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Apr 29, 2008

Rob rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Ashley rated it:

You know, it seems like I would really like William Gibson, from what I've heard of him, but there's something about his writing that leaves too much out. This book is the first of his I've been able to finish. I still don't feel like I understood everything he was trying to say--something about a melding of science and nature, centered around the music star Rez and the idoru Rei. It was interesting, but I kept feeling like it was something I was reading out of the corner of my eye, and every ti More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 11, 2011

Cameron Mulder rated it:

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4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 09, 2009

Craig rated it:

This one just didn't grab me. At times I relished the Gibson flair for otherworldly scenarios and the very unfamiliar but very distinctive in some passages. Other times I cringed at the seemingly contrived (and trite) attempts to make instances more than what they were - just uninteresting characters operating in bland locales - all this despite they were in Tokyo!

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 30, 2011

Katy-Del rated it:

I think Gibson tries to say a lot about technology and the nature of celebrity and I'm not sure if I get it all.

I love the story line about the 14 year old named Chia Pet who gets taken advantage of and ends up on the run from the mob.

Colin Laney's story is also interesting. He was working for a company with no scruples and suddenly found that he couldn't just watch someone's life implode without doing something. He tried to expose them, but his own background threa More...

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Feb 26, 2011

Mike rated it:

Now this book I remember better than its immediate predecessor, "Virtual Light". One might guess that it is because I liked "Idoru" better than VL, but I think it is another subjective factor. From the early to end of the 90s I did a fair amount of traveling and East Asia, including Japan was where I went often. So, I suspect that familiarity with the locations and real-world culture and people helped make a stronger impression on me than people living in San Francisco (whi More...

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Dec 07, 2010

Stasa rated it:

The review is part of a combined respones I did for my current MFA program.

Response to Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat, Idoru by William Gibson, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
Attempting a combined response with these three books does not make sense at first blush, but contrasts are often interesting and illuminating, so I will attempt it. My real hesitation is that Diaz’s writing from a craft perspective brings so much more to the table that it More...

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Mar 18, 2010

Fred rated it:

Lo/Rez is the hottest rock band on the planet, but their fan club is horrified by rumors that Rez, the band’s lead singer, intends to marry Rei Toei, a Japanese idoru, an “idol singer.” The problem is, this isn’t your run-of-the-mill Tokyopop princess–Rei Toei is a software agent, a complex amalgamation of computer code that simulates a human being. The Seattle branch of the Lo/Rez fan club is disturbed enough to send one of its members, fourteen-year-old Chia McKenzie, to Japan to investigate. More...

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Mar 11, 2010

Browland rated it:

Gibson is an ideas man: big on 'what', not on 'why' or 'how'. It's been said enough times that his predictions are spookily accurate. This book - written in 1996 - features many foreshadowings of the current time. A time where we hide behind an avatar, led around by geo-aware goggle-boxes. Social networks, always-on broadband, CGI pop stars (nearly).

Gibson's writing has distance. The (lethargic) characters seem behind a transparent wall; you can see but not touch. Laney - one o More...

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Sep 19, 2009

tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE rated it:

This is the 6th bk I've read by Gibson. I read "Neuromancer" 1st & was excited by the CyberPunk genre b/c it seemed like an important new development in SF. Since then, it's become a bit hackneyed for me. In fact, I've kindof long since written off Gibson as being not such a great writer. NONETHELESS, I started reading this, knowing that I'd enjoy it for all the same reasons that I've ever enjoyed CyberPunk: its environment of near-future technical sleaze - &, yes, I immediately be More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 18, 2009

Jocelyn rated it:

William Gibson is a very good author, and so far I've loved all the books of his that I've read, but can't read too much of him too close together, because though his writing is excellent and his plotting is great, the strongest aspect of his narratives, to my mind, is the atmosphere his books conjure. Like eating at a high-end ultra-modern sushi bar, it's fantastic in small doses but I'd get heartily sick of it if I went too often. So, I'm still backlisting, and I'm trying to get through his More...

