Status
Available
Call number
Series
Collection
Publication
Ace (2000), Edition: First Edition, 277 pages
Description
From his cardboard box in the Tokyo subway, connected to the Internet, a clairvoyant cyberpunk mobilizes his friends to avert a world disaster. It is due to occur on a bridge in San Francisco, now home to squatters, and is part of a rich man's bid for world domination.
User reviews
LibraryThing member kevinashley
Too many of the same themes for me as at least two other Gibson novels (Japan, vague data-ness, assassins, upheavals to the status quo, collectable objects) and it is beginning to feel a bit lazy and formulaic. Little is explained in the end, and the end is a thudding anti-climax. I am unsure why
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Gibson gets the accolades he does. He's not a bad author by any means - far from it - but neither does he seem to be the great visionary that some seem to paint him as. If you are a great fan of Gibson, you have probably already read this, or will enjoy it when you do. If you haven't read him before, but are interested, this may be as good a starting point as any. There are one or two really novel ideas in here that others might have made an entire book, or at least a short story out of, but that Gibson just scatters like confetti through the text. I'm not clear myself whether that's a strength or a weakness. Show Less
LibraryThing member AltheaAnn
Gibson is just such a great writer. His imagery isn't distracting as one reads it, but has a way of transforming the most mundane things into the exotic and futuristic. His settings are often barely sci-fi - but the way he talks about them, they seem as if they are. Leads to philosophical musings
'All Tomorrow's Parties' is a sequel to Virtual Light and Idoru, but works as a stand-alone as well. Not much actually happens in the book. It's more about setting, characters, concepts.
Ex-cop Rydell is now working as a security guard at a chain convenience store, when he gets an offer to do a mysterious 'job' for his friend Laney, which sends him to a squatter's community of The Bridge. Escaping an abusive ex-boyfriend, former bike messenger Chevette also returns to the Bridge, towed by a more bourgeoise friend, a film student bent on documenting the Bridge's "interstitial" community. Meanwhile, Laney, ill in a homeless man's cardboard box in Japan, remains online, perceiving, with the abilities given him by experimental drugs, the convergence of a nodal point, which could mean the end of the world.
Of course, the AI 'idoru' Rei Tei, is involved as well...
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about - it's all in how you look at the world....'All Tomorrow's Parties' is a sequel to Virtual Light and Idoru, but works as a stand-alone as well. Not much actually happens in the book. It's more about setting, characters, concepts.
Ex-cop Rydell is now working as a security guard at a chain convenience store, when he gets an offer to do a mysterious 'job' for his friend Laney, which sends him to a squatter's community of The Bridge. Escaping an abusive ex-boyfriend, former bike messenger Chevette also returns to the Bridge, towed by a more bourgeoise friend, a film student bent on documenting the Bridge's "interstitial" community. Meanwhile, Laney, ill in a homeless man's cardboard box in Japan, remains online, perceiving, with the abilities given him by experimental drugs, the convergence of a nodal point, which could mean the end of the world.
Of course, the AI 'idoru' Rei Tei, is involved as well...
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LibraryThing member iayork
Worth reading, but not his best: The many other reviews of All Tomorrow's Parties (a title I was completely unable to connect with the plot) have covered the waterfront pretty well on this, so I'll just chime in that Gibson is a far better writer than most sci-fi novelists, has an obvious gift for
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seeing where the trends in the present may lead in the future, and has written several more interesting novels than this one. I've never regretted reading any Gibson novel or story, and I've read almost all of them, and I read All Tomorrow's Parties in a few days. It does hold one's interest. But it's pretty much by the numbers. Gibson weavers together many characters on a collision course that doesn't catch up with them until near the end of the book, so we spend a great deal of time holding all these characters and subplots in suspension while we plug away, waiting to see how they all relate. Eventually, they do, and while I'd like to say "hang in there, it'll all pay off," I can't; the plot that holds them all together is very, very thin, and is more an excuse for a novel than a good reason for one. Gibson nonetheless tosses in a few interesting ideas, and a few memorable characters, but not much that I'll remember after a few months. Show Less
LibraryThing member isabelx
Laney reaches up and removes the bulky, old-fashioned eyephones. Yamazaki cannot see what outputs to them, but the shifting light from the display reveals Laney's hollowed eyes. "It's all going to change, Yamazaki. We're coming up on the mother of all nodal points. I can see it, now. It's all going
"I don't understand."
