Cyberpunk

 Article 16335 of alt.cyberpunk:

Path: news.u.washington.edu!netnews.nwnet.net!usenet.coe.montana.edu!decwrl!olivea!pagesat!news.cerf.net!crash!ryptyde!cranky

Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk

Subject: _Virtual Light_ dust jacket text

From: cranky@netlink.cts.com (Kent Smith)

Message-ID: <T13g4B1w165w@netlink.cts.com>

Date: Wed, 12 May 93 22:13:16 PDT

Organization: NetLink Online Communications, San Diego CA

Lines: 88

Howdy,

        I just recently started following this newsgroup, and I thought

some one might be interested in the following.

        I'm a book buyer for a large university book store here in San 

Diego, and I was able to talk my Bantam sales rep into giving me an

uncorrected proof of Gibson's _Virtual Light_ last week. The proof has

on it what I believe is the final version of the dust jacket. The 

following text is from the inside of the jacket.

"Our world is on a technological brink. The Industrial Age has died away; 

before us lies the global promise of the challenging new Age of 

Information. So far, only a few writers have made that new world their 

own. Perhaps the finest of all- and the only one to command widespread 

media attention- is William Gibson, award-winning author of such novels 

as _Neuromancer_, _Mona Lisa Overdrive_, and (witho-author Bruce 

) Now, with his most fascinating novel to date, Gibson looks into our 

_very_ near future, bringing it into sharp and darkly comic focus."

"Welcome to NoCal and SoCal, 2005, the uneasy sister-states of Northern 

and Southern California, in a nation and society still divided along 

seismic fault lines of wealth and power... chasms seldom crossed except 

in fear, exploitation, or violence. The millenium has come and gone, 

leaving in its wake the ruins of our outworn modern era and the first 

chaotic suggestions of a new paradigm."

"In Tokyo, a new city is growing from the rubble of Godzilla the 

Superquake. In San Francisco Mr. Yamazaki, a Japanese anthropology 

student, investigates the deeper meaning of an anarchic squatter 

community constructed around the disused Bay Bridge. Meanwhile, in Los 

Angeles, Berry Rydel just wants tmake a living. Not an easy thing for an 

ex-cop from Tennessee to do- now that the network has decided _not_ to 

base that episode of _Cops in Trouble_ on his brief but all too eventful 

career with the Knoxville P.D. Rydell signs on with IntenSecure Armed 

Response, driving a six-wheeled Hotspur Hussar..."

"It's only a matter of time before he runs into Chevette Washington, a 

bicycle messenger who has just crashed the wrong party... and who is 

about to pick the pocket of another kind of courier- an employee of Costa 

Rica's Medellin-financed havens of illicit data."

"When IntenSecure sends Rydell to San Francisco to drive for Lucius 

Warbaby, a skip-tracer in the Virtual Reality maze of DatAmerica, Rydell 

and Chevette find themselves on a darkly comic journey into the ecstasy 

and dread that mirror each other at the heart of the postmodern 

experience."

"A tour de force of relentless suspense, daring insight, and graphic 

intensity, _Virtual Light_ is a provocative and unforgettable portrait of 

life on the edge of the twenty-first century."

On the back of the proof is a letter from Betsy Mitchell, Associate 

Publisher, Bantam Spectra, and in it she says "...Gibson has completed 

his most _accessible_ [her emphasis] book yet- without sacrificing his 

_disctinctive voice_."

I read the book, and I won't spoil it for anyone, but I will say that it 

has a definite satirical slant, and it is chock-full of imaginative and 

plausible details (AIDs cure, TV-worshiping religious cults, police 

tech...you'll see). However it does seem as if _Virtual Light_'s world of 

2005 is _too_ radically different from our world of 1993. (IMHO) In 

general, it was an entertaining read, but it didn't really hit me too 

hard. Maybe I was expecting something more, Oh I don't know, maybe 

important is the word? I hope I d't get into trouble for this, but it 

kind of read like a cyberpunk Elmore Leonard or Charles Willeford novel 

(which is fine because I'm a big fan of Williford). Let me say again that 

I am just a book _buyer_, not a critic.

_Virtual Light_ is slated for September publication (look for it in 

August) with a price of $21.95. 6" x 9" hardback, 304 pgs, 

ISBN 0-553-07499-7.

I hope this was of some interest.

                                                Kent Smith

                                                San Diego, CA

     *---------------------------------------------------*

     * -Computers are worthless, they can only give you  *

     *  answers.                                         *

     *                                  -Pablo Picasso   *

     *---------------------------------------------------*

--                    

INTERNET:  cranky@netlink.cts.com (Kent Smith)

UUCP:   ...!ryptyde!netlink!cranky

NetLink Online Communications * Public Access in San Diego, CA (619) 453-1115