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Virtual Light (Bridge, Bk 1)
Virtual Light - Bridge, Bk 1
Author: William Gibson
2005: Welcome to NoCal and SoCal, the uneasy  sister-states of what used to be California. Here the  millenium has come and gone, leaving in its wake  only stunned survivors. In Los Angeles, Berry  Rydell is a former armed-response rentacop now working  for a bounty hunter. Chevette Washington is...  more »
ISBN-13: 9780553566062
ISBN-10: 0553566067
Publication Date: 7/1/1994
Pages: 368
Rating:
  • Currently 3.6/5 Stars.
 94

3.6 stars, based on 94 ratings
Publisher: Spectra
Book Type: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

Kibi avatar reviewed Virtual Light (Bridge, Bk 1) on + 582 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 5
A virtual marvel, March 26, 2005
Reviewer: Michael K. Smith (Baton Rouge, Louisiana)

Gibson is possibly the most consistently original of any sf author of his generation. In this world of our near future (2005, according to the flap copy, but I don't think he's that explicit in the text), almost everything has been privatized, the U.S. has devolved into independent region-nations, and wealth and power enforce the divisions in society. Berry Rydell, a young ex-cop from Knoxville, is working for a private "armed response" outfit in Los Angeles until he screws up and is sent off to San Francisco as a driver for a skiptracer. Mr. Yamazaki, a Japanese student of social psychology and anthropology, is fascinated by the squatter community that took over the Oakland Bay Bridge, which was abandoned after the big quake. One of the bridge's residents is Chevette Washington, a bike messenger in the city, who looks after one of the aging pioneers of the bridge community -- but she also screws up, lifting what she thinks is just an expensive pair of shades from an annoying guy at a party. The glasses embody a secret that would destroy a lot of careers and Rydell's employer wants them back. Chevette is a marvelous character, as is Yamazaki, who enables the reader to see things from a truly foreign perspective. Gibson, a master of metaphor, never wastes a word. A terrific read.
reviewed Virtual Light (Bridge, Bk 1) on + 1568 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 4
"The courier presses his forehead against layers of glass, argon, high-impact plastic. He watches a gunship traverse the city's middle distance like a hunting wasp, death slung beneath its thorax in a smooth black pod.
Hours earlere, missles have fallen in a northern suburb; seventy-three dead, the kill as yet unclaimed. But here the mirrored ziggurats down Lazaro Cardenas flow with the lunimous flesh of giants, shunting out the night's barrage of dreams to the waiting avenidas--business as usual, world without end."
These are the first two paragraphs of VIRTUAL LIGHT, in which Northeren California and Southern California area at war, and, well . . . Read the book!
reviewed Virtual Light (Bridge, Bk 1) on + 101 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
I post this with reluctance- anything by William Gibson is a keeper. As Monty Pythons' Flying Circus would announce..."And now for something different..." Wow! Right out of left field, yet quite believable- you will see real people living real lives in a world we will not ever experience but feels strangely familiar. You will love it or hate it.
reviewed Virtual Light (Bridge, Bk 1) on + 34 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Excellent story, great characters.
Read All 6 Book Reviews of "Virtual Light Bridge Bk 1"


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