As I was reading this novel, I kept thinking about how I do not like works of science fiction to be set in the reality of the time it was written in, as was done in Pattern Recognition. If a science fiction story is supposed to be set in reality, then the author will have to incorporate markers of the present reality into the story to give the readers a sense of when it is taking place - in the case of Pattern Recognition, one way in which this was accomplished was constantly dropping brand names and products.