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Apr 06, 2009

John rated it:

While I'm a bigger fan of Gibson's Sprawl trilogy (Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive), I think Idoru may actually be the best introduction to this work. Unlike the imaginable-but-still-genuinely-strange world of the Sprawl trilogy, Idoru's setting seems to be about 10 minutes into the future (five minutes, if you've already been to Japan); and in this future, pop sensation Rez is has announced that he is going to marry an idoru -- a virtual pop singer with no corporeal existence. More...

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May 29, 2008

Afroditi rated it:

I' d say this book is more "cyberpop" than cyberpunk but i really liked it.

Gibson creates a breathtaking scenery in futuristic Tokyo that follows the fact that an A.I. pop singer - the Idoru and Rez, singer of the Lo-Rez band are having an affair.

For me, Gibson talks about the present, projecting ideas in the future based on technologies that already exist - in this case, the nanotechnology.

Gibson is trully a very intelligent man and a very talent

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 23, 2007

Ash rated it:

I've really been holding out in regards to sci fi. I have a lot of friends who love it, but it took me reading books for school with Gibson footnoted constantly.

Idoru is great and a not too sci-fi introduction to his work. It is a quick read, which is great if you're busy and just want to know what all the hype is about.

It takes place in a future LA and Tokyo and deals a lot with fame in the digital age-- all very interesting if you've ever lived in LA.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 29, 2011

Jonathan rated it:

So, I went into this book with pretty high expectations. It sounded close in source material to an old anime that I really liked called Macross Plus. Sad to say, the description on the back of the book was pretty much where the similarities began and ended. Overall it was a decent, and quick, read. I was hoping more for it to deal with the aspects of an artificial intelligence born in the image of a Japanese pop idol, the Idoru of the book's title, gaining sentience, but it's more of a case More...

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Aug 11, 2009

Nicholas rated it:

William Gibson impresses me more with his imagination than with his story or characters. He is the inventor of cyber-punk and steam-punk (there were some others too but forget them). His concepts and worlds are ones that our world seems to use as guidelines. Reading a Gibson book is what I imagine a computer would see if it could take an acid trip.

The characters aren't great, but they are pretty good. More impressive than anything is his world. It is so real that it feels like I'm More...

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Jan 11, 2012

kingshearte rated it:

I feel that Japan can't possibly be as weird as it seems to inevitably be portrayed in fiction, despite the fact that this portrayal seems to be universal, coming from both Japanese and Western writers. And yet something about Japan seems to inspire people to write very strange stories set there. Admittedly, this one is future-Japan, and future-anywhere is usually a little strange. But yeah. I don't know.

Aside from the weirdness, I'm not sure quite what to make of this. Theoretically More...

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Aug 12, 2010

Martin rated it:

This is my own stupid fault for jumping into a trilogy by reading the second book first; I daresay my opinion of this one will change when I've read the others.

As a cyberpunk piece it's a bit generic but the little details are fun - stuff that's given a futuristic twist, or things you wish were invented already. The latter half felt like a bit of a letdown for some reason, but considering how it extensively explores issues such as the internet and Japanese pop culture it's not aged t More...

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Jul 18, 2010

Asymmetrical rated it:

The fact that some of the "futuristic" detailing of this story is already here and old hat wasn't lost on me, but didn't bother me either. The story world of this book is a believable take on the not-too-distant future. I loved the fantastic worlds people create together to interact online, and the way their avatars have morphed into fully-loaded alter egos. People create elaborate virtual sets and props for their meetings, parties, escapist fantasy, musical sessions, and just about More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 05, 2011

Paul rated it:

Neuromancer, Spook Country, Pattern Recognition, All Tomorrow's Parties, Virtual Light: other William Gibson novels I've reviewed here. As I mentioned way back in my first review, one quickly becomes a William Gibson groupie. After reading all these, plus Idoru, I am more of a groupie than ever. I know, of course, that several of these novels are connected by characters, scenes, and themes, and in fact tell a continuing story. Idoru satisfied my itch to know more about the artificial intellig More...

