All Tomorrow's Parties Author:William Gibson "William Gibson's rich protopointillism coins a wireless future where reality is only proxy and proviso. Made all the more beautiful and frightening by its probability, and by characters who somehow tweeze hope from the polymer." --Chris Carter, creator of The X-Files — "One of science fiction's greatest literary stylists...Gibson wouldn't... more » be Gibson if he spelled it out, if he eliminated all the ambiguity. His specialty is hanging on to that fractal edge without ever going over the brink." --Wired Magazine
"All Tomorrow's Parties hits on all cylinders." --Seattle Times
"More ultra-cool cyberpunk... This familiar, vigorous, vividly realized scenario is set forth in the author's unique and astonishingly textured prose." --Kirkus Reviews
"The post modern gospel according to Gibson, the patron saint of cyberpunk literature." --Entertainment Weekly
"It's as if Raymond Chandler had written a novel in which Philip Marlowe drops acid, learns Microsoft Word 98 and winds up eating Thai food at a funky San Francisco dive...the most delicious of reads: genre with real literary spunk." --New York Daily News
"All Tomorrow's Parties is immensely engaging, alive on every page and as enjoyable a weekend entertainment as one could want."--The Washington Post Book World« less
The Market's bargain prices are even better for Paperbackswap club members!
Retail Price:$14.95 Buy New (Paperback): $12.19 (save 18%) or Become a PBS member and pay $8.29+1 PBS book credit (save 44%)
My husband says: Fun read. Good Gibson if you like Gibson, but not as visionary as his greatest books (Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdive trilogy, Burning Chrome).
Gibson is just such a great writer. His imagery isn't distracting as one reads it, but has a way of transforming the most mundane things into the exotic and futuristic. His settings are often barely sci-fi - but the way he talks about them, they seem as if they are. Leads to philosophical musings about - it's all in how you look at the world....
'All Tomorrow's Parties' is a sequel to Virtual Light and Idoru, but works as a stand-alone as well. Not much actually happens in the book. It's more about setting, characters, concepts.
Ex-cop Rydell is now working as a security guard at a chain convenience store, when he gets an offer to do a mysterious 'job' for his friend Laney, which sends him to a squatter's community of The Bridge. Escaping an abusive ex-boyfriend, former bike messenger Chevette also returns to the Bridge, towed by a more bourgeoise friend, a film student bent on documenting the Bridge's "interstitial" community. Meanwhile, Laney, ill in a homeless man's cardboard box in Japan, remains online, perceiving, with the abilities given him by experimental drugs, the convergence of a nodal point, which could mean the end of the world.
Of course, the AI 'idoru' Rei Tei, is involved as well...