Many aspects of Tokyo will still be familiar, like riding the train, manga-reading salarimen, ramen shops and nightclubs filled with international hostesses, but there are also some surprises. In Gibson's future, Tokyo has been transformed, or rather deconstructed - first violently by a mega-earthquake which kills 86,000 people, and then in the aftermath by sinister nano-technology machines that relentlessly rebuild the city's shattered skyscrapers.

The narrative is deliciously complex with many avenues to explore for Tokyo lovers, technophiliacs and even technophobes. "Idoru" begins by introducing Colin Laney who is working for the obscenely rich Chinese/Irish pop superstars Lo/Rez. Laney is originally lured to Tokyo believing he will be interviewed for a job. His interviewer turns out to be a menacing one-eared villain from Australia who owes his freedom to and works as a minder-come-expediter for Rez (the Irish half of the band who is engaged to be married to a beautiful, synthetic, holographic idol-singer, or "idoru", named Rei Toie).

Like many of the characters in this cyberpunk saga, Laney has a checkered past which includes having done time in a federal U.S. orphanage where he was subjected to drug experimentation. The story, largely seen through Laney's eyes, flits back and forth in time as we learn about his accidental involvement in the death of a media celebrity. Laney still suffers from the after-effects of a government-sponsered drug which turns users "into homicidal stalkers of celebrities." He constantly struggles with a half-remembered past which emerges and melds with the present. Into this peptic mix leaps Chia, the 14-year-old founding member of the Seattle Lo/Rez fan club.

What most captivated me about this excellent if slightly scattered novel was its future noir vision of a recreated Tokyo. From the noninvasive DNA sampling to which newly arrived passengers disgorged from SST's at Narita are subjected, to the gasohol cars in the city streets, to the refrigerators and toilets that talk - this Tokyo is fantastic but credible. In one passage the virtual space of "The Walled City" is described with the future noir elegance which has become Gibson's signature:

"There's a place where it's always light . . . Bright, everywhere. No place dark. Bright like mist, like somebody falling, always every second. All the colors of it. Towers you can't see the top of, and the light falling. Down below, they pile up bars. Bars and strip clubs and discos. Stacked up like shoe boxes, one on top of the other. And no matter how far you worm your way in, no matter how many stairs you climb, how many elevators you ride, no matter how small a room you finally get to, the light still finds you. It's a light that blows in under the door, like powder. Fine, so fine."

While the plot does get rather involved, which may leave you reaching for a powder to counter the effects of information overload, one the whole I would recommend this latest offering from the world's premier cyberpunk scribe.

Reviewed by David Byerlee

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