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Dec 21, 2010

Lee rated it:

Gibson writes well and convincingly. He incorporates the specifics of his futuristic world. The problem is, he has done it better before, and with greater detail, so fans are not likely to forgive him for a simpler world and story. Still, reading any Gibson book is a treat, especially compared with much of what's out there. His ability to incorporate near-future technology with an exciting story that fits perfectly inside this fabricated world is astounding even on this smaller scale.

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Nov 17, 2009

Suna rated it:

Spoilers down here....

I enjoyed this enormously and I only gave it four stars because I am acutely aware I have been spoilt by other science fiction that came after.
If I had read this in the late nineties, it would probably have blown the top off my head for its observations: The obsessive fanclub and its virtual meetings, the psychology and insecurities behind the icons with which they represent themselves, the virtual popstar (Gorillaz, anyone?), etc.

T More...

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Jun 06, 2011

Sam rated it:

Gibson is a gifted writer. Some people may be put off by his futuristic/technical settings, but the characters are fresh enough that the setting does not distract. Gibson has a sense of the future as it is likely to happen. This book was written in 1996 and often science fiction books begin to get that 'dated' feel, this book does not. One thing that was missing from this book was character growth and prevented it from getting five stars. The main character of this book is a flawed person, More...

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Nov 15, 2011

Joe rated it:

This was the William Gibson book I'd been dreading, where the amount of Japanese flavour he weaves into almost every story leaps into the foreground and the whole thing is set in Tokyo, and everything from the title to the time it was written suggested it would be too much of a book by a Japanophile, for Japanophiles. As I read more and more of Gibson's work, though, I had the growing impression that he really did 'get' Japan, or at least see it in a way similar to the way I do, and actually, Id More...

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Jan 07, 2012

Isabel rated it:

Alison Shires, glimpsed first as animated headshots, five months into his time at Slitscan, had been an rather ordinarily attractive girl murmuring her stats to imagined casting directors, agents, someone, anyone.
Kathy Torrance had watched his face, as he watched the screen. "'Babed out' yet, Laney? allergic reaction to cute? First symptoms are a sort of underlying irritation, a resentment, a vague but persistent feeling that you're being gotten at, taken advantage of . . . "
More...

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Mar 08, 2009

Allisonperkel rated it:

I've not read a lot of Gibson so I decided I should really change that. Idoru seemed like a good place to start - or so I thought.

The first thing I noticed was that a book from 96 can feel really dated by 2008. A lot of science fiction can mind you - but after only 13 years - well...that's not good.

Its even worse when you combine a good story with characters who simply are there. That's it.

As a airplane book, it was fine. As a mindlessly quick read, its als More...

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Aug 12, 2011

Stanislav rated it:

What does being a celebrity actually mean? Where does a creation of media end and person start? Gibson creates a universe where it's possible for lives of completely different people meet and do so with a bang. Life of a 14 year old schoolgirl obsessed with a pop-idol, ex-prisoner turned bodyguard with knack for tomahawks and data analyst able to do pattern recognition on big databases. They all want to know what is happening with Rez and Rei Toei. Will they like what they find? Find out! :-) I More...

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Sep 06, 2011

Michael rated it:

Cyberpunk, and Gibson's cyberpunk in particular, is defined by a gritty, tactile, future. The brands, the computers, the specificity of object and place serve to make good cyberpunk dense and hard. This is not good cyberpunk, rather, to borrow an image from the book, it's a lacquered full-scale replica of a cyberpunk novel. All the surfaces are there; the AI love story, the post-modern technological mercenaries, simulated realities, and philosophical musings on a plastic celebrity culture, but More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 08, 2011

Jason rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Apr 16, 2011

Chris rated it:

I liked a lot of the themes that Gibson covers in Idoru - pop/celebrity culture and our obsession with it, the line between virtual reality and real life, and the power of technology to name a few. The scenes inside the virtual worlds and when the characters interacted with the idoru were described beautifully. The only drawback for me was the story was difficult to follow at times, with details speeding past towards larger (nodal) points. Overall, it was a pretty engaging read with some cool no More...

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