It began with a shared killfile....The Net has caught up to William Gibson. No longer does he need to invent jargon. Just take what's already there. Virtual Venice "decompresses." "Software agents" strive for life. Chia Pet McKenzie searches for somewhere to "port."
The future is nearer now than it was for 1984's Neuromancer. And Gibson is better now than he's been for a while. Forget Virtual Light,forget The Difference Engine, forget even Mona Lisa Overdrive. Idoru induces reader anxiety, an almost hurtful need to jack in to the next page like no Gibson novel since Count Zero.
He had a peculiar knack with data-collection architectures....
The hand Gibson deals is familiar. Out-of-control corporations. Notebook computers to die for. A binary narrative, switching breathlessly between two protagonists, ever on the edge of something dire. And the "cable-fed" masses have DNA in their barcodes - so what else is new?
But the plot - classic technothriller - is tighter. And the imagery is crisp. Slavic Barbies. A Franz Kafka theme bar. Nanotech skyscrapers that never catch the light the same way twice. And every word is where it should be - lean, evocative, tense.
But then he remembered the stone tombs, the river, the ponies with their iron bells.
Once again, Japan. Gibson doesn't try to shake his obsession. He indulges it. He slurps the noodles, rides the subways, suffers the transpacific jet lag. Only now he's been to Tokyo, and it shows.
Kuwayama smiled. "And popular culture," he said, "is the testbed of our futurity."
Gibson claims he does not write about the future. His novels, he maintains, are reflections of the present. Dystopia, cultural fragmentation, transnatio nal corporatism - these are viruses that affect the here and now, not some alternate reality yet to be. In Idoru,Gibson stabs at a Darwinist, eat-or-be-eaten ecostructure of pop-media corruption - the most vile villain is a tabloid journalist.
But rock and roll can still save us. Popular culture is Gibson's playground. Enjoy the ride.
Idoruby William Gibson: US$24.95. G. P. Putnam's Sons: (800) 847 5515, +1 (212) 951 8400.
STREET CRED
Speak Up, MacGibson Hits Overdrive
