The author himself described these novels as “my take on the 1990s” but commented that “lots of people assumed I was still writing about the capital-F future.”Ĭombining elements of post-apocalyptic and dystopian imagery with a characteristic eye on the effects of technology, Virtual Light follows marginalised characters through a fractured California. The ‘Bridge’ trilogy ( Virtual Light, Idoru, All Tomorrow’s Parties 1993-99) is set in a more identifiable near future than Neuromancer and the cyberpunk novels and stories which built Gibson’s reputation. Neuromancer and Gibson’s other early work (the ‘Sprawl’ trilogy) charts the vast uncharted territory of data-information he designates as ‘cyberspace’. Virtual Light begins the ‘Bridge’ trilogy, grounded in a recognisable California shaped by corporate technology, with a view through virtual reality glasses. Snow Crash posits a form of virtual reality as a fully-formed location ( the ‘Metaverse’), populated by avatars, as an alternative to daily life. In Vurt and Noon’s related novels, the titular magical realm – a shared hallucination or fantastic place – is reached via ingesting feathers. These books share a central theme of an escape from dystopian futures into alternate worlds, and display an interest in altered states, shared hallucinations and virtual realities.
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