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William Gibson Virtual Light
Penguin Books Ltd 0140157727 / 9780140157727 PAPERBACK Good
0140157727 Amazon Review nThe author of Neuromancer takes you to the vividly realized near future of 2005. Welcome to NoCal and SoCal, the uneasy sister-states of what used to be California. Here the millennium has come and gone, leaving in its wake only stunned survivors. In Los Angeles, Berry Rydell is a former armed-response rentacop now working for a bounty hunter. Chevette Washington is a bicycle messenger turned pick-pocket who impulsively snatches a pair of innocent-looking sunglasses. But these are no ordinary shades. What you can see through these high-tech specs can make you rich--or get you killed. Now Berry and Chevette are on the run, zeroing in on the digitalized heart of DatAmerica, where pure information is the greatest high. And a mind can be a terrible thing to crash. --This text refers to the Paperback edition. n nFrom Publishers Weekly nIn his first solo novel in five years, Gibson ( Neuromancer ) hasn't entirely left his cyberpunk baggage behind, but he has brought his vision closer to home. It's California, circa 2005: the rich are even richer and the poor, of course, poorer; the Medellin crime cartels move not only drugs but illicit data; the Reverend Fallon preaches a television-worshipping religion; and legions of the homeless have seized San Francisco's Bay Bridge and turned it into a bizarre, jury-rigged shantytown. As in his previous novels, Gibson's plot is very simple. Chevette Washington, a bicycle courier, impulsively steals a pair of virtual light glasses that feeds images directly to the optic nerve, not realizing that it contains extremely valuable secret data that its owners will stop at nothing to recover. Rent-a-cop Berry Rydell loses his job due to a hacker's prank, so he teams up with Lucius Warbaby to track the stolen shades, only slowly realizing that Warbaby and his former employers are tied in with the evil corporate scheme revealed by the glasses. The plot is not the point here; it's Gibson's ability to create a world that distinguishes his work and has made him not just a rising science fiction star but a genuine cultural phenomenon. He has his finger on the pulse of popular culture and social trends; he molds a near-future world more frighteningly possible than that of any other recent writer. Although the happy ending seems a bit too happy for this grim environment, this novel's viscerally convincing dystopia should confirm Gibson's reputation as one of science fiction's chief visionaries. nCopyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Price:
6.05 EUR
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