With "All Tomorrow’s Parties", William Gibson puts an ellipsis on a series that started with Virtual Light, and was moved along by Idoru.

Actually it may never be apparent that Idoru is connected to Virtual Light untilone is reading Gibson's most recent offering.

Like all of Gibson's stories, Parties has a 'just-around-the-corner' feel to it, in which technological change and social decay are just a couple of generations' removed from the present. Any reader mildly aware of the biznocentricity that permeates present day life should be able to infer a few steps to most of the gadgets and conditions in the world he presents.

One should not imagine that Gibson places technology on a throne. Quite the contrary: for Gibson technology is usually what causes not only the central mess that is the motivation for his characters, but it is also the cause of the background radiation of chaos that dresses his sets. His optimistic vision of humanity is revealed in how ordinary people end up using solutions cobbled together of whatever is available, including each other. They use ordinary means to prevail over immediate obstacles. In the bargain their cooperation serves to flummox whatever evil imagining had been contrived by the global conglomerate du jour. These makeshift coalitions are sometimes, but not always naïve to what they've wrought, and nobody gets out of Gibson's scenarios happily ever after. But any Gibson aficionado knows that this is just general Gibsonia. All Tomorrow's Parties expands on a social construct that has been most ironically tagged by a New Yorker cartoon with the caption "on the internet, no one knows you're a dog." You can easily imagine the accompanying drawing. But in Parties, the internet has already become an archaic notion, and the integration among net, TV, music and information systems has become second nature.

This is the world of Laney, a data miner from Idoru, who once worked for the most powerful infotainment company in the world. In Parties Laney has been reduced to living in a cardboard box in a Tokyo subway station. As the book progresses we find that doesn't really matter to him. In the realm of pure data, Laney is a visionary, complete with disciples and fans. One hilarious sycophant is known to us simply as 'the suit,' who is Laney's go between for cough syrup, candy bars, and an intoxicant that allows him to remain awake. 'The suit' was once an executive with a powerful kiretsu, if we are to believe the self-published biography thathe carries around in a zip lock bag. But now he also lives in a box, but nonetheless wears what was once a very fine suit, meticulously maintained by its wearer through the years. Likewise there is a lot of intricate and exacting repair work on his black framed glasses using electrical tape. He also paints his shirt with white shoe polish, since he cannot launder it. but only the part that shows. And having no socks, he paints his ankles black, all in the service of appearances. From across the street, he would look to be the archetypal salaryman, but up close, Laney notes through the drowse in one of his periodic detachments from his 'eyephones' that 'the suit' reeks with an odor as intense and complex as the data forms with which he (Laney) is enthralled.

As low as he has sunk in the traditional sense, Laney has a very powerful enemy, Harwood, who happens to be the richest person in the world. He runs not a software company, but a public relations concern. The firm of Harwood Levine is in cahoots with a Seven Eleven look alike to manipulate the ubiquitous network to their collective benefit. Laney and his followers (who comprise a virtual community) perceive Harwood as a threat to the evolution that is occurring. But the locus of change will be San Francisco, so Laney needs a proxy on the ground. Enter Berry Rydel, who works security at a Los Angeles branch of the convenience store. A retainer from Laney draws him north on the same day that his ex-girlfriend, Chevette, arrives from Malibu. They were both prominent in Virtual Light. Of course Harwood has his people there too, otherwise he could not engage Laney in the central conflict of the book, namely that everything is about to change. Neither of them know exactly what that means, but Harwood wants to control the outcome. Laney simply wants to let it happen. The battle is joined at street level and in cyber-space, where it is assisted by a mute adolescent who is patched into eBay to pursue his fascination with watches.

Between Harwood and Laney stands the force of 'the moment,' personified in the character of a Martial Arts master in Harwood's employ. We are never privy to his true loyalties, but he is instrumental in letting the change occur. When all is said and done, he is the most interesting character in the book, if only because during the down and dirty dust ups, he emerges unscathed but for a slight scratch on the face. Along the way to his implied final meeting with Harwood, he is the one thingthat keeps everything in balance. The only thing about him of which we can be certain is that he cares nothing for outcome, only for process.

What finally happens to change everything is rather surprising, and something that neither Laney nor Harwood could have predicted. It is this change that finally ties together Virtual Light, Idoru and All Tomorrow's Parties. But don't think that it's all over. Gibson leaves the door open for several more books along this line when during dénouement he reintroduces a third tier character we met in Idoru. This series is never quite as edgy or dangerous as his Neuromancer trilogy, but William Gibson fans would do well to read All Tomorrow's Parties, if only to keep the taste. Those same fans may be annoyed by the author's periodic recitation of plot lines from Virtual Light and Idoru for the benefit of those who haven't read them. But when Gibson let's the story tell itself it merges with Virtual Light. It is not Gibson's best, nor would it be required to read the first two novels before you packed All Tomorrow’s Parties in your carry-on bag, but it will probably be a lot better than the in-flight movie.

Copyright © 1999 Patrick J. Reed All Rights Reserved

Patrick Reed is a writer and web designer/publisher living in San Francisco. Send any inquiries to pjreed@pacbell.net