Virtual Light by William Gibson Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $1.99 You Save: $6.00 (75%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Virtual Light
Book Review: For cyberpunk fans certainly; for others, not a priority
Summary: 3 Stars
This isn't Neuromancer, and in some respects I worry if the success of that book has spoiled Gibson for all the others, because he has put in what made the first book successful (dystopia, out-of-control technology, bizarre but plausible human subcultures), but somehow it just doesn't come together as well as his other works. The plot is all right for the first half, but it delves into the deus ex machina and contrived for the end and an entire plot thread involving a fascinating character is harped upon for many, many chapters and wasted. Not to say that this is a bad book; I enjoyed it a lot, but it's not a classic of the genre. If you love Gibson, then you'll love this. If cyberpunk-style SF is a sometimes thing for you, give this one a miss.Book Review: For whatever reason, I loved VIRTUAL LIGHT
Summary: 4 Stars
I make a point of reading this book every summer. The plot is straightforward enough--like almost all cyberpunk, it involves people getting their hands on forbidden data and being hunted by its rightful owners--but what I really enjoy is the human landscape that Gibson relates. The book is full of images that, for whatever reason, connected with me on a visceral level: the lonely back roads of future California, Skinner's bridgetop apartment, L.A.'s endless convenience stores and strip malls...Gibson keeps his characters moving, and successfully (at least in my case) replicates the strange, gut-level nervousness and odd euphoria of driving around an unfamiliar part of the country at nighttime. It's essentially a cyber-noir road trip story, and the journey is infinitely more significant (and fun) than the destination.Gibson is cursed to forever take pot-shots from overhormoned teenagers for not rewriting NEUROMANCER again and again. And on rereading NEUROMANCER on the heels of reading VIRTUAL LIGHT, I noticed something for the first time: Gibson's original trilogy (NEUROMANCER/COUNT ZERO/VIRTUAL LIGHT) is missing a human heart at its center. Those books are totally concerned with looking sleek and sexy, full of meaningless sex and casual violence. Characters exist to do kewl things with gadgets and die unpleasantly. VIRTUAL LIGHT and its followups (IDORU and ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES) are different. When violent things happen in these books, it's genuinely affecting because A) it's rare and B) we actually care about the people these things are happening to. Rydell, hero of VIRTUAL LIGHT, is a goofy and charming twentysomething guy from Memphis, Tennessee whose biggest ambition in life is to hold down a paying job. His problems are real, and if Gibson's readers were plunged into the world he writes about, I have a feeling we'd have a lot more in common with Rydell than with a sexy hacker superman like Case.
Book Review: Future....Or is it now?
Summary: 4 Stars
Well, I read all the reviews, and was quity surprised by all the different opinnions, and i won't argue with people that didn't liked it, it is their point of view, and it is good that way. For me this book was great, the plot was just an extention of what i read in "specialized" newspapers, the characters where attaching, the technology was so damn close of what whe have here and now, maybe not his best work, but a great work indeed, i liked it and i just wanted to tell i liked it, as i liked all of his work.Book Review: Gibson as a suspense writer.
Summary: 4 Stars
Virtual Light is not in the same hardcore cyberpunk category
of Neuromancer. It is much more a suspense/action thriller
set in a fragmented California of the 21st century. Gibson
creates 21st century jargon and pulls you into the future
in just a few pages. I found the book as fascinating as I
found it entertaining.Book Review: Gibson seems to have trouble with conclusions
Summary: 3 Stars
Chevette, the heroine in Virtual Light, is one of Gibson's finest creations, a bicycle messenger who lives on the Golden Gate bridge with a lot of other homeless people. She's a spunky, streetwise kid, sexy and vulnerable, who hasn't yet lost her innocence. Gibson is obviously a little bit in love with her, as any male would be who reads the novel. Rydell, the hero, is a security cop assigned to San Francisco to help recover a pair of what appear to be sunglasses stolen by Chevette from an obnoxious masher who had been entrusted with them. Like all Gibson's heros, Rydell is both tough and sensitive, a kind of street samurai of the future.
Despite the charm of the leading characters, the central gimmick-dark glasses that show the wearer where new developments will be built in San Francisco-seems rather mundane in comparison with the cornucopia of technological wonders he created in earlier novels. Plus, the plot is the old one where villains, trying to learn where the city will build next, will kill anyone or do anything to get inside information because it means a lot of money.
The novel is a bit of a disappointment, though not a total loss. Gibson seems to have trouble with conclusions. The one to this novel involves an air strike by characters difficult to tell who they are, what they are doing, or why they are doing it. Yet, it's no worse than other popular thrillers, and it contains a fine cast of fascinating characters.