''All Tomorrow's Parties'' is a

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

novel by American-Canadian writer

William Gibson William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian speculative fiction writer and essayist widely credited with pioneering the science fiction subgenre known as cyberpunk. Beginning his writing career in the late 1970s, his ear ...

, the third and final book in his '' Bridge trilogy''. Like its predecessors, ''All Tomorrow's Parties'' is a speculative fiction novel set in a postmodern, dystopian, postcyberpunk future. The novel borrows its title from a

song A song is a musical composition performed by the human voice. The voice often carries the melody (a series of distinct and fixed pitches) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs have a structure, such as the common ABA form, and are usu ...

by Velvet Underground. It is written in the third person and deals with Gibsonian themes of emergent technology. The novel was initially published by Viking Press on October 7, 1999.

Plot summary

The book has three separate but overlapping stories, with the repeated appearance of shared characters. The San Francisco/Oakland Bay Bridge, the overarching setting of the trilogy, functions as a shared location of their convergence and resolution. The first story features former cop Berry Rydell, the protagonist of '' Virtual Light''. Rydell quits a temporary job as a security guard at the Lucky Dragon convenience store to run errands for atrophied computer hacker Colin Laney (the protagonist of '' Idoru''), who lives in a cardboard box in a subway in

Shinjuku , officially called Shinjuku City, is a special ward of Tokyo, Japan. It is a major commercial and administrative center, housing the northern half of the busiest railway station in the world ( Shinjuku Station) as well as the Tokyo Metropol ...

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

. As a child, Laney was the subject of pharmaceutical trials which damaged his

nervous system In biology, the nervous system is the complex system, highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its behavior, actions and sense, sensory information by transmitting action potential, signals to and from different parts of its body. Th ...

. As a result, he has a form of

attention deficit disorder Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity, and emotional dysregulation that are excessive and pervasive, impairing in multiple con ...

but gains the ability to discern nodal points in the undifferentiated flow of information, and from that he acquires a certain predictive faculty. This makes him ideal for the role of "netrunner" or data analyst. A side effect of 5-SB, the drug administered to Laney, causes the user to become attached to strong personalities. As a result, Laney has become obsessed with media baron Cody Harwood of Harwood/Levine, a powerful

public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. Pu ...

firm. He spends his life surfing the net from his enclave in the subway, searching for traces of Harwood in the media. From this, Laney foresees a crucial historical shift which may precede the end of the world "as we know it". He predicts that Harwood, who had also taken 5-SB before (albeit voluntarily, with the knowledge of the consequences), knows this and will try to shape this historical shift to his liking. To stop Harwood, Laney hires Rydell under the guise of a courier to travel to San Francisco where he believes the next nodal point will congeal. The second story concerns ex-bicycle messenger Chevette Washington, also from ''Virtual Light'', who is on the run from her ex-boyfriend. She escapes to her former home, San Francisco's bridge community, to find refuge and revisit her past. She is accompanied by Tessa, an Australian media sciences student who visits the bridge to film a documentary on "interstitial communities". The third story follows a mysterious, left-handed mercenary named Konrad, who, although employed by Harwood, appears to be directed by his own motives. In particular, Konrad aligns his movements with the

Tao The Tao or Dao is the natural way of the universe, primarily as conceived in East Asian philosophy and religion. This seeing of life cannot be grasped as a concept. Rather, it is seen through actual living experience of one's everyday being. T ...

, the spontaneous, universal energy path of

Taoist Taoism or Daoism (, ) is a diverse philosophical and religious tradition indigenous to China, emphasizing harmony with the Tao ( zh, p=dào, w=tao4). With a range of meaning in Chinese philosophy, translations of Tao include 'way', 'road', ...

philosophy.

