, doubtful."

"busy with handheld game consoles. “Doom,” Igor waving a thumb, “just came out for Game Boy. Post–late capitalism run amok, ‘United Aerospace Corporation,’ moons of Mars, gateways to hell, zombies and demons, including I think these two. Misha and Grisha. Say hello, padonki.”"

Just go read it already.