Rating: 
Summary: Been there, done that.
Review: Sir Gibson seems to be recycling ideas now that he has achieved celebrity status. While reading Idoru I slapped my forehead more than once saying, "Its deja vu all over again!" Perhaps it is too much to ask for the sizzle and shock of Neuromancer again, but please Mr. Gibson, have some new ideas
Rating: 
Summary: Not too bad, but he's done better
Review: I've read all of Gibson's work, but I'd say this is near the middle of his best. It is mostly what I expected a novel after Virtual Light to be like. I hope he continues the exploration of such a great society he's created
Rating: 
Summary: gibson needs to get over himself
Review: by far the worst book that gibson has written, idoru is just
another case of something good getting trapped by it's own
overhipness (not unlike a too-popular tech magazine). the only good new original idea in the book (walled city) is
touched upon only in the most brief mention. his writing
style has descended into non-sentences which just don't
work. if you want to read good cyberpunk go somewhere else,
older works or stephenson.
Rating: 
Summary: Idoru kicks ass, I could NOT put it down.
Review: Idoru packs a wallop. Like in _Virtual Light_, Gibson takes
two characters who are innocents and puts us in their
shoes. Their shoes just happen to be placed in the fast
forward media future: where net fan clubs have gotten big
and tabloid news has reached (like everything else),
Orwelian proportions. And as always with Gibson, there is
a rocker. There is a bizarre new artificial intelligence
"involved" with the rocker. They are a couple pushing the
outer envelope of the AI in _Neuromancer_.
A great read, and with lines like "Time in a Federal Orphanage
tended to acquaint one with dead media platforms" (about
CD-ROMs), Idoru hits you right between the eyes with a crazy quilt future that really is just today.
Rating:
Summary: Cyber punk classic
Review: The person who gave us the term "cyberspace" and a pioneer of cyberpunk fiction. William Gibson gives us :"Idoru" Idoru is a Tale Of two People who don't know each other who end up entangled in the same plot. Chia Pet Mackinze (Greatest name since Hiro Protaginist(Snow Crash)) is a 14 year old Fan club member for a Band called Lo/Rez "Volunteered" to investigate a rumor involving one of the bands's founders Rez she ends up over her head. Rez it turns out is supossed to marry Rei Toei Japan's biggest pop Idol(thing is Rei is a virtual Being and doesn't exist physically) Colin Laney is an out of work Info Fisher (he can see Patterns in data and deduce a person's life merely from the info they interact with). When a job at a tabloid network gets him in hot water he somehow ends up working to protect REZ. Chia and Colin find themselves in a complex plot to cover up something that ends up endangering them both. The story is fairly simple to follow but still a satisfying read. With interesting characters and switching from Chia and Laney's point of view until they meet (sort of)
Since this is my first Gibson read I still look forward to his classics "Neuromancer and Virtual light and count zero and the rest" if you want to get started in cyber punk fiction it is a good begining and you haven't read "Snow Crash go for it.
Rating:
Summary: Idoru
Review: Reading this story reminded me of the Japenese Anime film "Ghost in the Shell," where the vast information on the internet not only became cognitive but also desired to merge with the world of the real to create a new being. In Gibson's "Idoru" we meet Roe Toei, the idoru, an accumulation of information pertaining to what is desirable and attractive who marries Rez, a long-running Japanese pop icon. However, the idoru can only access the real world as a hologram; what could be produced from this strange union?
Briefly Gibson toys with the interesting subjects of artificial intelligence and biotechnology, but never really expands on it or comes to a conclusion. Maybe we just don't know enough about these or how they really work to even entertain fantastical ideas about what they would be like. Maybe it's something beyond human comprehension.
As for the writing style, Gibson again interchanges character perspectives each chapter, in this case we go through one chapter of Laney, the man with the gift of picking out important data from large amounts of information, and then switch over to Chia, a young teen who visits Japan to investigate Rez's marriage.
There are some moments where Gibson paints some wonderful imagery to open up a scene or discribe a person, which brought back memories of "Neuromancer," which is not so much great for its vivid creation of a future technological world, but also for its beatiful prose. These moments seemed few and far between in "Idoru."
"Idoru" explores the realm of information and false constructs and how they clash with the real world and its sombering realities. If there is some judgment, an opinion to be made about reality and virtual reality, Gibson is quiet about it. The old cliche is that technology steals our souls and makes us less "human", but in Gibson's tales we learn that technology, like a role-playing game, offers us a respite from the limitations of our bodies to play out our fantasies and indulge in our ideas of who we would want to be. The book is a great read and a must for any Gibson-phile, but it will leave you longing to learn more about where this love of information and constructs will lead us, what the next phase in evolution will be.
What happens when information accumulates and begins to think for itself? Can the real world and the worlds we have created in our computers coexist? What would happen if that line between real and ureal were broken?
Rating:
Summary: Very clever indeed...
Review: I've always been a little embarassed of my taste for science fiction, but this is brilliant on its own. Think of Rez as Bono (one of Gibson's good friends in real life) and you get a more timely taste of the story. Add to that a more literary focus on the difference between the concepts of Celebrity and Conspicuous Anonymity, and this book can become a stepping stone to a thesis on public idolatry behaviour at the end of the 20th century. I enjoy books, but rarely get incredibly excited at reading them. This is one of the few exceptions to the rule.
Rating:
Summary: Much more beneath the surface
Review: Wow! I don't often write reviews, but came here expecting to see many other positive reviews. I am surprised at the negative reviews. Here is my perspective: Gibson takes us to a place where the Internet may be in the future. The richness that he ascribes to it is far beyond where we are today, and shows us what may be possible using the latest VR technology at the end of the decade. He also gives us glimpses into the complex social issues surrounding the increase in "Reality" media and the unparralled access the media channels have into celebrity and everyday lives. For those reviewers who seem to think he is writing about the Internet as it exists today, I would suggest they re-read the book. I work in Technology, and some of the concepts he describes sent shivers down my spine. Others simply made me sit back and go "WOW!" I found it refreshing that an author also knows how to tell a story and move on. While this does leave some filling in of the characters to be done by the reader, it makes for a compelling, exciting read. I could not put the book down!
Rating:
Summary: Cyber punk classic
Review: The person who gave us the term "cyberspace" and a pioneer of cyberpunk fiction. William Gibson gives us :"Idoru" Idoru is a Tale Of two People who don't know each other who end up entangled in the same plot. Chia Pet Mackinze (Greatest name since Hiro Protaginist(Snow Crash)) is a 14 year old Fan club member for a Band called Lo/Rez "Volunteered" to investigate a rumor involving one of the bands's founders Rez she ends up over her head. Rez it turns out is supossed to marry Rei Toei Japan's biggest pop Idol(thing is Rei is a virtual Being and doesn't exist physically) Colin Laney is an out of work Info Fisher (he can see Patterns in data and deduce a person's life merely from the info they interact with). When a job at a tabloid network gets him in hot water he somehow ends up working to protect REZ. Chia and Colin find themselves in a complex plot to cover up something that ends up endangering them both. The story is fairly simple to follow but still a satisfying read. With interesting characters and switching from Chia and Laney's point of view until they meet (sort of)
Since this is my first Gibson read I still look forward to his classics "Neuromancer and Virtual light and count zero and the rest" if you want to get started in cyber punk fiction it is a good begining and you haven't read "Snow Crash go for it.
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