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Can’t give it an enthusiastic recommendation. This may be more reflective of my tastes (I prefer the work of Philip K. Dick and William S. Burroughs for instance, two writers whose work has influenced Gibson) than of the quality of Gibson’s work. The amazing thing about the book, written before personal computers were in wide use, in the era of video games like Pac-Man and Asteroids, is that Gibson foresees a lot of things we are familiar with now, in the era of the Internet, computer hackers, computer viruses and virtual reality. The protagonist is hired, or, to be more exact, coerced, to hack past the firewalls and security systems of a corporate data bank. He is aided by a mercenary ninja, some Rastafarian pilots, and the digitized consciousness of another legendary hacker (with regard to this latter, the book makes some interesting comments on the analogy between human consciousness and electronically stored data). As the protagonist “travels� through virtual reality and matrices of data, he learns about a conspiracy involving a rich family and an artificial intelligence program that is programmed into their corporate computer system.

The writing is poetic in places, and Gibson’s descriptions of scenes set both in the familiar, urban world, and the fantastic world of cyberspace suggest that the right director and production company could get a good movie out of this book. However, the writing can sometimes be elliptical and jargonistic, and in a number of instances a lack of interpretive narratorial commentary makes it difficult to follow important plot points.

Acquired Apr 5, 2008
City Lights Book Shop, London, Ontario