Book
Idoru.
Record details
- ISBN: 97803991413010
- ISBN: 0399141308
-
Physical Description:
print
p. ; cm. - Publisher: G.P. Putnam's, 1996.
Content descriptions
| Target Audience Note: | adult Follett Library Resources |
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | ROCK MUSICIANS -- PSYCHOLOGY -- FICTION VIRTUAL REALITY -- FICTION FRIENDSHIP -- FICTION |
Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at Sitka.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 0 total copies.
Other Formats and Editions
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hazelton Public Library | Fic (Text) | T 0022516 | Adult Fiction - Main Floor | Volume hold | Available | - |
- Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 1996 July
~ Cyberspace and virtual-reality guru Gibson's new venture is set in the same near-future as Virtual Light (1993) and has at least one of the characters in common. ``Netrunner'' Colin Laney has an unusual ability to see ``nodal points,'' ordinarily imperceptible data associations. Indirectly, he's hired by scarred, giant Keith Alan Blackwell, Rez's fiercely protective security chief--Rez being the half-Irish singer of superstar band Lo/Rez. Blackwell is concerned that someone may be trying to manipulate his boss, Rez having expressed his determination to marry Rei Toei, a Japanese idoru--a computer personality-construct! From Seattle, meanwhile, 14-year-old Chia McKenzie is sent by her local Lo/Rez fan club to Japan to investigate a peculiar rumor about Rez and a certain idoru. On the plane she meets weird Maryalice, who dupes Chia into smuggling a dangerous package through customs--though when Maryalice starts fighting with her boyfriend Eddie, Chia flees with the package. Laney, unable to work with insufficient and impersonal data, insists on meeting Rez, whereupon he's captivated by Rei Toei. Eddie's Russian gangster friends demand their package, and assuming that Chia, Rez, and Laney are connected, hunt Chia. With violence occurring and worse to follow, only some nifty computer work by Laney and by Chia and her friends averts disaster; helpfully, Rex proposes to exchange the package for some real estate. Markedly more relaxed and cordial, and less aggressively high- tech, than hitherto--even the plotting's improved: highly approachable, engaging, and persuasive. (First printing of 100,000; first serial to Rolling Stone; $100,000 ad/promo; author tour) Copyright 1999 Kirkus Reviews - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 1996 August
Colin Laney has a gift very much in demand. He can see well-hidden secrets through "nodal points" in the digital wake of commerce. In the not-so-distant future, fame and fortune and their analogs, scandal and ruin, are the true binding agents in a fractured, ungovernable world. Fired from his television tabloid job for an indiscretion, Laney is hired by the manager of the superpopular band Lo/Rez to go to post-earthquake Tokyo and divine the meaning behind singer Lo's intention to marry an idoru a sort of a semi-sentient hologram. In alternating chapters, Chia, deeply involved in the Seattle chapter of the Lo/Rez fan club, picks up word of Lo's intentions over a computer network and is sent to investigate. On the way, she acts as the unwitting mule for a smuggler and winds up holding some very dangerous information. Though the plotting is weak and obvious, Gibson's writing is thick with atmosphere, dislocating the reader with a future that is both familiar and unsettling. Gibson's legion of fans will enjoy this fine sf thriller. For all fiction collections. Adam Mazmanian, "Library Journal" Copyright 1998 Library Journal Reviews - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 1996 August #1
The founding father of cyberpunk again returns to the techno-decadent 21st century mapped in his other major works (Virtual Light, Neuromancer, etc.). As usual, Gibson offers a richly imagined tale that finds semi-innocents wading hip-deep into trouble. Colin Laney has taken a job in Japan to escape the revenge of his former employer, Slitscan, a kind of corporate gossip-mongerer on the Net that he has crossed out of scruples. Meanwhile, Chia Pet McKenzie is active in the fan clubs for Lo/Rez, a Japanese superstar rock duo; while visiting Japan to investigate some new rumors about the group, she is used to smuggle illegal nanoware to the Russian criminal underground. Both Laney and Chia get caught up in the intrigues swirling about the plans of Rez, one half of the band, to marry Rei Toei, an "idoru" (idol) who exists only in virtual reality. Gibson excels here in creating a warped but comprehensible future saturated with logical yet unexpected technologies. His settings are brilliantly realized, from high-tech hotel rooms and airplanes to the infamous Walled City of Kowloon. The pacing is slower than Virtual Light, but Gibson exhibits his greatest strength: intense speculation, expressed in dramatic form, about the near-term evolution and merging of cultural, social and technological trends, and how they affect character. Dark and disturbing, this novel represents no new departure for Gibson, but a further accretion of the insights that have made him the most precise, and perhaps the most prescient, visionary working in SF today. 100,000 first printing; $100,000 ad/promo; author tour. (Sept.) Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information.
