BKVRTLIT.RVW 940701 %A Gibson %C 105 Bond Street, Toronto, ON M5B 1Y3 %D 1993 %G 0-7704-2568-2 %I Seal Books/McClelland-Bantam, Inc. %T "Virtual Light" "Neuromancer" was a very demanding book. First of all, it was set in a most unattractive future. Secondly, it had very unsympathetic protagonists. In addition, you had Gibson's very choppy, intercut style. (It is quite reminiscent of the time that Snoopy, in his eternal novel writing, punches out about eight completely unrelated scenes and then explains to the audience that "In chapter two, I tie all of this together.") Finishing "Neuromancer" required no little dedication to task. "Mona Lisa Overdrive" at least had the advantage of an attractive central character. "Virtual Light" is less demanding, still. The central characters are people you can easily care about and the future society, while unpleasant, isn't quite as apocalyptic as its predecessors. Devotees of the gritty and grotty cyberpunk world will likely be disappointed by Gibson's latest, but it will undoubtedly bring in a wider audience. Mind you, it's still kind of choppy. Enough of my uneducated pretensions to literary criticism. What about the tech stuff? There isn't any. Oh, sure, this is set in the future. Handguns are more powerful. Cellular phones have more range. (Not much battery life, though.) There are virtual reality sets, and "virtual light" sets that let you see without light (by imposing sensations directly on the optic nerve). None of this, however, is in any way necessary to the plot, which is really a straight mystery centred around a secret deal to ... well, that's a secret, isn't it? The virtual light glasses are no more central to the story than the "hackers" who eventually "save the day". Maybe Gibson is moving into Ludlum's turf. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKVRTLIT.RVW 940701 ====================== DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca, RSlade@sfu.ca, Rob Slade at 1:153/733 DECUS Symposium '95, Toronto, ON, February 13-17, 1995, contact: rulag@decus.ca