All Tomorrow's Parties

Rating:
Summary: Worst book of the late '90s
Review: William Gibson has proven himself to be a master of style over substance, but in this book he seems to have run out of even that. Majority of the characters are brought in from Idoru, poorly, he adds nothing that hasn't been seen in other cyberpunk books, even that he himself hasn't already written. There are less ideas in this whole book than in two pages of Stephenson's Diamond Age. The action, what little there is of it, is frazzled, has no rhyme let alone reason, and comes to no conclusion grand or otherwise.

This the worst book I have read in many years. I can only hope that Gibson put ot this piece of drivel as a conscious way to make a quick buck.

Rating:
Summary: A trilogy I could do without
Review: I was not impressed with Virtual Light, and only moderately impressed with Idoru, and so I was not surprised that All Tomorows Parties did not quicken my pulse. Maybe Gibson is only good when covering new ground, and the ground he's covered in these books seems tired to any experienced cyberpunk fan.

Not that the book is terrible - it is readable, and enjoyable. Just not up to what one would expect from the man who wrote Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive.

Rating:
Summary: Boring
Review: I've read three other Gibson books - Neuromancer, Virtual Light and Mona Lisa Overdrive. Loved Neuromancer and the others were a good read but I simply lost interest in this book halfway through. I rarely never finish a book but I found myself forcing myself to read this book about a third of the way through. When I got halfway through it went down and never got picked up again.

It's not that it's really bad - it's just not very exciting. Seemed to be like trolling through everyday lives but in a Cyberpunk setting. Maybe Gibson doesn't let enough secrets through early but basically I'm not interested in reading 200 pages of lead-in to get to the good bit at the end. I like books like my movies - catch you straight away and keep you interested.

If you haven't already you should check out Jeff Noon - the guys sensational.

Rating:
Summary: Spellbinding
Review: Having read his previous books, I have to admit Gibson took it up a notch with this one. All Tomorrow's Parties is positively addictive; often I'd sit down to read a chapter or two and instead breeze through a dozen. It was hard to put down.

Fans of Virtual Light and Idoru will recognize the cast of characters, though the novel could just as easily stand alone. Rydell and Chevette are back, as are Colin Laney and Rei Toei, and Yamazaki puts in some brief appearances to help Laney out.

The language and descriptiveness are, as ever, vivid and brilliant. Gibson really knows how to make a landscape come alive, right down to the descriptions of the characters. What's intriguing is that he can switch easily between the characters' perspectives, too; what Chevette recognizes as a soul patch, Rydell sees as one of those annoying "lip beards". What Silencio knows as "the black" is the illegal drug dancer to everyone else. And in the story we see constant examples of mainstream corporate society trying to reclaim the autonomous zone of the bridge by transplanting franchises like Lucky Dragon or paying people to hold down shops, all illustrated in Gibson's rich prose.

The ending was, as others have mentioned, a bit abrupt and left things dangling. The bit with Silencio and the watches was never adequately explained, especially where it came into play somehow in the end. The assassin's personal history had some significance, but that was never brought into the open either. The resolution of the plot never made clear what Laney's nodal point was, and frustratingly never fleshed out the idea in other ways. The nodal point of 1911 was mentioned more than once, but Gibson never explained how that changed everything, or in fact what impact it had at all; understanding that would have gone a long way toward making the ending more satisfying. The only thing that did make sense about the nodal point was that the book's central villain knew change was coming, and wanted not to prevent it but to ride it out successfully; he was actually somewhat identifiable in that regard, and never seemed hammy or vicious, just desperate.

Still, a slightly weak ending couldn't damage an otherwise great read. (Heck, it made almost as much sense as the ending of Idoru, and I enjoyed that too.) I liked the characters and followed their journeys anxiously, wondering what each would come to in the end. The view of Gibson's world a few years down the road, where the bridge is starting to lose its identity, was truly fascinating.