"Know what the joke is? It didn't change when they thought it would. Millennium was a Christian holiday. I've been looking at history, Yamazaki. I can see the nodal points in history. Last time we had one like this was 1911."
"What happened in 1911?"
"Everything changed."
"How?"
"It just did. That's how it works. I can see it now."
Laney is living in a cardboard crate in the Tokyo underground and spending most of his time in the net, tracking the growth of a nodal point that will change everything, and employs Rydell to be his eyes and ears on the ground in San Francisco. Chevette is also heading for San Francisco, on the run from a coldly violent ex-boyfriend, while the idoru Rei Toei seems to have vanished completely.
An exciting end to the trilogy, which gets extra bonus points from me for because the books are less than 300 pages long. Anything up to 450 pages is okay, but under 350 is better, and if and authors takes 600, 800, or even worse, 1000+ pages to tell their story, then I'm unlikely to bother picking their book up.
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to change." "I don't understand."
"Know what the joke is? It didn't change when they thought it would. Millennium was a Christian holiday. I've been looking at history, Yamazaki. I can see the nodal points in history. Last time we had one like this was 1911."
"What happened in 1911?"
"Everything changed."
"How?"
"It just did. That's how it works. I can see it now."
Laney is living in a cardboard crate in the Tokyo underground and spending most of his time in the net, tracking the growth of a nodal point that will change everything, and employs Rydell to be his eyes and ears on the ground in San Francisco. Chevette is also heading for San Francisco, on the run from a coldly violent ex-boyfriend, while the idoru Rei Toei seems to have vanished completely.
An exciting end to the trilogy, which gets extra bonus points from me for because the books are less than 300 pages long. Anything up to 450 pages is okay, but under 350 is better, and if and authors takes 600, 800, or even worse, 1000+ pages to tell their story, then I'm unlikely to bother picking their book up.
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LibraryThing member carlosemferreira
The end of the Bridge trilogy brings it all together; the apparently unrelated stories of Virtual Light and Idoru bursting into one single nodal point, with the future, the present and the past all coming together to astonishing results. Brilliant book.
LibraryThing member RobertDay
The final part of Gibson's 'Bridge' trilogy, this book is less telegraphic than 'Idoru', but it brings all the threads of the previous novels together. It explodes into cyberpunkish ultra-violence from time to time, and oddly it reads less like a contemporary novel than the previous two books in
My personal copy was autographed by the author the day before official publication.
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the trilogy, probably because it relies ultimately on the Lucky Dragon convenience store chain. The ending seems like an anti-climax; most of the main characters turn out good in the end and have happy endings, whilst the looming nodal point in human affairs passes by almost without notice. Only in retrospect do you realise what that nodal point was and what its implications are - which is the way things really are in the real world, so full marks there.My personal copy was autographed by the author the day before official publication.
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LibraryThing member DRFP
Standard sort of Gibson fare - multiple storylines converging, future predictions, and obscure outcomes. The start of the novel is a bit slow and rather little seems to be at stake, but eventually it all gets going and comes together nicely. The great nodal tipping point wasn't all that interesting
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(I thought) and this isn't Gibon's best and most inspirational novel, but it's still decent all round. Show Less
LibraryThing member Eyejaybee
I think that William Gibson is a marvellous writer, and one who has never really received the mainstream credit that his books deserve. This concluding volume of his "Bridge" trilogy may just fall short of the high standards set by its predecessors ("Virtual Light" and "Idoru") but it still manages
The story picks up shortly after the end of "Idoru" with Laney battling against illness to analyse the vast flow of information across the internet, searching for evidence of "nodal" seismic shift. As a child Laney had been brought up in care homes and had, without his knowledge at the time, been dosed with an experimental psychotic drug which has left him with almost clairvoyant powers to discern, and even predict, world-changing trends. He becomes increasing convinced that Harwood, a billionaire PR maestro, is about to provoke a major seismic shift in the world of information flow, with potentially catastrophic consequences for everyone else.
