Idoru

Rating:
Summary: not so good as I had hoped
Review: There's no doubt that Gibson can flat-out write. His line-by-line writing is powerful, clear, and compelling. He knows when to start a scene, and when to drop it to move to another. His characters are interesting. And he draws powerful pictures of a dystopian future of corporate control of the world, people more interested in virtual reality than the increasingly-devastated world that surrounds them, and a deep alienation and sorrow. BUT, and this is a huge but, his plots always seem flat to me. This has been true of the other books of his I've read, and it's certainly true of this one. There never seems enough at stake for the main characters, emotionally, philosophically, or physically. His words suck me in, and his plots spit me back out. This one was okay, but nothing to write home about.

Rating:
Summary: I like your computer...
Review: This book could have been as good as Neuromancer. The strengths of this book are: the concept of Rei Toei, the concept of limited fame, Blackwell, The Walled City and Arleigh McCrae. The weaknesses of this book are: Chia's smuggling coincedence (dumb), not enough Rei Toei, and nanotech. Do not get me wrong I liked this book but it could have been so much more. Chia being a big Lo/Rez fan and meeting MaryAlice on the plane and smuggling the nanotech device is too much. The nanotech concept is never fully developed on why the buildings seem to grow with people living in them and how the island in Tokyo Bay was going to work. Rei Toei is hyped by having the book named after her and the plot revolves around her but she is never fleshed out. Gibson seems to be taking on too many characters and concepts. I hope he narrows his scope in later books and has more detail on his vision.

Rating:
Summary: Best Gibson Book?
Review: This is a book about the future by someone who has obviously been there. It is news that stays news: even though it is now a few years old, it feels brand new. Gibson's thing is not telling us what gizmos the future will hold; his thing is telling us how we will relate to them. Meanwhile, he tells a gripping story of stuggle, sacrifice, victory, loyalty, betrayal, and loss. With plenty of action. I'd give up two internal organs to have written this.

Rating:
Summary: not that impressed
Review: This is my first time reading a William Gibson novel. I have heard many good things about his works but I must admit that I was not very impressed with 'Iduro'.

I sensed that the story, in many ways, was underdeveloped. The characters seemed a bit shallow revealing very little new information about them after the first few pages. The plot itself did not seem very solid, it felt as though it was more about the imagery than the story.

The imagery that Gibson created was spectacular, describing a world filled by technology of the near future - some of which seemed practicle and convincing. But unfortunately it was weighed down by the more unsubstatiated descriptions and portrayals of these future technologies.

The pacing of the book is very choppy (alternating chapters describe different stories) but I got used to it and I don't think it actually takes away from the novel. The only thing is that throughout the book you wait for these two story lines to cross and when they do it is not that exciting. On the whole I was not that conviced by the futuristic world in 'Iduro'. My advice would be to perhaps try one of Gibson's other books.

Rating:
Summary: Idoru is no Wintermute
Review: This is only the 3rd Gibson book I've read. The first 2 were Neuromancer and Count Zero. This book is a stark contrast to the cyber cowboys I'm familiar with. I enjoyed the fill of techno concepts and descriptions. When it comes to plot, there really isn't much tension or development.

I kept waiting for some kind of revelation or tension. The whole book is about a rock star marrying an Idoru, a personofied AI. To my chagrin, after enduring plodding situations that do nothing more than describe interesting concepts like living buildings and virtual reality global network navigation (not a new concept) there is no resolution to the big questions. In short, I was left wondering, "What consipracy? What bandwidth?". It rambles and pedants but doesn't have a point, that I could identify. The final chapter feels like one big run-on sentence written by a 14 year old instead of an epilogue.

However, I'm still a Gibson fan.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but not masterful
Review: This was the first Gibson book I've ever read, and I have to say I was a bit disapointed. I still really enjoyed the book, but I expected it to blow me away. The book seemed a little bit too steeped in pop-culture. Too much focus on the "scene" of the future, and not enough focus on the technology behind it. But, you dont have to take my word for it...

Rating:
Summary: Gibson covers new ground!
Review: To summarize:

A hapless specialist, recently put out of a job due to unfortunate circumstances mostly beyond his control, is drafted by a creepy looking, scarily bent henchman with a dodgy past and a weird lieutenant to serve a mysteriously motivated and surrealistically wealthy celebrity who is actually being manipulated by an artificial intelligence reaching for transcendence. Along the way he is persued by an indescribeably ruthless and brutal shadow organization on account of a balance of power shifting prototype mcguffin, is aided by a bizarre and tightly-organized techno subculture, and teams up with a plucky white trash girl swept into a parallel plotline, all while surrounded by stainless steel German countertop appliances epoxied to the wall, funny-named Japanese products encased in polycarbonate, and robot trucks poking their way through streets strewn with bubblewrap.

