Idoru

By: William Gibson

Narrated by: John McLain

Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's Summary

21st century Tokyo, after the millennial quake. Neon rain. Light everywhere blowing under any door you might try to close. Where the New Buildings, the largest in the world, erect themselves unaided, their slow rippling movements like the contractions of a sea-creature...

Colin Laney is here looking for work. He is an intuitive fisher for patterns of information, the "signature" an individual creates simply by going about the business of living. But Laney knows how to sift for the dangerous bits. Which makes him useful - to certain people.

Chia McKenzie is here on a rescue mission. She's 14. Her idol is the singer Rez, of the band Lo,Rez. When the Seattle chapter of the Lo,Rez fan club decided that he might be in trouble in Tokyo, they sent Chia to check it out.

Rei Toei is the idoru - the beautiful, entirely virtual media star adored by all Japan. Rez has declared that he will marry her. This is the rumor that has brought Chia to Tokyo. True or not, the idoru and the powerful interests surrounding her are enough to put all their lives in danger...

©1996 William Gibson (P)2018 Tantor

The narrator made me turn this off in 10 seconds

I've read the book and am a diehard Gibson fan. I was ecstatic to see Idoru had finally been released as an audio book - I've been meaning to reread it for a while now, so a listen would be perfect.

I'm sure Mr. McLain is a fine narrator in general - not for this title. Super-cheesy, horrible cadence and pacing. Just crap. Off it went, back it goes.

Good post-cyberpunk Gibson...with problems

Through the Bridge Trilogy and on into the Blue Ant trilogy, Gibson moved into his post-cyberpunk work that's near-future-to-basically-present and relates more directly to the current world.
Idoru is the 2nd in the Bridge Trilogy

As the second work, I think it suffers from some pacing problems that a second work in a trilogy can have (though his stuff tends to read as stand-alone stories pretty well) - so nothing unusual in that middle child problem - and as long as you are invested in the trilogy, any hiccups wash out in the mix

PROBLEM : audible doesn't seem to carry "virtual light" (the Frank Muller performance is classic Muller with all the quality you'd expect...excellent and easy on the ears. I believe there is a Peter Weller read version as well, but I haven't heard it). That really breaks up the series

I think the MAJOR problem with the trilogy is performance
1) This particular performance is...I'm sorry to say it - just not very good
2) The companion pieces aren't done by the same readers so, as a trilogy, you don't get the "the voice of the trilogy" that keeps things cohesive


I'd hope, esp as it's an older series, audible could maybe work out a deal to rerecord as it is a major work for Gibson

not the best performance but good story

Sounded like that scene in arrested development when Gob is reading the Country Club menu to Lucille 2.

Excellent except for the narrator

The story is excellent every time. The narrator is at times unbearable though, reading the entire story as if he were reading for an action movie trailer. It leaves much of the delivery flat, the characters become expressionless and the tone doesn't match the story. That said, I prefer it at least to other narrators who affect a falsetto for smaller/female characters, so there is that.

Awful reader. Good book.

I'm a huge Gibson fan, and have just about all of the audiobooks. Unfortunately, this has a terrible narrator, who sounds like he's doing a weather report on the local news the whole time. the reading was bad enough that I returned the book.

Terrible Narration

Preview the narration before purchasing. I wish I had.
The narrator uses a downward-pitched diphthong at the end of nearly every sentence. It makes this great story impossible to listen to.

Slow start but great story in the end.

Like many Gibson books, the start is slow. In this case it took about 1/3 of the book before it was actually interesting. From that point on though it was immediately good, quickly becoming incredible.

Definitely recommend. Narration is very good too, though maybe not quite as good as Jonathan Davis. Still very enjoyable and well worth the time and effort.

Wow!

I loved this book. The author made the detail rich descriptions of the environments a very tangible thing. The story made me want to sit all the way through to the end. I had difficulties putting my phone down during the course of my day.

The reader did a great job. The reader carried me into the environment like a tour guide who had seen it all. you hear the main characters distress carried by the reader.

This is one great Cyberpunk novel. I really enjoyed this story.

Unusual but interesting near future story.

I love Gibson but this one dragged and the Narrator was hard to listen to

A great little romp through Gibson’s mind

I love William Gibson for his characters, but there was something about the characters in this one that just didn’t get me to care about them. Overall there’s some great worldbuilding, some great imagery and a few surprising supporting characters that stole the show more than the main ensemble, but if you’re looking for a solid William Gibson experience, listen to/read the Sprawl trilogy first.