The action is focused on the Golden Gate Bridge which, following earthquakes a few years before has become a vertical shanty town, with makeshift dwellings and a bohemian community all of its own. Into this seething locale come Berry Rydell (formerly a cop but now a private security guard for hire, and Chevette Washington, erstwhile courier but now adrift, hiding from a violent ex-partner,, unaware that things are about to kick off in the most chaotic manner. Meanwhile an awesomely efficient hit-man is operating on the Bridge, dispatching anyone who might get in Harwood's way.
Gibson weaves the various threads together very deftly, and the climax is unexpected but very satisfying.
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to be a very enjoyable book, showcasing many of Gibson's recurring themes: dystopian collapse in the not too distant future, social fragmentation and the proliferation of ghastly reality television programmes.The story picks up shortly after the end of "Idoru" with Laney battling against illness to analyse the vast flow of information across the internet, searching for evidence of "nodal" seismic shift. As a child Laney had been brought up in care homes and had, without his knowledge at the time, been dosed with an experimental psychotic drug which has left him with almost clairvoyant powers to discern, and even predict, world-changing trends. He becomes increasing convinced that Harwood, a billionaire PR maestro, is about to provoke a major seismic shift in the world of information flow, with potentially catastrophic consequences for everyone else.
The action is focused on the Golden Gate Bridge which, following earthquakes a few years before has become a vertical shanty town, with makeshift dwellings and a bohemian community all of its own. Into this seething locale come Berry Rydell (formerly a cop but now a private security guard for hire, and Chevette Washington, erstwhile courier but now adrift, hiding from a violent ex-partner,, unaware that things are about to kick off in the most chaotic manner. Meanwhile an awesomely efficient hit-man is operating on the Bridge, dispatching anyone who might get in Harwood's way.
Gibson weaves the various threads together very deftly, and the climax is unexpected but very satisfying.
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LibraryThing member LukeGoldstein
Timelines and parallel possibilities come together and break apart during each waking second of the day and every sleeping moment of the night. Little connections are being made everywhere that ripple and reverberate throughout society and sometimes, just sometimes, people find a way to get in
For those who don’t know about William Gibson, here is a tasty refresher course. Gibson can’t be said to have burst onto the cyberpunk scene in 1984 with his landmark novel Neuromancer, the reason being that he created the cyberpunk scene. He refers in a large number of his books to nodal points and connectors that bring about change in the world they exist, well, he himself is one of those points. With the introduction of Neuromancer into popular culture he coined the first ever usage of the word “cyberspace” and thereby defined it. Once that found its place in our lexicon the growing world of virtual reality and cyberspace became molded as much by his visions than any scientific field or philosopher. It’s not even too far to say that Neuromancer became the unofficial bible of this burgeoning virtual world. From that point on he was raised to cult-like status by science fiction fans around the world and her has never strayed far from the cyberpunk genre, following things up with titles such as Count Zero, Burning Chrome, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Virtual Light and Idoru. He also wrote the short story Johnny Mnemonic, which was adapted into a completely silly movie with Keanu Reeves as the star.
No that you’ve had your literary history class, let’s discuss this particular work, All Tomorrow’s Parties.
This story revolves around a group of people who unknowingly find themselves at the nexus point of a major change in the world as they know it. Some of them are fighting to stop it, while others are trying to get ahead of it and direct it to their own ends. Lastly, the group which we all feel the most kinship with, are those who are stuck in the middle without any comprehension of how big this situation really is. On the heroic side; Laney, a unwilling patient from an orphanage who was given a drug that now allows him to see the flow of data and understand it on a deeply fundamental level; Rydell, a one time rent-a-cop who encapsulates an archetype that Gibson loves to write, the dark trenchcoat-wearing, quiet-talking, lighting-quick moving, unwilling loner hero; Silencio, a boy who doesn’t speak, but has an innate talent for digging underneath the information he is shown to find the information that he wants; Chevette, a young, punky looking girl who’s undesired ability is being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong man on her arm; and lastly the appearance of Rei Toei, a completely virtual Japanese pop star who is totally sentient, universally desired and somehow nowhere to be found. These are the characters that Gibson weaves into this tale and the enviroment he sets them loose in is a nearly destroyed futuristic version of the Golden Gate bridge, which since a massive earthquake no longer has cars packed on it in traffic jams, but an entire city of squatters and outcasts aptly called “Bridge People”.
