I have a vague sense that this is the most well-regarded of Gibson's post-Sprawl books, mostly because the Idoru of the title anticipates the current use of virtual pop-stars in Japan, though how well the two things map to each other I don't know. Personally, I think that it's the best novel he's ever written, and he's never written a bad one, not because of his predictive powers but because of a sideways emotional hook at the end. Gibson's smooth polished surface cool resists real depth of empathy. One tends to admire or like his characters than truly care about them. However, my enduring memory of the first time I read this was terrible concern for Chia, vulnerable, innocent, but definitely not stupid, off on her own in the big bad world, but I had forgotten about Zona Rosa, and for once I left a Gibson novel with, as usual, a shimmering brain, but also deeply moved.

Idoru is slightly less Elmore Leonardy than Virtual Light. What it reminded me of, more than anything, was a Richard Stark novel. Like Stark, Gibson never wastes a word, a sentence or even a chapter. Everything is precision-tooled, hand-crafted, old school workmanship. It's lean, taut, tight and fast, all the more admirable for the way it evokes a version of the future and deals with cutting edge ideas of technology and pop-culture and wraps them around the double-braided plot in a trim, elegant and concise thriller.