Characters

Characters with point-of-view chapters: *Colin Laney – data analyst with an ability to sense nodal points (previously appeared in ''Idoru''). *Chevette Washington – an ex-bike messenger who lived on the Bridge for several years and is on the run from an abusive boyfriend (''Virtual Light''). *Berry Rydell – a rent-a-cop and former lover of Chevette who is working as a security guard at a convenience store Lucky Dragon in Los Angeles (''Virtual Light'', ''Idoru''). *Shinya Yamazaki – self-described "student of existential sociology" (''Virtual Light'', ''Idoru''). *Konrad – Taoist assassin hired by Harwood. *Silencio – a savant boy with an extreme fascination with watches and the talent to find them, no matter the circumstances. *Fontaine – a Bridge resident and pawn-shop owner who takes Silencio into his care. (''Virtual Light'') *Boomzilla – a street impresario with designs on Tessa's balloon camera. Other characters: *Tessa – Chevette's media student roommate, who drives Chevette to the Bridge in her van in order to make a documentary on its inhabitants. *Rei Toei – a holographic idol (the beautiful "emergent system" from ''Idoru''). *Buell Creedmore – an alcoholic/drug addict country singer with a short temper and a knack for being in the wrong place at the right time. Although he tries to pass himself off as a native Southerner, he later reveals he was born and raised in

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

. *Maryalice – PR for Buell (''Idoru''). *Carson – Chevette's abusive ex. *Cody Harwood – head of a PR company, extremely powerful behind-the-scenes player (''Virtual Light''). *The Suit – an impoverished ex-

salaryman The term is a Japanese word for salary, salaried workers. In Japanese popular culture, it is portrayed as a white-collar worker who shows unwavering loyalty and commitment to his employer, prioritizing work over anything else, including family. ...

who lives in the Tokyo subway and repaints his suit daily instead of purchasing a fresh one.

Major themes

Major recurring Gibsonian themes which feature heavily in ''All Tomorrow's Parties'' are the sociological impact of emergent technology (notably

nanotechnology Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale, commonly known as the nanoscale, surface area and quantum mechanical effects become important in describing propertie ...

and

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

), millennial alienation, the commodification of the

counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Ho ...

, the existence of nodal points in history (most notably the dawn of the nuclear age in 1911), and the notion of the interstitial. Despite the novel's oblique reference to Madame Curie, Gibson has stated that his placement of the last major nodal point in 1911 was a "viewpoint joke," unconnected to factual events in that year. He had heard a story that

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...

"pinned the beginning of the

modern era The modern era or the modern period is considered the current historical period of human history. It was originally applied to the history of Europe and Western history for events that came after the Middle Ages, often from around the year 1500 ...

on a particular weekend in 1911." (Woolf had actually declared that human nature underwent a fundamental change " on or about December 1910," which inspired the belief that the modernist literary movement began around that time.) The author's long-time fascination with

Japanese culture Japanese culture has changed greatly over the millennia, from the country's prehistoric Jōmon period, to its contemporary modern culture, which absorbs influences from Asia and other regions of the world. Since the Jomon period, ancestral ...

continues in this novel.

Literary significance and reception

The novel was critically well-received, with particular note given to Gibson's vivid, well-realised setting and dense prose, though reviewers found its ending to be anticlimactic. '' Sci Fi Weekly'' reviewer Curt Wohleber praised the "precision and economy" of ''All Tomorrow's Parties'' in comparison to its sometimes dull predecessors. Gibson scholar Tatiana Rapatzikou located the novel's significance in the fact that it had several motifs, themes and characters in common with ''Virtual Light'' and ''Idoru'' "without being sequential". In the words of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' journalist

Steven Poole Steven Poole (born 1972) is a British author, journalist, and video game theorist. He particularly concerns himself with the abuse of language and has written two books on the subject: ''Unspeak'' (2006) and ''Who Touched Base in My Thought Showe ...

, the novel completed Gibson's development "from science-fiction hotshot to wry sociologist of the near future".

References

External links

''All Tomorrow's Parties''
at WilliamGibsonBooks.com

at FantasticFiction.co.uk

at nytimes.com {{William Gibson 1999 Canadian novels Bridge trilogy Cyberpunk novels Dystopian novels Novels by William Gibson 1999 science fiction novels Novels set in San Francisco Viking Press books