Product Description

Set in futuristic Tokyo, rebuilt after an earthquake, this is the story of a rock star who decides to marry a non-existent,virtual reality girl; the bemused American security consultant who has been sent to take care of him; and a teenage fan. A witty futuristic thriller. "Fast,witty and lovingly painted" GUARDIAN "Confirms Gibson as a realist writer for the post-Net generation" TLS "A true BLADERUNNER for the Nineties" GQ

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #50639 in Books
• Published on: 2000-10-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

About the Author
William Gibson was brought up in the southern United States but has lived in Vancouver with his wife and 2 children for many years. His novels include the hugely successful NEUROMANCER trilogy and VIRTUAL LIGHT (Penguin). "The man who saw the consequences of virtual reality before the technology had even been invented" OBSERVER

Customer Reviews

Unflawed crystal ball
William Gibson remains the best example of why "speculative fiction" should replace "science fiction" for the generic term "SF". His temporal reach carries today's people into logical extensions of society into a world where the growth of today's technology is likely to confront them. Idoru is a superior example of Gibson's talent in making the projections he's rightly noted for. Like all his best work, technology here is present, but it's the characters, their outlook and dealing with events, that chains the reader's attention. Don't expect dashing heroes, attendant ladies, stygian villains performing in ways to divert you from reality. Gibson brings tomorrow's realities to his pages, realities you may be facing in your lifetime.

The pivotal element is the desire of a rock star to marry a hologram. Idoru is an electronic construct, the symbol of universal desires. She, too, is an entertainer, a "synthespian" in future Hollywood jargon. The term is pure Gibson, projecting today's fascination with special effects and animation supplemented films. Colin Laney, who bears special analysis skills has been hired to search the data streams to determine the reasons for this unusual liaison. It's a daunting task, and Gibson provides us many glimpses of our future while guiding Laney through the corporate entertainment world.

Laney also carries a dark secret, the suicide of a woman whose data he was tracking. She had perceived his observing her and he's concerned about who else might be detecting his surveys of information. His talent had always enjoyed anonymity. If Alison Shires could detect his intrusion, who else more powerful might also be watching? The idoru, whose visible projection Laney assesses as the "tip of the iceberg of an Antarctica of information" evokes fears of what powers may lie behind the projected image.

Most of the story takes place in New Tokyo, a rebuild of the city destroyed by the Great 'Quake which, have no doubt, is certain to come. Here, Gibson engages in subtle forecasts of how today's technologies will unfold in many ways over the next few decades.
Buildings will result from enhanced forms of biotechnology enabling them to "grow" instead of being constructed. Even something as mundane as sewage treatement receives his attention in taking his characters through their world. Your world, tomorrow. Take note of how Gibson forecasts it as the story unfolds. Any one of you might be tomorrow's Laney, Chia or even a model for the Idoru. It bears thinking about, but only if you read Gibson's captivating prose on what the future might hold for us all. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Gibson is one of a kind.
People praise Gibson for his grasp of futuristic technology, terminology etc. The fact is, however, that his novels are very much about the present. His early ones, for example, were very "80's" in both theme and background colour (corporate greed, Japanese takeover of America, etc.) Similarly, Idoru, with its throwaway references to Russian gangsters and so forth is very "mid-90's". However, it also has something very important to say about one aspect of our current society, namely the empty cult of celebrity that exists at the moment, where people are famous simply for being famous, and because the media say so, and where members of the public come to care more about the lives of "celebs" they will never meet than about the "real world". Also, is the idea of a Tokyo destroyed by earthquakes perhaps emblematic of a post-economic-meltdown Japan that no longer seems as invincible as it once did? All in all, Gibson continues to write this kind of book much better than any of his imitators (except perhaps Neal Stephenson -his "Snow Crash" is an absolute masterpiece). The Australian heavy, Blackwell, is perhaps one of the best characters Gibson has yet invented, and again we have a nicely passive central character who is helpless in the face of the events around him. There was also a lot of nice stuff about pop fandom and the weirdness of Japan when seen through western eyes, as well as cameos by a couple of characters from the earlier Gibson novel Virtual Light. Unlike a lot of cyberpunk writers, Gibson sees beyind the gadgetry, and has something to say as a novelist whose real business is satirising our own empty "culture". Like I said, one of a kind.

A stunning picture of the near future
This was the first Gibson book I read, really the first cyberpunk book I read, and it made me an instant convert. The plot of the book - stressed out PR workers and lovelorn fans trying to stop a rockstar's marriage to an Idoru (artificial pop singer), does not seem particularly strong, but Gibson makes it work with the right amount of humour. The best thing about the book is probably the way that stunning pictures are presented to the reader without over-description. Most of what you see is constructed from the characters' reactions. Also, the concepts are not hard to grasp for a newbie to the cyberpunk genre. Brilliant.