One of the things I love about Gibson is his staccato writing style. The stories snap and break as he slices over to a new timeline or another character’s point of view. There is a beat and rythym to his writing that is unique to him alone. I will admit that if you have no knowledge at all of computers and the digital culture, there are going to be a lot of concepts and terms thrown around in Gibson’s work that won’t make a lick of sense. He is the Granddaddy of Cyberpunk and it would definitely be good to brush up on the topic before diving into his world. As for my feelings on this story, I liked it. It is a little tough getting into it, mainly due to so many different threads being started, but once they start to intertwine with each other the excitement from each one builds on the next and you ride that wave until the final page. Overall not quite as intriguing as some of his other books, Pattern Recognition being the most recent I read before this, but still a solid effort and a fun dip into the seedy side of the tech world.
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front of the chaos wave, trying to direct it towards their own desired outcomes. So when telling a story like this it only makes sense to place most of it on a large, broken down bridge, as it leads in one way to a whole new existence, but in another way it leads nowhere at all.For those who don’t know about William Gibson, here is a tasty refresher course. Gibson can’t be said to have burst onto the cyberpunk scene in 1984 with his landmark novel Neuromancer, the reason being that he created the cyberpunk scene. He refers in a large number of his books to nodal points and connectors that bring about change in the world they exist, well, he himself is one of those points. With the introduction of Neuromancer into popular culture he coined the first ever usage of the word “cyberspace” and thereby defined it. Once that found its place in our lexicon the growing world of virtual reality and cyberspace became molded as much by his visions than any scientific field or philosopher. It’s not even too far to say that Neuromancer became the unofficial bible of this burgeoning virtual world. From that point on he was raised to cult-like status by science fiction fans around the world and her has never strayed far from the cyberpunk genre, following things up with titles such as Count Zero, Burning Chrome, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Virtual Light and Idoru. He also wrote the short story Johnny Mnemonic, which was adapted into a completely silly movie with Keanu Reeves as the star.
No that you’ve had your literary history class, let’s discuss this particular work, All Tomorrow’s Parties.
This story revolves around a group of people who unknowingly find themselves at the nexus point of a major change in the world as they know it. Some of them are fighting to stop it, while others are trying to get ahead of it and direct it to their own ends. Lastly, the group which we all feel the most kinship with, are those who are stuck in the middle without any comprehension of how big this situation really is. On the heroic side; Laney, a unwilling patient from an orphanage who was given a drug that now allows him to see the flow of data and understand it on a deeply fundamental level; Rydell, a one time rent-a-cop who encapsulates an archetype that Gibson loves to write, the dark trenchcoat-wearing, quiet-talking, lighting-quick moving, unwilling loner hero; Silencio, a boy who doesn’t speak, but has an innate talent for digging underneath the information he is shown to find the information that he wants; Chevette, a young, punky looking girl who’s undesired ability is being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong man on her arm; and lastly the appearance of Rei Toei, a completely virtual Japanese pop star who is totally sentient, universally desired and somehow nowhere to be found. These are the characters that Gibson weaves into this tale and the enviroment he sets them loose in is a nearly destroyed futuristic version of the Golden Gate bridge, which since a massive earthquake no longer has cars packed on it in traffic jams, but an entire city of squatters and outcasts aptly called “Bridge People”.
One of the things I love about Gibson is his staccato writing style. The stories snap and break as he slices over to a new timeline or another character’s point of view. There is a beat and rythym to his writing that is unique to him alone. I will admit that if you have no knowledge at all of computers and the digital culture, there are going to be a lot of concepts and terms thrown around in Gibson’s work that won’t make a lick of sense. He is the Granddaddy of Cyberpunk and it would definitely be good to brush up on the topic before diving into his world. As for my feelings on this story, I liked it. It is a little tough getting into it, mainly due to so many different threads being started, but once they start to intertwine with each other the excitement from each one builds on the next and you ride that wave until the final page. Overall not quite as intriguing as some of his other books, Pattern Recognition being the most recent I read before this, but still a solid effort and a fun dip into the seedy side of the tech world.
