All Tomorrow's Parties

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Although Colin Laney (from Gibson's earlier novel Idoru) lives in a cardboard box, he has the power to change the world. Thanks to an experimental drug that he received during his youth, Colin can see "nodal points" in the vast streams of data that make up the worldwide computer network. Nodal points are rare but significant events in history that forever change society, even though they might not be recognizable as such when they occur. Colin isn't quite sure what's going to happen when society reaches this latest nodal point, but he knows it's going to be big. And he knows it's going to occur on the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, which has been home to a sort of SoHo-esque shantytown since an earthquake rendered it structurally unsound to carry traffic.

Colin sends Barry Rydell (last seen in Gibson's novel Virtual Light) to the bridge to find a mysterious killer who reveals himself only by his lack of presence on the Net. Barry is also entrusted with a strange package that seems to be the home of Rei Toi, the computer-generated "idol singer" who once tried to "marry" a human rock star (she's also from Idoru). Barry and Rei Toi are eventually joined by Barry's old girlfriend Chevette (from Virtual Light) and a young boy named Silencio who has an unnatural fascination with watches. Together this motley assortment of characters holds the key to stopping billionaire Cody Harwood from doing whatever it is that will make sure he still holds the reigns of power after the nodal point takes place.

Although All Tomorrow's Parties includes characters from two of Gibson's earlier novels, it's not a direct sequel to either. It's a stand-alone book that is possibly Gibson's best solo work since Neuromancer. In the past, Gibson has let his brilliant prose overwhelm what were often lackluster (or nonexistent) story lines, but this book has it all: a good story, electric writing, and a group of likable and believable characters who are out to save the world ... kind of. The ending is not quite as supercharged as the rest of the novel and so comes off a bit flat, but overall this is definitely a winner. --Craig E. Engler

Book Description

William Gibson, who predicted the Internet with Neuromancer, takes us into the millennium with a brilliant new novel about the moments in history when futures are born.

"Gibson remains, like Raymond Chandler, an intoxicating stylist."--The New York Times Book Review

All Tomorrow's Parties is the perfect novel to publish at the end of 1999. It brings back Colin Laney, one of the most popular characters from Idoru, the man whose special sensitivities about people and events let him predict certain aspects of the future. Laney has realized that the disruptions everyone expected to happen at the beginning of the year 2000, which in fact did not happen, are still to come. Though down-and-out in Tokyo, his sense of what is to come tells him that the big event, whatever it is, will happen in San Francisco. He decides to head back to the United States--to San Francisco--to meet the future.

The Washington Post praised Idoru as "beautifully written, dense with metaphors that open the eyes to the new, dreamlike, intensely imagined, deeply plausible." A bestseller across the country (it reached #1 in Los Angeles and San Francisco), and a major critical success, it confirmed William Gibson's position as "the premier visionary working in SF today" (Publishers Weekly). All Tomorrow's Parties is his next brilliant achievement.

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"The flow of information is about to be disrupted. Colin Laney, sensitive to patterns of information like no one else on earth, currently resides in a cardboard box in Tokyo. His body shakes with fever dreams, but his mind roams free as always, and he knows something is about to happen. Not in Tokyo; he will not see this thing himself. Something is about to happen in San Francisco. The mists of San Francisco make it easy to hide, if hiding is what you want, and even at the best of times reality there seems to shift. A gray man moves elegantly through the mists, leaving bodies in his wake, so that a tide of absences alerts Laney to his presence. A boy named Silencio does not speak, but flies through webs of cyber-information in search of the one object that has seized his imagination. And Rei Toi, the Japanese Idoru, continues her study of all things human. She herself is not human, not quite, but she's working on it. And in the mists of San Francisco, at this rare moment in history, who is to say what is or is not impossible."

Customer Reviews:

Worth reading, but not his best.......2007-09-10

The many other reviews of All Tomorrow's Parties (a title I was completely unable to connect with the plot) have covered the waterfront pretty well on this, so I'll just chime in that Gibson is a far better writer than most sci-fi novelists, has an obvious gift for seeing where the trends in the present may lead in the future, and has written several more interesting novels than this one. I've never regretted reading any Gibson novel or story, and I've read almost all of them, and I read All Tomorrow's Parties in a few days. It does hold one's interest. But it's pretty much by the numbers. Gibson weavers together many characters on a collision course that doesn't catch up with them until near the end of the book, so we spend a great deal of time holding all these characters and subplots in suspension while we plug away, waiting to see how they all relate. Eventually, they do, and while I'd like to say "hang in there, it'll all pay off," I can't; the plot that holds them all together is very, very thin, and is more an excuse for a novel than a good reason for one. Gibson nonetheless tosses in a few interesting ideas, and a few memorable characters, but not much that I'll remember after a few months.

