Virtual Light by William Gibson Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Virtual Light
Book Review: Gibson shoves us into a near future so close it's chilling.
Summary: 5 Stars
Unlike many of his works, Virtual Light is a simple notch ahead on the timeline. Russian cops in Frisco. A simple act by a bike courier triggers the wrath of international business and their hirelings. Next year's quake turns the bay bridge into a squatter's paradise, with dripping rain and power spikes. It could happen soon and the pace never stops in this thriller where technology is not the star, just stuff all around us as we try to survive. I read it and lost sleep one night. Curious thing, though, often I see parts of Virtual Light in clips on the web, and the news. It douses the 19th century Doctrine of Progress and takes Futurists down to a gritty reality. A must read for anyone who cares what's over the top of tomorrowBook Review: Gibson the Great does it again
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of Gibson's best works, as good as Neuromancer. It does have a few flaws, but they don't detract too much.What's good about it? The prose style, to start with: rich, dense, polished: all the usual Gibson attributes. The plot (most of the time) tugs you along; the characters; the background; the humor (the quiet sort, that has you gently chuckling about once every two pages and is usually based on parody/satire of current trends). The richness of the weave.
Gibson is obviously an adherent of Checkhov's "gun hanging on the wall" philosophy: there isn't an unused incident in the entire complicated work, nothing that happens is just-for-local-color, everything ties up with something else. Usually with two or three something-else's, with an unspoken invitation to start thinking about the implications of this in society. A few times I found myself thinking "why is he including this?", but there was always a reason further along the line.
The book lends itself to this strand-in-the-weave approach, being written at least some of the time in very short chapters, so that we move from one scene/set of characters to another in an approach that comes to resemble the textual equivalent of sound-bites or video clips. After a series of several 1 1/2 page chapters, I found myself recalling Eliot's "The Waste Land":
These fragments have I shor'd against my ruin
Don't know if Gibson intended that particular allusion, though of course it fits in so well with the general background of the book. But the video-clip approach to writing is surely saying something about the age the book is set in.
What are the bad points? To start with, it was written in 1993, and the blurb says it's set in 2005. Reading it today, in 2003, it would be much more believable if it were set in around 2020. In general, it seems to me a bad idea to write a sci-fi novel set only 12 years in the future, if only because you're limiting the period of time during which it stays believable and therefore you can sell it. Moreover, if Gibson intended the date to be 2005, he has problems here and there with his characters: most of them are in their 20s, they can't really not remember everything from the 1990s; the one who says he wasn't born in 1980 must have been born by around 1981, which is cutting it pretty fine. And he has problems with the time-scale in general: given the post-catastrophe setting, there hasn't been time, in 12 years, for the series of catastrophes that resulted in the present world situation, the development of the political situation as a result, the rebuilding, and the settling down into a new equilibrium, which must have existed for several years, since several of the characters don't remember what it was like before. But I think Gibson is much too experienced and intelligent a writer to make this sort of mistake, and in fact I couldn't find any reference to an exact year in the text itself. Just disregard what the blurb says.
Secondly, the ending: surprisingly weak and also rushed-over, considering how good the plot has been up to now. But by the time you get to the ending, believe me, you've had your money's worth.
Gibson makes you work hard, fitting the pieces together. In general this is a Good Thing, but occasionally degenerated to the level of irritating.
I had a slight problem with the narrator: after the first few chapters ask yourself, who is the narrator? Most chapters are told in the style used by that chapter's protagonist, which makes you feel, even though the narration is 3rd-person, that you're seeing the world through that character's eyes. But why the sparse, timeless, almost dreamlike style of the two chapters that describe the courier's action? Very far removed from his personality, if you consider his actions and believe the comments on him by the other characters. Must be a reason but I couldn't figure it out.
So why 5 stars? Because, even though nobody's perfect, not even Gibson, I've yet to see anybody else do it better.
Book Review: Gibson's More Humane, Near Future Cyberpunk Fiction
Summary: 5 Stars
"Virtual Light" reveals yet another dimension to William Gibson's splendid writing. Largely absent are lyrical passages describing cyberspace technology that are among the hallmarks of his "Cyberspace" trilogy and "Sprawl" series of short stories. Instead, he emphasizes personalities at the expense of technology. He seems fascinated with how that technology interacts with the seeemingly mundane lives of his downtrodden characters. Both Rydell and Chevette are among his most intriguing creations since Case and Molly; how their parallel tales weave and ultimately intersect is an outcome that I found most rewarding. Once more, Gibson offers some sly, thoughtful commentary on our media-dominated culture; a persistent theme throughout his "Virtual Light" trilogy, including "Idoru" and "All Tomorrow's Parties". Those who've enjoyed Gibson's crisp, lyrical prose, but have searched in vain for well rounded, three-dimensional characters will not be disappointed with "Virtual Light". Although less intense than "Neuromancer" as a literary joyride, it stands alongside Gibson's award-winning debut as among his finest works of fiction.Book Review: Gibson... you could do sooo much better...
Summary: 4 Stars
Don't get me wrong, this is a William Gibson book, and it's great for that reason. His writing style is beyond reproach, and the future that he writes about is so bullet proof its as he's actually been there. But the problem with this book is that he uses the tired method of the storylines about individual characters that in the climatic scene all fall together and into place... It works, yes, but how many books with that exact same story path can we stand from one man? But like I said, it's a great book because William Gibson writes great books. But if this trend continues he will NEVER get up to the level he was at with Neuromancer.Book Review: Good Intro to Gibson
Summary: 4 Stars
This was my first foray into cyberguru Gibson's realm, and the blend of cyberpunk and noir worked pretty well for me. Clearly Gibson is more interested in showing off his skills at imagining the gadgets and lifestyles of the near future, rather than providing any intricate plot. Indeed, the tale of a bike courier who unwittingly steals what turns out to be technology to die for, combined with a down and out former cop hired to help retrieve the missing item, rehashes some fairly familiar noir territory. But the evocation of a neighborhood built on the now unused Bay Bridge is good stuff. I especially enjoyed the clueless Japanese grad student who's trying to write an anthropology thesis about the neighborhood. If you like this, try Jonathan Lethem's "Gun With Occasional Music."