IDORU

Cyberspace and virtual-reality guru Gibson's new venture is set in the same near-future as Virtual Light (1993) and has at least one of the characters in common. "Netrunner" Colin Laney has an unusual ability to see "nodal points," ordinarily imperceptible data associations. Indirectly, he's hired by scarred, giant Keith Alan Blackweli, Rez's fiercely protective security chief—Rez being the half-Irish singer of superstar band Lo/Rez. Blackwell is concerned that someone may be trying to manipulate his boss, Rez having expressed his determination to marry Rei Toei, a Japanese idoru—a computer personality-construct{ From Seattle, meanwhile, 14-year-old Chia McKenzie is sent by her local Lo/Rez fan club to Japan to investigate a peculiar rumor about Rez and a certain idoru. On the plane she meets weird Maryalice, who dupes Chia into smuggling a dangerous package through customs—though when Maryalice starts fighting with her boyfriend Eddie, Chia flees with the package. Laney, unable to work with insufficient and impersonal data, insists on meeting Rez, whereupon he's captivated by Rei Toei. Eddie's Russian gangster friends demand their package, and assuming that Chia, Rez, and Laney are connected, hunt Chia. With violence occurring and worse to follow, only some nifty computer work by Laney and by Chia and her friends averts disaster; helpfully, Rex proposes to exchange the package for some real estate. Markedly more relaxed and cordial, and less aggressively high-tech, than hitherto—even the plotting's improved: highly approachable, engaging, and persuasive.