Virtual Light

Gibson, William. Virtual Light. New York: Spectra-Bantam, 1993. ISBN 0-553-07499-7.

Cyberpunk novel, but gentler than Gibson's Neuromancer series, set in a near-future California, mostly in greater Los Angeles and San Francisco. Plot revolves around the murder of a courier from whom a major character has casually stolen a pair of what she thinks are sunglasses. The stolen article — a kind of high-tech Maltese Falcon — turns out to be "Virtual Light" glasses loaded with highly confidential data about plans to make over San Francisco via nanotechnology (see 129-31 for VL, ch. 15; also see Acknowledgments). Note typically Gibsonian high-tech texture, and the importance of computer hackers at key points in the plot. Rev. Gwyneth Jones, Foundation #60 (Spring 1994): 104-08.

Dominick Grace offers an important discussion of this novel in "From Videodrome to Virtual Light: David Cronenberg and William Gibson."

(RDE, 10/11/93; 29/10/94; 26/12/01; 12May19, 22Jun22)