A quick internet search revealed to me that Pattern Recognition, the eighth novel by William Gibson, was the first to be on the New York Times Bestsellers list, and the first to be set in a contemporary world instead of a fantastical one. The increased overall popularity of the more recent William Gibson novels ( as opposed to Neuromancer, whose popularity was more of a word-of-mouth cult hit ) may be due to this; however, speaking personally, I found the contemporary world of Pattern Recognition less compelling.