Rating: 
Summary: Always thought provoking.
Review: It's kind of amazing the way Gibson creates disturbing, alternative worlds and makes us believe in them, while at the same time linking them to the present world via surreal cyber connections. It's really a reinterpretation of our reality. There are people, after all, who live on bridges... It's a fascinating book, imaginative and thought provoking and a must read if you like to wonder about the future. Don't strain your brain trying to follow the plot line, just go along for the magical mystery tour.
Rating: 
Summary: Colorful Characters Make This Book Great
Review: William Gibson's All Tomorrow's Parties is a well-written and interesting book. Gibson employs an interesting present-tense writing style that challenges the reader. Through a wide assortment of characters and settings, Gibson creates a fast-paced and interesting story. He vividly describes his futuristic world where communities are created on damaged bridges, people live in cardboard boxes in subways, and experimental drugs exist that allow people to witness rare but significant events that forever change society. Probably the greatest element of this book is its variety of characters. They are all believable and unique in their own way. Gibson, unfolding a rich story, masterfully connects all these characters together despite their different backgrounds.One of the main characters, Colin Laney, has taken the 5-SB drug. This drug allows him to see the world as data which he can interpret with relative ease. Laney believes that a "nodal point" is approaching that will change the world forever, and he believes that whatever happens will occur in the Bay Bridge area. However, the 5-SB drug has also left Laney obsessed with a man named Cody Harwood. Laney never considers the possibility that Harwood may be tampering with the data Laney interprets.
Despite the ill-effects of the drug, Laney hires Berry Rydell, a security guard at Lucky Dragon convenient store, to go to San Francisco. Rydell travels to the Bay Bridge and is given the device that contains Rei Toi, a computer generated idol-singer. Other characters are woven into the complex plot that Gibson creates. There is Silencio, a quiet child obsessed with watches; Fontaine, the owner of a small collectable store; and Chevette, a former bridge resident fleeing her abusive ex-boyfriend. All these completely unique characters interact beautifully in Gibson's colorful, yet degenerate futuristic world. I recommend this book to all cyberpunk and science fiction readers. If you have read Gibson before, the world is a familiar place you should find welcoming. Gibson has reinforced his role as one of the best cyberpunk writers in the world with All Tommorow's Parties. Hopefully he will continue producing novels of this quality for years to come.
Rating: 
Summary: Difficult reading, overly-ambitious
Review: A few years ago, I started flirting with a heretical thought: is William Gibson really that good? After all, most of his stories border on being incomprehensible (if the basic elements of plot can even be discerned at all). His characters are both distasteful and uninteresting, like characters from a futuristic Jerry Springer show. Gibson is too impressed with his own stylistic flair to write a simple, comprehensible sentence that actually moves the story forward. Basically, Gibson inherited the worst traits of J.G. Ballard and simply added more stuff about computers and a vaguely "alternative" vibe. So why read Gibson? In the end, there's aways that nugent or two of an interesting idea buried in Gibson's pretentious slop. Something that makes you think this is where the world's heading in a decade or two. When the idea comes together in your head, you say, "Whoa!" and usually spend a day or two thinking about it. On that score, Gibson once again delivers, with concepts of "nodal points" and "existential sociology." But this book is an especially harsh read. I didn't give a flying leap about any of the losers around which the story revolves. Gibson resolved to write a story without any colorful adjectives - and I mean that literally. Nothing is described as red, blue, yellow, orange, sepia, or otherwise hued. Gibson had a point - reading the book gives you a strange, monochrome vision before you realize why. But it also makes the process of imagining the story a bit nauseating after awhile, and I firmly believe that book shouldn't physically hurt. Gibson has great ideas, but I wish he'd realize that you can tell intriguing, entertaining stories and still get across deep thoughts.
Rating:
Summary: Universe As 3-D computer screen (our lives pass in parade)
Review: Gibson is one of few writers who allows his characters a vision of the mechanisms supporting reality's existence. Characters like Rei Toei are composed of pure information bits. The character Laney's world, enhanced by his exposure to the drug 5-SB, is composed of computer bits. Laney has schooled Rei Toei to interact with the crude, sensual characters who people the ordinary world. Laney would no doubt agree with Ed Fredkin that "there is nothing as concrete in the world as a bit-it's more concrete than a photon or electron, ... it's not a simulation of reality; it's not something that pretends to be reality. It is reality." Laney's problem is that he suspects his own interpretations of the data stream are being tampered with by an outside agent, Harwood. He also has totally ambivalent feelings toward Harwood who he thinks could be a strange attractor -one bringing order out of chaos. Laney has at the core of his being an emptiness devoid of both light and darkness. This complicates the puzzle wherein he must struggle like a amateur painter to identify the future human datascape. In Gibson's story there are two types of people-those aware of their bit or interstitial existence and those who aren't aware. Tessa, for example, is trying to capture the interstitial world on film. Those who are aware control those who are not aware. This interstitial world is made of stored data that can be shaped or programmed like clay. The heart of Gibson's universe can only be reached through an informational wormhole-a place called the Walled City. This place is peopled by the avatars of people who escaped from the human datascape and who can play with the pixel created characters in the story. Gibson sets the action on the squattersville bridge and around box dwellers to show how little affluence will mean in his future world. It is a world where nanotechnology allows for the cloning of both people and things. A world in which scarcity is a thing of the past. One could say that Gibson plays the role of a programmer rather than an author of his stories. The story must get five stars for creativity.
