This is the third book of The Bridge, a newer trilogy by Gibson which reintroduces many of his earlier ideas within the context of the new technologies that had come out since the Sprawl Trilogy.
This book starts to tie everything together. I liked the way he portrayed Laney and I initially liked Konrad. It was cool to see the AI manipulating people in the real world — just like in The Sprawl — but the Idoru ending was so predictable. I thought that was how the last book would end.
I did really like all the connections to interstitial and existential sociology. That was really cool to see explored so thoroughly.
And then the rest of the ending was just as bad as the Idoru. Most of the characters go unresolved and just randomly disappear without ever being explained. The B-story about Harwood goes totally unexplained, as does his relationship with the ostensibly central character of Konrad who is at first described as “the key to everything” but then it’s never explained how he is key to anything.
Also the quiet kid who can’t talk except sometimes he can. And somehow he is able to hack all computers but doesn’t actually know how to do anything on computers.
Overall this book was terrible, and especially the way it ended. I’m glad he reintroduced his ideas with more modern concepts, but I just don’t understand how the ending became such an unsatisfying mess.