Rating:
Summary: Gibson's never been sharper!
Review: In "Count Zero," Gibson moved away from the straight ahead linear story line that made "Neuromancer" such a hard-driving, hold-on-tight rocket ride. He started to relax and embellish. In "Mona Lisa Overdrive," he started to move away from the Dashiell Hammett/hardboiled point of view, taking an interest in characters and events that could be quirky or even benign. I didn't think that this more expansive, more benevolent point of view quite worked in "Virtual Light," and that "Idoru," while stronger, still seemed lacking somehow. But Gibson has definitely put it all together in "All Tomorrow's Parties." The mean streets of NoCal harbor operators as stone cold as any in "Neuromancer," charming eccentrics, and good-hearted dimwits just barely hanging on. But oh my, the prose. Gibson has never written better. And there are scenes here so original and so perfect that you know they will live in your imagination and dreams forever. Just the simple encounter early on between Rydell, the everyman former cop, and a transvestite hooker is so sharp and so funny and so perfectly written, you know you will never forget it. In a quiet tour de force, Gibson shows us a mugging that goes horribly wrong through the eyes of an idiot savant, and he writes it with such a simple and direct elegance that it took my breath away. And no writer this side of Borges can suggest so much with just a few simple, direct words. The book abounds with subtle parallels and unexpected resonances that hold the promise of an even richer experience ahead when we read the book again and again over the years. No, this is not "Neuromancer," it is not perhaps even cyberpunk, but don't let your preconceptions stand in the way of appreciating this masterpiece. Gibson hasn't lost his edge, but he has finally found the way to successfully blend his cynical, hardboiled perception of the unpleasant realities of life with a compassionate heart and wildly incongruous humor. I am sure that in years to come, even those who have been initially disappointed with this book will come to regard it as one of his very best.

Rating:
Summary: Finally!
Review: After a number of novels that just weren't inspirational, Gibson puts out All Tomorrow's Parties. This is a novel for the old school Gibson fans. While it does suffer from chapters that run 3-5 pages and cut from scene to scene, the novel inspires thinking.

Just as Neuromancer started cyberpunk, putting a new set of memes into the collective consciousness, this novel created a new set of thoughts for me. I'm not sure exactly what it all means, but I'm thinking about it.

Best recommendation I can give a book.

Rating:
Summary: Unfolding the Fractal future/present...
Review: Another splendid installment of the nanotech/Idoru series. Sequeing towards...what? One suspects that the eventual outcome of this storyline will converge/intertwine with the Sprawl trilogy. Gibson is brilliant enough to pull that off with his usual multithreading prose. I for one am grateful to be along for the ride. Parties reveals even greater refinement in characterization, plotting, description. Gibson continues to cut to the bone in his story telling, honing his ability to state many things with astonishing ease and almost deceptive elegance. One is constantly compelled to re-read passages both for truth of meaning and beauty of construction. Take advantage of this marvelous author while the origami-like meta-novel he seems to be constructing for us continues to unfold.

Rating:
Summary: How you say..."Weak"?
Review: First off, for those of you expecting this to be another earth-shaking work of cyberpunk on par with Gibson's previous work, dispel that myth right now. I mean, there is computing involved, and the novel is a sci-fi novel, but there's none of the grit, derring-do, or even any real tension expected of a cyberpunk novel. It's just your normal, average pseudo-post-apocalyptic setting...but it feels more like the atmosphere got thrown in for the heck of it, in a "the sky was blue" sort of way, more than being it being and integral part of the world Gibson was trying to create. It was sort of like Gibson decided, "Oh, I've got to make this gloomy in some way." after getting the framework for the novel set up.