Gibson's sort of like the Ramones: their work all sounds the same, but they're still fun to dip into every so often.

Rating:
Summary: Come on, Gibson!
Review: We want more from the guy who came up with Burning Chrome and Neuromancer! To William Gibson: "You can do it! You did once, so it must be in there. Go back and start fresh and do it again! " I've read all of Gibson's works so far, and I have to agree with the review by Josh and others. This book wasn't even as good as Virtual Light. Definitely "light reading for that ride on the train". I will, for now, keep buying and reading his books, but I really, really miss the old Gibson.

Rating:
Summary: The Inquirer Goes Electronic
Review: What a surprise! After reading the glowing liner notes I, well.. Um, expected more. I guess Gibson was trying to expose a possible future where nothing is secret and we're all exposed and used...I just wish he'd done a better job. Please don't misunderstand, the book's tightly written and nicely paced. It was the convoluted (and less than believable) plot lines along with caricatures oops, and I meant to say characters, that I found distracting. The best thing I can say about the book is that I finished what I started, no matter how silly I felt at the end.

Lets' see: the book's got an innocent savant, the calculating and evil "editor" (that has a little tryst with the savant), a brooding 14 year old groupie, a guiless and portentous pop icon, the mysterious sentinel, and some Neanderthal bad guys (yup, the RUSSIANS!! - honest!). Oh yeah, I forgot the Idoru - a techno construct grounded in AI.

Here's the way the book works: the savant is 'web clairvoyant' (my term) and the evil editor from Slitscan (a.k.a. "The Inquirer" (or maybe the NY Post!) wants to use this uh, talent, to find skeletons in the closets of the rich and famous. Once she has the 'goods' (sorry for the cliches - but it's just so fitting!) on people, she goes public and people, businesses or even governments, fall. I quote from the book: "Fame is fleeting". Wow! In our story she REALLY wants to bring down the pop icon and our web savant is the man for the job.

After working for the evil one, the Savant's conscience acts up ('I quit - your fired') and he leaves the evil one's company. But, she refuses to accept the savant's "I'm to innocent to hurt anyone" routine and she blackmails him...seems our innocent savant has a strange past. Her drive for info is oppressive, she REALLY wants to get that pop star!! Must've been during a rating sweep.

Terrified, our innocent savant...runs. Through some (plot) twists of fate, he runs straight to our wraithlike pop-icon where he earns a living by using his skills to PROTECT the star (delicious irony, huh). The evil editor - undeterred - stays in hot pursuit (forget the expense, it's ratings week!) - all the way to Japan.

Enter the kid. Her pop star is in Japan, fixin' to marry the software construct - the idoru - and she's so worried (say it isn't so!!!) that this precocious 14 year old must get to Japan (uses her Dad's airline miles - honest, I'm not making that up!) to go visit another bunch of groupies in Japan to find out the "Truth"...is he really marrying a computer thingee? Love is just boundless, isn't it?

Along the way our groupie accidentally takes up with a cabalistic international smuggling ring that deals sophisticated electronic contraband. This group is marketing a mysterious and most important gizmo to the Ruskies. You should know that at the end of the book, the Russians trade the gizmo - the xp7742 super string theory zero point graviton modulator that can take over the world by controlling the web - for some choice real estate (not kidding)). C'mon, what would rather have, world domination of couple of big islands that you could develop for millions? Well, it turns out that our very strange pop star wants this gizmo to consummate his marriage to the Idoru...neat guy, huh.

Anyway, lot's of cool (if you can suspend logical thinking, the book has some moments) and incredibly unlikely stuff that happens (think "Minority Report") to bring this crew together in a Japanese brothel (some symbolism maybe?...nah, too sophisticated). There's more plot twisting, and a car chase and some fights and everyone lives happily ever after. That's it for me, I'm choking on the plot twists and Gibson's, uh, characters.

Rating:
Summary: Consistency contingent
Review: While reading this book, I sometimes found it troubling the similarities in the sentences and plot with many of his earlier works were more apparent, however there is something new and different this time. I have read that it was not a focused effort to keep these characters and settings for a second trilogy, however I don't actually believe that. What is truly unbelieveable is the fact that Gibson is still able to construct and project some of his views through his characters while not overshadowing the characters themselves. It is not as consistent in the first trilogy, where the twisted mindsets of those running around above and below the planet were dictating the story in an escalating manner, and ignoring the psyche of each character, but as a continuing effort in his craft, Gibson doesn't dissappoint. If the next course is more of the same, I could handle it. I just don't think Gibson could.....

But then maybe I shouldn't have starting reading from the middle...