All Tomorrow's Parties by William Gibson Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of All Tomorrow's Parties
Book Review: Worst book of the late '90s
Summary: 1 Stars
William Gibson has proven himself to be a master of style over substance, but in this book he seems to have run out of even that. Majority of the characters are brought in from Idoru, poorly, he adds nothing that hasn't been seen in other cyberpunk books, even that he himself hasn't already written. There are less ideas in this whole book than in two pages of Stephenson's Diamond Age. The action, what little there is of it, is frazzled, has no rhyme let alone reason, and comes to no conclusion grand or otherwise.
This the worst book I have read in many years. I can only hope that Gibson put out this piece of drivel as a conscious way to make a quick buck.
Book Review: Yesterday's FanFic
Summary: 1 Stars
I'm a big fan of Gibson from Burning Chrome forward. But this one was dreck. Gibson explains it clearly enough in a note at the end of the book when he attributes the book (or a chapter--it's not clear) to fans in Mexico City. The story has the feeling of fan fiction--take the parts from previous works and mix them together. The story is flat; the characters are flat; the novel reads like a story proposal for the publisher. sigh.Book Review: Yet another enjoyable read from a master in the genre
Summary: 4 Stars
William Gibson has been one of my favorite authors since the late 80's when a friend pointed me to his breakthrough book, Neuromancer. This book opened the door to a whole new genre - cyberpunk, and I've anxiously awaited every book since then.All Tomorrow's Parties (ATP) concludes a trilogy that started with Virtual Light and Idoru. Actually, these books aren't so much a series as they are three books that happen to reference each other. And while the first series (Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive) takes place in mid-21st century, this series occurs in the near future (14-15 years from now, I think).
The joy of reading this book (and all his books, in my opinion) isn't necessarily in the story as a whole, but in savoring each scene individually. Each page is chock-full of inventions (some good, some crazy) that have become so ingrained in society that the story's characters take them for granted. My favorite is the convenience store chain that has a video kiosk in front that shows what's happening at other stores in the chain. At any one time, you can see what's happening at ten other randomly-selected stores. Unfortunately, most of what you see is smart-aleck kids mooning the camera, or transvestite hookers looking to make a few quick credits. This place also has anti-graffiti walls, and sells sunglasses that also function as a phone and city map.
ATP sees our hero Laney deathly ill, living in a cardboard box at the Tokyo airport, cruising the web full-time. He was given drugs as a child that as an adult allow him to see patterns when viewing vast amounts data that others cannot see, and he sees that society is coming to a nodal point - a time when everything changes. The last such nodal point happened in 1911. The book doesn't really mention it, but I read an interview with Gibson recently that said before 1911 the world was a far less controlled place. It was possible, for instance, to purchase cocaine at your local pharmacy. While you can't put your finger on any one specific cause, all that changed in 1911. In ATP, the world is heading for another big change, and Laney's one of the few people in the world that can see it coming (even though he's not really sure what it is or when exactly it will happen). He sends his ex-cop, ex-security guard friend Barry Rydell to San Fransisco to link up with a mysterious killer with no name. Meanwhile, the courier Chevette Washington flees to San Francisco to get away from her abusive boyfriend. And the idoru, Rei Toi, is released like a genie from a computer in an upstairs apartment in downtown San Fransisco. Together, these individual stories weave together and witness/cause the nodal point.
I thought the ending was a little disappointing, and that cost this book a point.
Book Review: You have to be kidding...
Summary: 1 Stars
I'm a William Gibson fan, but it's incomprehensible how anyone could describe this book as even remotely readable.Book Review: good writing
Summary: 4 Stars
Gibson can write characters and settings well, and continues to narrow in his vision of what the world in a decade or two will be like and how it will affect (some) people. He writes about people in a way that makes you understand and emphasize with them without making typical good and bad guys. However I dislike the mysticism he gives to many of his characters and think he should drop or at least stop depending on some of the cliches of the genre, like the Samurai like corporate mercenaries. I hope he brings in and casts projections on new very relevant technologies, like perpetual presence and nanotechnology, as Stephenson has done, since I think these will become very important concepts in the approaching future and create a great deal of change, yet they seem to be largely unaddressed in Gibson's novels.