With SPOOK COUNTRY due for publication next month, William Gibson's UK publishers are trying new marketing devices to get the book noticed. And one of them, according to the Penguin Books blog, is to bring Gibson to Second Life - a world he could have easily predicted in books like NEUROMANCER.

Over the next few weeks, reports Penguin Digital publisher Jeremy Ettlinghausen, Penguin is planning a range of William Gibson activities in Second Life: screening his "fine and strange movie" No Maps for These Territories; a competition to design an avatar for the man himself; giving away shipping containers packed with Gibson goodies and at the beginning of August, Gibson himself will be coming into Second Life to read from SPOOK COUNTRY and answer questions. "It was quite a thrill to give William Gibson himself a short tour of Second Life at the end of last year," Ettlinghausen remarked to UK SF Book News. "And while I am not sure what he expected, I don't think he expected that his avatar would be publicly mocked for its lack of aesthetic qualities."