Brooders.net

I finished reading Idoru, the second book in “The Bridge Triology”. As a second read, it’s better than I remember it. This is Gibson’s near future world with the normal grit, technology, societal observations and information convergance you would expect.

Quick plot summary:

Laney, an information analyst, is hired to find patterns in the data of a rock star, Rez, who is intent on marrying a Japanese Pop Idol software construct known as Idoru. Meanwhile, Chia, a 14 year old member of the Global Rez fan club is sent to Japan to investigate the rumours. One tabloid style media company is trying to unravel and reveal the truth, while the rock stars team tries to subdue it.

In usual Gibson style, separate stories and characters begin to converge and interelate until a nexus point or meaning emerges. This convergance is echoed in the story, as Laney can see these patterns emerging in data such as purchase history, interviews, itineraries and whatever other information sources the corporates can feed him.

Observations:

This book was written and printed pre mass internet adoption in 1996. Interesting to see how he predicted a more near future environment. We see key concepts of ubiquitous network access, Head Mounted Displays, Virtual Gated Communties, Russian Mafia, Big Corporates and emergent AI. Interestingly, “Idoru” like Halo, touches on AI as an emergent from the interaction between Man and Technology.

I enjoyed this book more than “Virtual Light“, the first in the trilogy. It’s well worth the read, but don’t expect hardcore cyberpunk with implants, direct neural interfaces and the like.

Rating: 8/10

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 16th, 2006 at 3:43 pm and is filed under Cyberpunk, Information related, Books, Artificial Intelligence, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.