William Gibson's Idoru

By Lowkey. 25/01/10, 05:26 am

I finished reading this a couple of days ago - it's the first Gibson I've read, for some reason or another, but I was wondering if anybody else had read it. It's set in a futuristic post-earthquake Japan and is more or less about a rockstar who's going to marry an "Idoru", which is in many ways like a Vocaloid, a pop idol program / AI. The following paragraph especially amused me; I put it under spoiler tags just in case but it's not really much of a spoiler at all.

Spoiler:

I enjoy the translator program's original attempt at the word otaku greatly. But yeah, the book's probably close on 14 years old which is centuries for technology but the age actually doesn't really show very much - I'm sure with the MMO thing and ipods and the increasingly powerful mobile internet options around now it would be a different book if it were written now, but still. It's interesting to have sites rendered as VR places and read descriptions of people's avatars and some of the traditions involved. And of course Post-Earthquake Japan is very novel. What interested me is that like Tea From an Empty Cup the author of which's name has skipped my mind for the moment also plays in Japan - to an extent. Both show Japan as cutting edge when it comes to VR, AI, and other technologies, but Tea makes it a mystical thing, where pure blood Japanese are rare and their country is entirely destroyed post Earthquake, and Idoru is much more practical about it.

So, anybody read either, or anything in the same vein?

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I haven't read Idoru but I've read Neuromancer which is also by William Gibson.

Neuromancer is probably my favorite book I've read so I find it a bit strange I haven't gotten around to reading any of his other books, Idoru sounds like something I'll definately have to look out for.

I'd try explain the plot to Neuromancer but I've never been good at explaining it to my friends so I'll just highly recommend that it's something you should read. Very Happy

By Lowkey. 25/01/10, 06:02 am

Butterfly Edge wrote:: I'd try explain the plot to Neuromancer but I've never been good at explaining it to my friends so I'll just highly recommend that it's something you should read.

I keep meaning to. I have his and Bruce Sterling's Difference Engine lying on my bedside table for now, though. Steam!cyberpunk? Really? Could it get cooler?

~~And my netbook is called Neuromancer.~~ Just waiting for it to evolve its own sentience, really.

By Le_Saboteur. 25/01/10, 11:08 am

Sounds interesting, I'll have to check it out.

Have you ever read the Otherland series by Tad Williams? I think you might enjoy it. I guess you could call it almost-cyberpunk, it's largely set in an online world in which the protagonists are trapped. It's a fairly long series (four books, each averaging maybe 700 pages), but it's well worth it.

By Lowkey. 26/01/10, 11:06 am

Le_Saboteur wrote:: Sounds interesting, I'll have to check it out.

Have you ever read the Otherland series by Tad Williams? I think you might enjoy it. I guess you could call it almost-cyberpunk, it's largely set in an online world in which the protagonists are trapped. It's a fairly long series (four books, each averaging maybe 700 pages), but it's well worth it.

This Otherland sounds interesting - once you've read all of The Wheel of Time (sans the 12th, have to re-read the rest first kfjdfhdj) four 700-page books is water under the bridge. (Actually, I thought your signature's Game of Thrones was WoT's Daes Dae'mar / Game of Houses for a bit there). Kind of .Hack // Legend of the Twilight-esque?

Having been banned from MMOs by my parents after an apparent addiction to Ragnarok Online and meeting my ex boyfriend there, Virtual Reality holds a special interest for me, especially when Artificial Intelligences are involved. Everything from the names and faces we chose to the differences between online behaviour and real life, or when / where they merge... Tea From An Empty Cup's virtual-japan and VR-caused deaths or marrying an Idoru examples of such. Iunno, this is a subject I'd love to explore for a novel of my own one day. <__<

By CamusCanDo. 17/04/10, 09:31 am

Oh damn, I just wrote up a list of my favourite authors and totally missed out William Gibson. I've not read Idoru but I have been meaning to for years.

I know it's been a while since the last post but it's almost compulsary that you read Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy if you're into cyberpunk, which I know from your posts I don't have to tell you William Gibson's Idoru Icon_biggrin

Also cool, a WoT fan!

If I can recommend something in the same vein as Gibson's work it'd have to be Jeff Somers Avery Cates series, starting with Electric Church.

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