GeekNights Book Club: Idoru

Tonight on the GeekNights Book Club, we discuss William Gibson's Idoru. It's a product of its time - the 1990s - showcasing both the promise and the dystopia projected from that era. Wildly inconsistent in its treatment of technology (fax machines, disposable cameras, and IR remote controls exist alongside city-building nanotechnology and true AI), steeped in the cyberpunk aesthetic, it is typical of Gibson and of its era. If we had to say what it's truly about, it's fame, information, and adolescence. The Idol herself, as AI, is not the core of this book: don't read it expecting to be blown away with a deep look at at the Sharon Apple story. The side details, the setting, the meta, are what make this book worthwhile.

In the news (related in some way to the book), Max Martin is the man behind the idols, and Google Glass prescription frames are allowing Rym to take one more step toward cyberization.