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The Poet Hiccups - a review of William Gibson's Idoru

• A neurologicaly-modified person posseses an ability to see things in cyperspace that others cannot.
• A young girl faces danger and adventure in a foreign land
• She is the result of a cross-cultural marriage
• She receives tourist software as a present from her father
• She lives with only one of her parents
• Good, and bad, petty criminals complicate the situation
• Organised crime makes an appearance
• An Artificial Intelligence roams cyberspace and wields enormous power
• A media celebrity and his/her biggest fan are involved
• A cyberspace marriage involving the media celebrity is arranged
• A forged electronic message is sent to save the day
• A technological item, stolen in transit, is sought
• Help is obtained from a powerful organisation of underground cyber hackers
• A mild-mannered hero loses his job and his case is taken up by a later day 60 minutes, but his segment is never aired, leaving his reputation uncleared.
• He has a brief affair with a cold and shallow media executive
• A hired gun uses an exotic edged weapon
• The same hired gun refuses reconstructive surgery to repair an old wound, as a reminder of the error that caused the injury
• Non-lethal weaponry is used in the final confrontation

These are the plot elements of Gibson's Idoru. And also of the combination of Virtual Light and Mona Lisa Overdrive, his two previous novels. That is the main problem with Idoru. The similarities are so detailed and pervasive as to seriously detract from the versimilitude of the work. The reader sees not the story but the author's re-used plot machinations.

Occuring within the same world as Virtual Light, Idoru is set in the near-future. Nearer than that of Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive. Jacking into cyberspace is no longer a fully immersive experience but a present-day goggled visual-only Virtual Reality. Gone too are the global iconic blocks of corporate data that make up the three dimensional map of cyberspace, leaving small virtual Internet meeting areas in its stead. Rounding up the lessened technological intensity, Artificial Intelligence entities in consumer devices are less intelligent.

Gibson was never a technical writer. But with his bold imagery, detailed character development and poetic writing, he did not have to be. Now that he writes about a more familiar future his technological shortcomings become more apparent and we see mild layman extrapolations of the contents of today's popular science magazines. With such a weak technological backdrop, sociological musings could possibly make up for the lack of extrapolative vision.

In this, Virtual Light succeeded. Profitably digressing into the rich legends of the Bridge and the AIDS Saint and exploring the culture and mindset of bicycle couriers. In contrast Idoru offers only half-hearted descriptions of post-earthquake Tokyo psychosis, a staircase of chemically solidified urine and teenage fan club politics.

Idoru lacks ambition. Just when Neal Stephenson is reaching out further into the future with The Diamond Age, Gibson pulls back into a closer, blander tomorrow. And loses his lyrical style and plot originality at the same time. Both of which were still strongly evident in Virtual Light.

Virtual Light was an interesting and successful attempt to turn away from technological extrapolation and towards sociological exploration, where the defining myths of the generation were human events, not technological advances in cyberspace or Artificial Intelligence. Set in the same world, Idoru is not a worthy sequel.

Gibson's decline is shocking in its rapidity. But the Master was so capable that a huge fall still results in a novel of above-average quality. Nevertheless Science Fiction has lost what was once its greatest and boldest poet visionary. One hopes that it is temporary. The man whose writings defined a new sub-genre of Science Fiction and gave cyberspace its name is capable of greater things. Perhaps a third novel will yet profitably build upon the work in Virtual Light and Idoru. An ardent fan prays that it is so.

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