staggeringly pointless.......2006-12-28

William Gibson is one of my favorite visionary authors, I love his style and concepts----and every other book he's written! This book , however, never really gets off of the ground,and just dances around with itself in search of both plot tension and a satisfying conclusion. i was going to give it one star, but he has enough of his city descriptions to make it barely tolerable. Gibson really fails on this one-i wouldn't waste my time....pains me to say that. All of his other stories have an actual payoff, this one just goes round and round.

Pinocchio, sort of.......2006-12-12

A "puppet" (in this novel a virtual personality constucted in software) yearns to be a real boy (in this novel... a real girl!).

This fine book is the culmination of couple of pseudo-episodic Gibson novels...his writing gets better and better and some of the passages are almost impossibly beautiful in their spare conciseness and wonderful language/syntax. Highly recommended for reading out-loud to (or by) your partner.

Gibson skillfully weaves the theory of historical inflection points (or cusps) into a story about how an artifical intelligence/personality (who apparently yearns to be free) manipulates various characters and the public nano-compiler network in order to become embodied as a young woman!

If you didn't catch that your first time through, read it again!

Told almost entirely from the meats' point of view and populated with hints of themes to come in Gibson's following (and very highly recommended) book, Pattern Recognition. Also, for relevant background, read the previous novel: Idoru.

Join the party.......2006-09-12

The unpoliced ghetto encrusting the ruins of the Golden Gate Bridge is the surreal setting for ex-cop Rydell and his girl friend Chevette as they maneuver to regain control of the Idoru -- an artificially-generated Japanese media goddess of irresistible beauty and intelligence. Hidden away like a djinn inside a portable memory unit, the Idoru now lies at the cusp of a technological tsunami that will forever alter human civilization. Rydell is being directed by a tortured master computer-hacker Colin Laney, now dying of pneumonia and malnutrition in a cardboard box in the bottom of a Japanese subway -- one of the few humans with the rare gift -- or curse -- of being able to recognize the true patterns that exist behind the shimmering data flood from cyberspace. Gibson's tense writing is pressurized with ideas, phrases and images that make his novels unforgettable -- and sometimes barely comprehensible. A continuation of Gibson's last novel "Idoru," this action-packed book holds out the promise of more to come, and reinforces my conviction that Gibson is an extraordinarily powerful and visionary writer -- even though I never exactly figured out the plot. If you like this brain-twisting vision of technology's effect on civilization from the man who invented the word "cyberspace" don't miss another amazing book he co-authored with Bruce Sterling -- "The Difference Engine."

--Auralgo

Pointless, worthless and a waste of time.......2006-07-16

I normally don't write reviews for books, but I had to for this one because it is so bad, as many others have said. I too am a Gibson fan. But I want the time spent reading this book back, I feel it was so wasted.

I almost put the book down, but instead I foolishly hoped Gibson would somehow tie all the scattered, half hearted events together in the end. As many have said, you never find out what this "nodal point" is. The payoff NEVER comes.

You don't get close to really any of the characters. You want to get close to Rydell, but there is not enough of him there. There is WAY too much jumping around.

And there is way too much of "look at what a clever writer I am" by writing incomprehensible "creative" prose.

I don't know why some writers - even great writers- fail to grasp the most important point about writing: It's the STORY stupid.

This book is a chain of events that are disconnected, unfinished and unsatisfying. Read some of his earlier works, sure, but don't pick up this painted mess, regardless of what the so-called reviews on the cover say.

All Tomorrow's Parties: Billy Name's Photographs of Andy Warhol's Factory

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Location, location, ...
"Artistic" rather than informative
Eye Candy to the bone....
best sixties new york color photography-a work of art!
Billy Name captures the Heart of Warhol's Factory

All Tomorrow's Parties: Billy Name's Photographs of Andy Warhol's Factory
Billy Name , Dave Hickey , and Collier Schorr
Manufacturer: Distributed Art Publishers (DAP)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1881616843

Customer Reviews:

Location, location, ..........2005-09-09

... location. If you'd been there, you probably could have taken a collection of photographs of at least equal caliber. What matters in these photos is who is in them, with little apparent attention to the construction of the shots.