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LibraryThing member lbowman
really enjoyed this! Surprisingly life-affirming, and I really wasn't sure which way, or how, it was going to go.
LibraryThing member manque
Typically Gibsonian in a good way, but suffers from characterization that verges on the cartoonish at times and an over-reliance on repetitive techno-babble that mars the narrative. Nevertheless interesting for its ideas about nodal points in history. Not a classic, and definitely not up to the
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standards of Iain Banks or Neil Stephenson in its grasp and presentation of technology--but if you like Gibson's work you'll probably like this enough to overlook the stale plot and other flaws and get through it once. Show Less
LibraryThing member anais_a
I've never read anyone else like William Gibson. I first read his Pattern Recognition and Neuromancer. While I don't always understand whence his views on societal trends and technology stem, I find the bizarre details he slides into his novels fascinating. That said, this book quickly became a
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vague memory for me. While I remember the overarching feeling it produced, the points of the plot and characters did not leave a strong impression. Show Less
LibraryThing member Winterrain
When you ask a person what his or her opinion of a William Gibson book is, the most likely answer is "it's okay." Nevertheless, I think Gibson is one of those authors whom you either love or hate- he has a very distinctive style that draws you in completely but doesn't let you get to close. Reading
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All Tomorrow's Parties is like finding yourself in a foreign country you know nothing about, with a map you can only read about three quarters of. Show Less
LibraryThing member sturlington
Gibson is one of those authors who started out strong and just keeps getting better. I’m not going to claim that I understood every last thing in this story of a near-future society where virtual reality is commonplace and an entire society of squatters lives on the Golden Gate Bridge, but I did
In his trademark sparse prose, Gibson has created an entirely believable world, a cast of characters who are vivid and real, a storyline that is both satisfyingly complex and yet exciting enough to sweep you along toward an explosive yet rather ambiguous ending (I like the ambiguity). Like the intricacies of the plot, the book is impossible to describe in a few sentences – you have to experience it yourself.
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thoroughly enjoy every word.In his trademark sparse prose, Gibson has created an entirely believable world, a cast of characters who are vivid and real, a storyline that is both satisfyingly complex and yet exciting enough to sweep you along toward an explosive yet rather ambiguous ending (I like the ambiguity). Like the intricacies of the plot, the book is impossible to describe in a few sentences – you have to experience it yourself.
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LibraryThing member elenchus
All Tomorrow's Parties is the final novel in the Bridge Trilogy, re-visiting Virtual Light's California and Idoru's Japan. Now Chevette & Rydell (VL) join Laney and Rei Toei (ID) on the same stage, if not sharing the same scenes, with most of the action in SF and on the Bridge. The condemned Bay
The series arc played out in the wings of the first two books, but comes center stage here -- ATP as coda to the Bridge sonata. ATP is very much an abstract work, and inverts what Gibson did with the prior installments in the trilogy. Where those novels served up familiar plots and left the big ideas to surface in parenthetical commentary along the way, here that commentary is the story, and here events themselves are best understood as secondary. The earlier books didn't prepare for this so it's small surprise the lack of plot here can be disorienting. Gibson didn't translate his ideas into actions, rather what plot there is amounts to little more than an audience gathering to watch the results of a papal conclave. And yet, there's little drama and opposition as might be expected by anyone watching smoke from the Sistine Chapel: Did factions work against my candidate? What arguments or deals are made? Here, any scheming and backstabbing between characters is replaced with abstract conceptions of what it would look like to observe history shifting from one era to another, and plot merely describes the announcement of the ballot result, not the machinations undertaken when holding the election.
