All Tomorrow's Parties

Rating:
Summary: Only to complete your collection
Review: I was dissapointed by this book. The characters are bland (as we have come to expect from Gibson), but in his previous work, this was offset by a wealth of action and background information on the world. In All Tomorrow's Parties, the action is lackluster, and the only extra information about the world (which was fleshed out better in Virtual Light and Idoru, the previous books in the "series") are Gibson's insights in the colors of computer-cases, and his passion for old watches. In some passages, his prose is snappy as before, but overall, this book lacks any taste.

Rating:
Summary: Unfortunately, very disappointed
Review: I had so been looking forward to a new Gibson. But. This book feels perfunctory, at best. A duty performed; a commitment honored. It only starts to acquire blood & heat toward the end. But then again, there's a fire, so that might explain the heat. While the concept, the premise of the book is as good as ever, the writing itself feels disengaged. He is relying, it seems, on standard licks. His chops are his chops, but this time they seemed "phoned in." The only time the familiar, neo-noirish, immensely imaginative and GENUINELY superb skills of/unique voice of the author come through is in the later 3rd of the book. And any time he brings the idoru "on stage." I'm hoping that the door he left open with her -- the final image he gives of her -- becomes the beginning of the next book, and a subject he can be nihilistically/vitally passionate about. Again.

Rating:
Summary: Need to read his first two I guess.
Review: I need to read parts one and two of this trilogy. I was a bit confused as regards some of the characters,(my fault), but was very impressed with the overall writing skills of this author. The notion of nodal points in history totally fascinated me. I recently read a book by an author which I believe truly does see the reality based nodal points in our future. His name is Jerry Furland, his book is titled "Transfer:the end of the beginning". It is also a trilogy and I highly recommend his book as well as Gibson's.

Rating:
Summary: Gibson no longer has the cutting edge
Review: When William Gibson constructed Neuromancer in 1984, you might say he was at a nodal point of literary style. He envisioned the "cyberpunk" era towards which our world was evolving. When Gibson bravely sailed the boat of his imagination 20 to 40 years into the future (back in the 80s), he had a clear course of direction. The social and technological changes he foresaw seemed accurate. And yes he did predict a lot of the internet/matrix evolution.

However, as the new millennium begins, he has not adjusted his compass. The same 1984 worldview of the "around the corner" cyberpunk future has been updated with many marvels of biotechnology, and Gibson just isn't on the pulse any more. William basically described next step internet technologies straight out of Wired magazine and then threw in the word "nanotechnology" as the next big thing.

Unfortunately, Gibson can not see past the same nodal point he viewed in 1984.

Rating:
Summary: Bad story. Bad style. Bad characterization. Bad book.
Review: The story goes nowehere. The characters are all one-dimensional, and we're inexplicably supposed to feel sympathetic to a character who is a professional assassin (and also kills people without pay whenever they bother him). Gibson also overlays the assassin's actions with a patina of Taoist pop-psych worthy of the worst Hollywood scripts; any self-respecting Taoist ought to be insulted. The climax is insufferably lame -- as if a fight and a disaster somehow brought resolution. I also can't stand Gibson's style, which is like a mix of bad Hemingway and Discover magazine. Why's he so allergic to the verb "to be"?

Rating:
Summary: liked reading it, dissapointed with the ending
Review: I was introduced to Gibson in 90 by someone who could have well been a character in a Gibson short story. I can't remember how many times I've read and re-read the first four books. I keep a copy of Neuromancer on my Pilot. I liked Virtual Light and really liked Idoru, but if All Tomorrows Parties is supposed to be a conclusion to this trilogy I am even more dissapointed than if it were just a stand alone book.

I like the writing style, the quick prose and short chapters (like channel surfing between related programs), but my two beefs are the seemingly rushed/unresolved ending/plot elements. What happened to Laney in his box and what did the nano fax have to do with Rei Toei anyway? I would have liked to read more about Harding. The thing which seemed most forced was the last watch. Why was it connected to Harding and how could it be used to find him?  As sort of a nit picking aside, I still can't figure out why the book is titled All Tomorrows Parties. All the previous Velvet Underground references seemed to fit the stories (especially "First thing you learn is that you always gotta wait") but this one?

I don't read Gibson for "poetic" endings. I'm not whining for the "good old days" of Mona Lisa Overdrive, but I did not like this ending and am not satisfied if this is the end of this trilogy. Since this is not a long book I can't imagine that some fool editor cut out anything, maybe Gibson is trying to change? If so I'll wait for the paperback next time.

Rating:
Summary: Great book...except for the ending
Review: I loved this book. The only troubling aspect of it is that I have no idea what happened in the end. It just ended. I wanted fireworks and change, I would have even settled for an Animal House like explanation of what happens to each character. ATP's climatically twisted into a dude

Rating:
Summary: Drifting
Review: The preceding books in this trilogy, "Virtual Light" and "Idoru", were contemplative and human, in contrast to the rhythmic intensity of "Neuromancer". While the prose in Idoru was so descriptively dense that my eyes hurt, All Tomorrow's Parties felt like a limp attempt to complete an idea that didn't need anymore closure. Some elements in the book felt more contemporary than futuristic, such as the obvious parallels to Ebay, MTV's Real World, Cognitive Dissidents, software bloat, cloning, etc. There were also many elements that seemed, perhaps unintentionally or coincidentally, borrowed from Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash, i.e. badass killers with big knives, institutional strip malls, nanotechnology.

Perhaps the future charted by Gibson's previous novels has already caught up to him and to us. Maybe that's why the book didn't seem quite as exciting. I'm going to have to read it again.

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Rating:
Summary: Entertaining book
Review: Satisfying, enjoyable conclusion to loose trilogy which includes Virtual Light and Idoru. I found these three more entertaining than his earlier work (though perhaps less technically impressive).

Rating:
Summary: This ain't your daddy's Sci-Fi.
Review: Gibson ,who created the word "cyberspace" and who was describing the "matrix" before Keanu put on black spandex, has kept his position solid as the king of sci-fi. While he'll probably never top his own book "Neuromancer" which is the only book in history to win the Neubla,Phillip K. Dick and Hugo award at once."All Tommorrow's Parties" is chock full of suprises and unites characters from "Virtual Light" and "Idoru" and brings in new characters. The book hits high notes with it's use of cool tech toys and all too human characters the world he creates is a reflection of our own for it is our own his children are our children.Gibson's writing style packs a punch you'll be feeling for the rest of the month because it presents a reality that'd make a Goth kid's website look like disney.com.This book also has more twists and turns than an Egyptian labyrinth and at the end you'll put the book down blink and want to start over again.