Book details of 'Virtual Light'

Title	Virtual Light
Author(s)	Gibson
ISBN	0770425682
Language	English
Published	August 1993
Publisher	Bantam Books

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The Virtual Bookcase Reviews of 'Virtual Light':

Reviewer amazon.com wrote:
The author of Neuromancer takes you to the vividly realized near future of 2005. Welcome to NoCal and SoCal, the uneasy sister-states of what used to be California. Here the millennium 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 a bicycle messenger turned pick-pocket who impulsively snatches a pair of innocent-looking sunglasses. But these are no ordinary shades. What you can see through these high-tech specs can make you rich--or get you killed. Now Berry and Chevette are on the run, zeroing in on the digitalized heart of DatAmerica, where pure information is the greatest high. And a mind can be a terrible thing to crash. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Reviewer Rob Slade wrote:
"Neuromancer" was a very demanding book. First of all, it was set in a most unattractive future. Secondly, it had very unsympathetic protagonists. In addition, you had Gibson's very choppy, intercut style. (It is quite reminiscent of the time that Snoopy, in his eternal novel writing, punches out about eight completely unrelated scenes and then explains to the audience that "In chapter two, I tie all of this together.") Finishing "Neuromancer" required no little dedication to task. "Mona Lisa Overdrive" at least had the advantage of an attractive central character. "Virtual Light" is less demanding, still. The central characters are people you can easily care about and the future society, while unpleasant, isn't quite as apocalyptic as its predecessors. Devotees of the gritty and grotty cyberpunk world will likely be disappointed by Gibson's latest, but it will undoubtedly bring in a wider audience. Mind you, it's still kind of choppy. Enough of my uneducated pretensions to literary criticism. What about the tech stuff? There isn't any. Oh, sure, this is set in the future. Handguns are more powerful. Cellular phones have more range. (Not much battery life, though.) There are virtual reality sets, and "virtual light" sets that let you see without light (by imposing sensations directly on the optic nerve). None of this, however, is in any way necessary to the plot, which is really a straight mystery centred around a secret deal to ... well, that's a secret, isn't it? The virtual light glasses are no more central to the story than the "hackers" who eventually "save the day". Maybe Gibson is moving into Ludlum's turf. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994
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