All Tomorrows Parties : Book review
I finished, All Tomorow’s Parties, the final installment in the Bridge Trilogy.
I’m not sure I’m that impressed. Idoru, the previous in the Trilogy, had more to it I think.
Don’t get me wrong, there were still some great elements:
- Laney, Quantitative Analyst doing information foraging and nodal things
- Nano Assemblers
- Futuristic drug references
- A technological singularity occurs
- In the present, existential contract killer
Quick Plot Summary:
Idoru goes missing, Rez goes touring again as tough love has left him alone. Laney ends up in a cardboard homeless shelter because he’s kinda hiding from the Lo Rez people. Yet he hires Rydell to check out “the Bridge” (see Virtual Light and Idoru) waiting for something nodal , he’s not sure what, to happen.
Comments:
For the time (around 1999?), this was pretty cool stuff to be projecting/predicting x years in the future. We don’t have our head mounted displays (I’m not sure why), but the ubiquitous access to information is pretty close to what we have now, although a little cooler in the book.
I also like the focus on the ordinary people getting caught up with things, and reacting to suvrive. There is also the sense of balance:
- Laney is in poor health as he goes on his quest for nodality and meaning,
- The existential killer is all alone in the world (and does that matter)
- Silencio, a mute child, has a great ability to find watches.
I still think it’s worth reading, especially if you’ve chalked up Virtual Light and Idoru. I think Gibson found nodality in our future with Nanotechnology and other social observations.
Rating: 6.5/10