So if you'd like to see mediocre photographs but of extraordinary 2nd Factory regulars at that Factory as well as Max's Kansas City and Central Park, this may be your book. It may beat looking at nothing, they may bring you back to a special time.

The value for me lies in a 13 page interview with Billy Name. If you are trying to understand the mysteries of Warhol and his Factories, Billy Name would be a great source of information. Think silver.

You can also (September 2005) see Billy Name photos, mostly black and white, at his web site. He also has some interviews there he was the subject of.

"Artistic" rather than informative.......2003-10-03

Billy Name was there and has one-zillion photographs from which to choose, so I was truly disappointed by the "artistic" crud he chose to print. I wanted to see real photographs of real people, not how clever he was at "conveying the feeling" of the time. I resent this book because it could've been so much better. I didn't buy it to see Name's artistic view of a momentary, yet monumental, era. I bought it hoping I could study people's faces, stances, outfits, the background. I wanted to study the pictures and respond to them all by myself without the photographer hammering me with images amounting to dogma. I mean, the Empire State Building? Yeah, that's really deep and cuts to the heart of things. Name needs to share, not hoard. But lucky for us all, he was there with a camera and actually took pictures. And of all the Warhol set, Name's autobiography would be one of the most interesting.

Eye Candy to the bone...........2000-07-31

The interview w/Billy is great, the pix capture the air of the crowd and the essence of their era...but i wasn't satisfied; it captured the Factory kids but not the factory itself. And the info therein was relatively limited.

i feel this book is meant for appreciation and sheer sight-enjoyment, something to be left as an exclamation rather than an explanation.

best sixties new york color photography-a work of art!.......1999-07-08

a surprisingly refreshing view of the warhol sixties. shots of lou reed and the velvet underground very initmate. name was really decades ahead of current popular art photographers with his brilliant surrealistic color and funky format!

Billy Name captures the Heart of Warhol's Factory.......1998-11-18

Billy Name has released most likely the most important pictures from the famous Andy Warhol Factory. In ALL TOMMOROW'S PARTIES, Billy captures the true depths of the list of characters in the Warholian 1960s. Shot in brilliant color we get to see what the people really looked like and see that they were not all star's but real people with hearts. This book is a must for any Warhol fan, photographer, or someone with an interest in the 60s.

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Mary Heilmann: All Tomorrow's Parties
Martin Prinzhorn , Matthias Herrmann , and Mary Heilmann
Manufacturer: Walther Konig
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 3883757489
Release Date: 2003-11-02

Book Description

Featuring 30 of Heilmann's works from the late 70s to the present, including paintings, ceramic pictures, and a series of specially designed wooden chairs with colorfully woven seats. Throughout, Heilmann's particular way of dealing with abstract paintings becomes evident. Dedicated to Pat Hearn and Colin de Land.

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All Tomorrow's Parties

Manufacturer: G. P. Puntam Sons
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000H1HS0M

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All Tomorrow's Parties
William Gibson
Manufacturer: Viking
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000MCAGVE

Product Description

According to the publisher, this trade paperback edition precedes the British hardcover edition by a full month.

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All Tomorrow's Parties
William Gibson
Manufacturer: Penguin Books Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OIZHE2

Todas las Fiestas de Manana / All Tomorrow's Parties

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Todas las Fiestas de Manana / All Tomorrow's Parties
William Gibson
Manufacturer: Minotauro
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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All Tomorrow's Parties

Manufacturer: PENGUIN
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GNXGTS

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All Tomorrow's Parties
Nico Cdcleo 1324
Manufacturer: Cleo
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: 630821633X

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All Tomorrow's Parties 1.0
Va-Sea and Cake Cdatp 26401
Manufacturer: ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES/TOUCH A
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: 6306594655

Customer Reviews:

Valuable For Backround Knowledge.......2007-02-13

Good And Valuable Reading Material Of Further Studies For The Occult Student!

A Review For the Series Entire (& a Brief Review of This Volume).......2006-12-25

A Myth is not a lie, but, like Art, a rendering of Truth. Subsequently, religion is the extension of myth through ritual. Despite the titles, these texts are as much about religion as myth, and the works are all the better for it. Campbell skillfully explores the Human experience, and what Man has made of it, over the course of these four seminal works. At times, one feels the influence of Toynbee, but Campbell has gone beyond the author of A Study of History and into a world all the more full of wonder.

