Runo Knows...Idoru
Finally got around to this one, but it's going to be short because it's been a while since I finished.
With Idoru, you wrap up some of the threads from Virtual Light while setting up for the finale of the trilogy, All Tomorrow's Parties. Simultaneously, the book is both updated somewhat, technologically, to avoid a bit of the archaic fax-isms of the previous book, while venturing into some territories - especially with the 'net geography of the Walled City and the holographic representation of the idoru herself - into a bit outside of "hard sci-fi" climes. Of course, with the near future time frame it'd maintain the "alternative history" tag that the previous book deserved, even if I forgot to add to it (and I will go back and add to it if I remember).
Basically, this book focuses on Colin Laney, a researcher who as a kid was dosed with an experimental drug that has caused everyone else on it to become obsessive stalkers. He was "trained", of a sort, to find "nodal points" in the dataflow. In the course of doing that for his previous job, he came to realize a nobody-actress was going to kill herself, and tried to stop that. That got him roped into a reality show, much like the current security job at his hotel, Berry Rydell (from the previous book) who hooks him up with a job in Tokyo with Yamazaki after Laney's show, like Rydell's, drops him.
In Tokyo, Laney meets up with the security and corporate apparatus of the band Lo/Rez, worried that Rez has announced that he is going to marry an idoru named Rei Toeri, an artificial media creation.
Meanwhile, a young American fan of Lo/Rez named Chia has come to Tokyo to investigate on behalf of her fan club the rumors of Rez's proposed marriage, and gets wrapped up into smuggling and virtual hijinks that happen to coincide with the plans of the Russians and the Japanese as well as the band and others.
In a way, perhaps hard to describe, the book feels less forced than Virtual Light, almost like Gibson has allowed himself to relax a bit more while writing it and allowed his traditional kind of urban-grunge-techno highlights to his writing come out on their own rather than forcing them a bit like he did in the previous book. It definitely takes a bit of a turn more into the Neuromancer-trilogy-esque territory, especially with the 'net parts and the hologram, but doesn't go too far out there.
The setting of post "Little Godzilla" (an earthquake) Tokyo makes for it to be a fairly bizarre place, while even "normal, regular' Tokyo would still be weird; then you add in the counter-cultural bulletpoints of Americans Mary Jane and her "boyfriend" Eddie, who Chia ends up involved with after a flight across the ocean (and security measures that do seem a bit quaint in a post-9/11 world), and it leads to an almost Night City/Chiba City type world while still be grounding (mostly) in today.
If you haven't read Virtual Light you're not missing a lot on the build up to this one - as most of Rydell's story that's relevant is mentioned in one or two line throwaways, though Laney's dismissive characterization of Rydell as a "loser" hurts more if you've read the first one - but both of them are definitely necessary before proceeding on to the third.
With Idoru, you wrap up some of the threads from Virtual Light while setting up for the finale of the trilogy, All Tomorrow's Parties. Simultaneously, the book is both updated somewhat, technologically, to avoid a bit of the archaic fax-isms of the previous book, while venturing into some territories - especially with the 'net geography of the Walled City and the holographic representation of the idoru herself - into a bit outside of "hard sci-fi" climes. Of course, with the near future time frame it'd maintain the "alternative history" tag that the previous book deserved, even if I forgot to add to it (and I will go back and add to it if I remember).
Basically, this book focuses on Colin Laney, a researcher who as a kid was dosed with an experimental drug that has caused everyone else on it to become obsessive stalkers. He was "trained", of a sort, to find "nodal points" in the dataflow. In the course of doing that for his previous job, he came to realize a nobody-actress was going to kill herself, and tried to stop that. That got him roped into a reality show, much like the current security job at his hotel, Berry Rydell (from the previous book) who hooks him up with a job in Tokyo with Yamazaki after Laney's show, like Rydell's, drops him.
In Tokyo, Laney meets up with the security and corporate apparatus of the band Lo/Rez, worried that Rez has announced that he is going to marry an idoru named Rei Toeri, an artificial media creation.
Meanwhile, a young American fan of Lo/Rez named Chia has come to Tokyo to investigate on behalf of her fan club the rumors of Rez's proposed marriage, and gets wrapped up into smuggling and virtual hijinks that happen to coincide with the plans of the Russians and the Japanese as well as the band and others.
In a way, perhaps hard to describe, the book feels less forced than Virtual Light, almost like Gibson has allowed himself to relax a bit more while writing it and allowed his traditional kind of urban-grunge-techno highlights to his writing come out on their own rather than forcing them a bit like he did in the previous book. It definitely takes a bit of a turn more into the Neuromancer-trilogy-esque territory, especially with the 'net parts and the hologram, but doesn't go too far out there.
The setting of post "Little Godzilla" (an earthquake) Tokyo makes for it to be a fairly bizarre place, while even "normal, regular' Tokyo would still be weird; then you add in the counter-cultural bulletpoints of Americans Mary Jane and her "boyfriend" Eddie, who Chia ends up involved with after a flight across the ocean (and security measures that do seem a bit quaint in a post-9/11 world), and it leads to an almost Night City/Chiba City type world while still be grounding (mostly) in today.
If you haven't read Virtual Light you're not missing a lot on the build up to this one - as most of Rydell's story that's relevant is mentioned in one or two line throwaways, though Laney's dismissive characterization of Rydell as a "loser" hurts more if you've read the first one - but both of them are definitely necessary before proceeding on to the third.