In that light, ATP is a strategic game not an allegory, and characters are tokens: game counters suggesting the abstract interactions Gibson moves around a board of the 20th Century. So: Harwood embodies the deliberate shaping of history toward personal ends, Laney the force of principled resistance. Both took drug 5-SB (Harwood voluntarily, hah! and Laney involuntarily). Konrad (aka Loveless) embodies Tao, a balancing point between Laney and Harwood -- though in the plot, Konrad works directly for Harwood. Interestingly Rei Toei is an emergent system, collaborating with Laney (he taught her data nodal recognition), and could be seen as another manifestation of Tao, but in her case the employer not the mercenary. Rei Toei's manifestation at the end seems most indicative of the shift Laney sees coming: Gibson's everting internet.
Gibson set himself a serious puzzle, to put his ideas into a novel rather than an essay of speculative non-fiction. Rewarding for any reader giving it the attention it demands, a novel of ideas over action or image.
//
synopsis | Laney has long suspected a massive cultural shift is coming, seeing in the flow of cultural data certain inflection points which suggest a new shape. He strongly suspects the focal point will be San Francisco and the change will be historic. Unable to travel, he hires Rydell to go and report back. Even so, Laney continues his own investigations from Tokyo, but his nodal vision is increasingly distracted by patterns traceable to global marketing figure Cody Harwood. Separately, Chevette is back in San Francisco, avoiding an abusive ex while showing a friend around the Bridge. Chevette collaborated with Rydell once, but is unaware of his work now. Their separate concerns, local and personal, coalesce around a global media event and threaten to disrupt corporate planning and control.
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Bridge, central image to the trilogy, is analogous to the seismic shift anticipated in culture and playing out across all three books, unfolding digitally rather than materially. History relayed not as narrative (the approach of orthodox historians), but as shape with inflection points, seed crystals in solution. The series arc played out in the wings of the first two books, but comes center stage here -- ATP as coda to the Bridge sonata. ATP is very much an abstract work, and inverts what Gibson did with the prior installments in the trilogy. Where those novels served up familiar plots and left the big ideas to surface in parenthetical commentary along the way, here that commentary is the story, and here events themselves are best understood as secondary. The earlier books didn't prepare for this so it's small surprise the lack of plot here can be disorienting. Gibson didn't translate his ideas into actions, rather what plot there is amounts to little more than an audience gathering to watch the results of a papal conclave. And yet, there's little drama and opposition as might be expected by anyone watching smoke from the Sistine Chapel: Did factions work against my candidate? What arguments or deals are made? Here, any scheming and backstabbing between characters is replaced with abstract conceptions of what it would look like to observe history shifting from one era to another, and plot merely describes the announcement of the ballot result, not the machinations undertaken when holding the election.
In that light, ATP is a strategic game not an allegory, and characters are tokens: game counters suggesting the abstract interactions Gibson moves around a board of the 20th Century. So: Harwood embodies the deliberate shaping of history toward personal ends, Laney the force of principled resistance. Both took drug 5-SB (Harwood voluntarily, hah! and Laney involuntarily). Konrad (aka Loveless) embodies Tao, a balancing point between Laney and Harwood -- though in the plot, Konrad works directly for Harwood. Interestingly Rei Toei is an emergent system, collaborating with Laney (he taught her data nodal recognition), and could be seen as another manifestation of Tao, but in her case the employer not the mercenary. Rei Toei's manifestation at the end seems most indicative of the shift Laney sees coming: Gibson's everting internet.
Gibson set himself a serious puzzle, to put his ideas into a novel rather than an essay of speculative non-fiction. Rewarding for any reader giving it the attention it demands, a novel of ideas over action or image.
//
synopsis | Laney has long suspected a massive cultural shift is coming, seeing in the flow of cultural data certain inflection points which suggest a new shape. He strongly suspects the focal point will be San Francisco and the change will be historic. Unable to travel, he hires Rydell to go and report back. Even so, Laney continues his own investigations from Tokyo, but his nodal vision is increasingly distracted by patterns traceable to global marketing figure Cody Harwood. Separately, Chevette is back in San Francisco, avoiding an abusive ex while showing a friend around the Bridge. Chevette collaborated with Rydell once, but is unaware of his work now. Their separate concerns, local and personal, coalesce around a global media event and threaten to disrupt corporate planning and control.
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Subjects
Awards
SF Site Editor's Choice (1999)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1999
Physical description
277 p.; 6 inches
ISBN
0441007554 / 9780441007554