Rating:
Summary: Unfinished symphony...
Review: "All Tomorrow's Parties" boasts an intriguing cast, a mysterious plot, and well-written internal monologue. Gibson has intricately woven the characters' separate paths together, developing a multitude of relationships whilst holding the reader's interest quite successfully. That said, the book feels unfinished -- the "end of the world" scenario hinted at throughout the book never actually occurs, and the content of the final chapter is trivial at best. The reader is likely to feel cheated, as all the suspense has been for nothing. Enjoy, but don't expect a standard plot structure.
Rating:
Summary: Pushing that envelope a little bit more
Review: In my opinion, another hit and another step along the current flood of ideas and passions that Mr. Gibson is going through. Names of characters and companies are just as modern as this morning's paper...
Rating: 
Summary: Shame on you Mr Gibson!
Review: This book was apparently assembled from globs of text that were left over from Virtual Light and Idoru. It builds towards a climax that fails to happen, as if Gibson couldn't figure where to take the story, or was simply too lazy to invent a decent ending. Gibson should have more respect for his own body of work, not to mention his readers, than to publish a half-... effort like this. I give it two stars only because it's still better than 90 percent of the ... on the shelves at ....
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read!!
Review: All Tomorrow's Parties is the third book in a trilogy by William Gibson. His writing technique is truly amazing. Gibson has a way of getting the point across without wasting a word. In this novel Laney, a mortally ill cardboard box dweller, comes across a disturbance in the information system. Laney has the ability to analyze large masses of data and discovers another nodal point. This only happens when a major change is about to occur in the world. Unfortunately this change promises to bring about the end of the world. Now, with the help of Rydell, an ex-convenient store employee, they must put a stop to the occurrence of the Nodal point.
During the novel the reader is introduced to a plethora of characters with seemingly little to do with one another. Gibson slowly fuses the characters together throughout the text. The ending leaves something to be desired but the book is a must read if you are into the cyber-punk genre. Gibson is truly a master of his art and this book is no different! Even though one can get lost in the artistry of his prose, his style is very captivating.
Rating: 
Summary: Am I missing something?
Review: I was prepared for an exciting ending that would tie everything together. What a dissapointment!
Rating:
Summary: Yet another enjoyable read from a master in the genre
Review: William Gibson has been one of my favorite authors since the late 80's when a friend pointed me to his breakthrough book, Neuromancer. This book opened the door to a whole new genre - cyberpunk, and I've anxiously awaited every book since then. All Tomorrow's Parties (ATP) concludes a trilogy that started with Virtual Light and Idoru. Actually, these books aren't so much a series as they are three books that happen to reference each other. And while the first series (Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive) takes place in mid-21st century, this series occurs in the near future (14-15 years from now, I think). The joy of reading this book (and all his books, in my opinion) isn't necessarily in the story as a whole, but in savoring each scene individually. Each page is chock-full of inventions (some good, some crazy) that have become so ingrained in society that the story's characters take them for granted. My favorite is the convenience store chain that has a video kiosk in front that shows what's happening at other stores in the chain. At any one time, you can see what's happening at ten other randomly-selected stores. Unfortunately, most of what you see is smart-aleck kids mooning the camera, or transvestite hookers looking to make a few quick credits. This place also has anti-graffiti walls, and sells sunglasses that also function as a phone and city map. ATP sees our hero Laney deathly ill, living in a cardboard box at the Tokyo airport, cruising the web full-time. He was given drugs as a child that as an adult allow him to see patterns when viewing vast amounts data that others cannot see, and he sees that society is coming to a nodal point - a time when everything changes. The last such nodal point happened in 1911. The book doesn't really mention it, but I read an interview with Gibson recently that said before 1911 the world was a far less controlled place. It was possible, for instance, to purchase cocaine at your local pharmacy. While you can't put your finger on any one specific cause, all that changed in 1911. In ATP, the world is heading for another big change, and Laney's one of the few people in the world that can see it coming (even though he's not really sure what it is or when exactly it will happen). He sends his ex-cop, ex-security guard friend Barry Rydell to San Fransisco to link up with a mysterious killer with no name. Meanwhile, the courier Chevette Washington flees to San Francisco to get away from her abusive boyfriend. And the idoru, Rei Toi, is released like a genie from a computer in an upstairs apartment in downtown San Fransisco. Together, these individual stories weave together and witness/cause the nodal point. I thought the ending was a little disappointing, and that cost this book a point.
|