First, a bit of background on my personal reading before this novel. I had just come off a series of really good sci-fi. In the weeks prior to this, I had read Cryptonomicon, The Diamond Age, Zodiac: An Eco Thriller, re-read Snow Crash, and The Cobweb. Then I got to this, and I was utterly unimpressed by Gibson. Some of you, who haven't revisted the sci-fi well since Neuromancer may actually like this book, but I may have been spoiled by all the great reading I had done in the recent past. A lot of people who have written reviews bought this novel because of Gibson's past work and upon reputation only, and I guess afterwards they had to convince themselves it was good, akin to the way Star Wars: Episode 1 ended up, and the Lucas freaks can't admit that he can suck at times. Not me, that's my $20 in the here and now, and your here and now book better not blow, or I'm going to be mad. Gibson didn't live up to anticipation here. Heck, he barely lived up to average here.

The book is very bland. Unflavored yogurt bland. There's a lot of description, but it doesn't take you anywhere. The most vivid image in my mind is of this guy in Japan who brings one of the hacker characters stuff. Gibson describes him throughly, down to the fact that he "paints" black socks onto his legs with shoe polish. But the guy's completely unimportant to the plot. I guess Gibson's whole point is to get you to look at the surroundings and think that these people are living in some bad living conditions.

However:

1) This guy is not indicative of the poulace in general, because Gibson doesn't decribe too many other people like this throughout the rest of the book,

and

2) The main characters leave far better residences than this and all the other characters in the book don't seem to have any problem getting by. So, there's a gap between rich and poor. Thanks, Gibson.

By the time I finished the book, I felt the same way I felt when I had just finished watching The Cable Guy. It wasn't good, it wasn't bad. It was like I vegged out for that span of time. That what reading this book was like, mentally active vegging. Or, like when you read a book for class, and you realize that you have no recollection of ever reading the last 3 pages, although you know you were just reading them. When the book reached its conclusion, I paid the book the greatest disservice. I turned the page as if there was supposed to see if there was anything on the back of what was apparently the last page. Completely unsatisfying. My roomate, an even more avid sci-fi reader, and also a Gibson fan, had the same analysis.

I don't even remember any of the main characters' names. That's how unattached I was to them. Pass on this book. It's just not worth the time it takes you to read it, especially seeing as how there's so much good sci-fi out there.

Rating:
Summary: Listen Up Theilhard!
Review: The writings of Theilhard de Chardin, back in the 60's, were full of wonder at the emerging network of communications, the then current outcome of his theory of "complexification". The Jesuit priest traced evolution from the big bang through the ramifications of the physical world, the development of the sensient world of self-reflective humans and into the connectedness of the globe through radio waves, believing that humankind would eventually come to union with God through communion with one another.

What would he think now, with the internet operating in full bloom and nanotechnology taking shape. Science fiction is usually not my thing, too much fiction and not enough science, or skilled storytelling. But since "Virtual Light" broke upon us, William Gibson has been a source of pleasure, the spinner of really good yarns.

After finishing this latest, "All Tomorrows Parties", I found myself reviewing, practically rereading "Virtual Light", where most of the characters, Laney, Harwood, Yamakazi, Fontaine and of course, Rydell and Chevette appear. I was very curious to know if I missed a book between "Idoru" and "Parties", which contains Laney's references to the 'island' where he worked for the Rei-Toi interests. I guess not. Gibson is remarkable in his ability to tell a great story while maintaining the tech aspects of the near future he describes. Its all about the human characters and how they deal with the gritty challenges of a post - modern world. Of course, they are much more like than different, to the folks I know, right here and now, in Miami. I can't wait to find out what happens to Rydell and Chevette next.

Rating:
Summary: good writing
Review: Gibson can write characters and settings well, and continues to narrow in his vision of what the world in a decade or two will be like and how it will affect (some) people. He writes about people in a way that makes you understand and emphasize with them without making typical good and bad guys. However I dislike the mysticism he gives to many of his characters and think he should drop or at least stop depending on some of the cliches of the genre, like the Samurai like corporate mercenaries. I hope he brings in and casts projections on new very relevant technologies, like perpetual presence and nanotechnology, as Stephenson has done, since I think these will become very important concepts in the approaching future and create a great deal of change, yet they seem to be largely unaddressed in Gibson's novels.