IDORU by William Gibson
Gibson returns to the near future he created for Virtual Light in Idoru.
The
place is Neo-Tokyo, risen from the ashes of whatever destruction the author
favors, here a millennial quake, and the story revolves around Pop Culture:
where Rez, a rock star, has announced plans to marry an Idoru, a virtual
computer generated Japanese media star.
The action comes from two quarters, first as Chia McKEnzie, 14, flies to
Japan as an emissary of the Seattle chapter of Rez's fan club to separate
media hype from reality, and second as Colin Laney, a man with a unique gift
for fishing in the sea of information and seeing the truths it conceals,
is
hired by Rez's people to understand the Virtual Fiancee's motives and
manifestation. Along the way, things are complicated by Russian nanotech
smugglers and the incessant media frenzy of Neo-Tokyo itself. As the story
unfolds both paths snake towards each other to meet in the story's climax.
Occasionally Gibson's writing stands out as diamond like prose - vaguely
Chandleresque in the noir future Gibson himself was a primary architect of.
Like other maturing Cyberpunk authors, the texture of Virtual Reality is
changing in fiction as fact races to catch up and fantasy bows to reality.
Gone are the wire plugs connecting us directly to the net, replaced by sensor
gloves and goggles that link our real senses intimately with the cyber world.
handled adroitly by the author, the whole near future world seems casually
familiar as we weave from theme nightclubs to love hotels in future Tokyo's
relentless un-night.
The line between virtual and real is never very clear, either to us - or to
the characters in the story, which no doubt is Mr. Gibson=92s way of telling us that the difference is arbitrary, occasionally invisible, and often irrelevant.
Idoru is engaging, self contained, and leaves both room and reason to return to this world again.
Ernest Lilley
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