A puzzler from BusinessWeek

[Penny Padgett]

The following lines were contained in a review in this week's BusinessWeek
of two books about chasing down hacker Kevin Mitnick ("Manhunt on the
Info Highway," BusinessWeek, January 29, 1996, p. 12):

  Inadvertently, perhaps, both books describe an America worthy of
  Thomas Pynchon.  As in that author's _Gravity's Rainbow_, Mitnick
  and Shimomura live in a world that's chock-full of brand names,
  rife with technology, flooded with electronic signals, and fraught
  with paranoia.

Huh?  You reckon reviewer John W. Verity has confused GR with, say,
_Snow Crash_ or that repellent novel about the mass murderer with
the penchant for designer menswear?  Paranoia, sure, but *brand names*?
Moxie is about the only brand name I can recall from GR.

(Someday, I am going to collect a list of books that have been
compared to Pynchon's.  I bet it will surprise just about everybody.)

Penny