Idoru is, believe it or not, the first William Gibson novel I’ve actually managed to make it through. I remember a few years back picking up Neuromancer, and getting so incredibly bored around page 50 that I just put it down. It’s not that I don’t like spy style action adventure, or even the very grounded future tech. I don’t really know what it was that did it but Neuromancer just turned me off cyberpunk. Then after being thoroughly disappointed by the conclusion of another book I just finished reading, Gridlinked, I sort of felt like giving Gibson another try. I mean its pretty common knowledge that when your talking near future tech spy stories (ie. cyberpunk) Gibson is the widely acknowledged king of the field. It might have also had something to do with the Gambia National Library having a very slim selection of Sci Fi; I figured I’d probably end up reading it anyways. So I picked up Idoru with a little trepidation but I figured, hey its only 200 pages I can just plow through it. And that’s just what I did, but not because I was bored for a second.
The story of Idoru revolves around a band called Lo/Rez. It seems Rez (a member of the band) has decided to get married, but not to just anyone, to the latest in cybernetic Japanese pop star Rei Toi, and Idoru (something like a Japanese Siren). This, at least in the eyes of a number of people is view as dangerous and possibly deranged behavior. So two very different lives are thrown into the mix. First we have Laney, a quantum analyst, who can see patterns in information that may prove whether Rez is nuts or not. And Second, we have Chia a young member of the Seattle branch of the Lo/Rez fan club who has flown to Tokyo to find out what is going on with her favorite rock star… It’s a bit confusing at first, but the most complicated part is the technology which ends up making really a lot of sense. There is a very firm grounding to the technology in this book and Gibson explains the complicated parts well.
Idoru is a really good read. I enjoyed the process a lot. Sometimes reading these kind of books feel like a bit of a chore, you just want to get to the end and find out what happens. Here, it’s the journey that matters most. I liked the characters, they felt real, I think Gibson captured what he was after well. The technology is interesting but not too far fetched and the twists were really fun. I think I’ll pick up more of his book and give them another try. Now I understand better why people revere him so much. He really is very good.
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