Man is the most conscious participant in Nature, and, as the Image of God, the only creature capable of reshaping Nature according to his own interpretations of its meaning. These little shapings, which we call art, myth, religion, culture, and philosophy are the stuff a rich existence is made of.

Stated simply, this work dutifully charts the progress, derivations, and points of origin of these shapings. Campbell's prose is warm, friendly, compassionate, loving but stern, and creative. One could not ask for a better introduction to the Man's works.

Oriental Mythology is the second volume in the series, and probably the weakest. Campbell's familiarity with the subject is clear, but his ability to carefully balance his west-to-east/east-to-west thesis is a tad clumsy. The facts themselves are illuminating, as are his deductions, but the volume itself seems slightly awkward compared to the other three volumes. Don't start your reading of Campbell's work with this volume. (NOTE: You might also consider reading Volume Three: Occidental Myth BEFORE reading this volume. Such a reading might clue you into Campbell's style before delving into the depths of Oriental mythology.)

For those not familiar with some of the artistic themes discussed in this and other works, Campbell's Mythic Image (Illustrated Edition) makes a strong companion.

Uneven but fascinating commentary.......2006-06-02

"Oriental Mythology" is the second in the "Masks of God" series, the follow up to "Primitive Mythology". It covers more of the mind boggling extent of humankind's mythic past, material that is the basis for religion and philosophy. Campbell presents all sorts of details from artifacts dug up by archeologists and some rather long-winded quoted passages. Much of it is rather uneven and challenging to follow, but the payoff is usually Campbell's own commentary which often uses a soaring language to elucidate, to associate and connect different myths of different cultures.

The especially fascinating part of the book for me concerns the mystery of how yoga philosophy and practice came into being and evolved as it did to different forms such as Buddhism and Hinduism. Yoga philosophy defines a very different state of being than the Abrahamic tradition of the West. It does not situate humankind in a state of sin and guilt, stranded in a corrupt world, alienated from a transcendent God; but rather, in a state of ignorance with knowledge as the key to escaping from inevitable suffering caused by the delusion of living in a material world. The ancient civilization in the Indus Valley contains seeds of it's development, but it is far from clear just how it developed and what role the Aryans, who invaded and plundered India, played. In any event, Campbell concludes "tentatively" that yoga is "indigenous" to India.

The many different forms and manifestations of Buddhism follow from the ancient yoga tradition of asceticism. The book is not an good introduction to Buddhism, and it can be difficult to distinguish between the many sects and their different metaphysics and practices. It's influence burgeoned and then waned in India, but spread throughout the Far East, and combined with the Native nature religions of Tao in China and Shinto in Japan. Though Buddhism in whatever form mainly involves a turning away from the affairs of the world, from what is shown here, it has hardly ever failed to provide a civilizing influence.

I have to echo some of the criticisms of other reviewers. The inclusion of a chapter on ancient Egypt and also a section on the hieratic city states of Mesopotamia do not go the way of clarifying how Oriental myth grew as it did. The organization of the book would have been a lot more straightforward if he had gone directly from the introduction, in which Campbell compares East with West, to ancient India and directly to the mysteries of the Orient. He seeks to trace the influence of Egypt and Mesopotamia to the East, but the influences are so scattered and so relative, that it would have been better to have stuck with India, China, and Japan. Also, the final section on Tibet, although illuminating, departs in large measure from the subject matter.

Heavy reading.......2003-11-04

This book is a massive summary, comparison of, and commentary on oriental mythology. It is divided into 3 major parts: Western Oriental mythology, Indian mythology, and the mythologies of the Far East. Campbell's incredible scholarship is very impressive, and rather overwhelming at times. He obviously had a great familiarity with the mythologies and religions of practically all areas of the planet. However, his explanations for general readers of foreign mythologies weren't always clear, as evidenced in this book. Much of this book focuses on developing the idea that Oriental mythologies had one major origin, in the Egypt of the Pharaohs. According to Campbell, traces of the religion and mythologies of the Pharaohs, as well as implements of their material culture, could subsequently be found in every major culture heading eastward, from Persia to India, from China to Japan.

This idea is not exactly clear in the beginning of the work, and the initial chapters about the Pharaohs start with a jerk, leaving some readers wondering "Why start here, so far west?" The idea is stated more and more explicitly as the book progresses, so that by the time we reach the Chinese section, Campbell writes about the "primacy of the West-to-East cultural flow". Later in the same section, Campbell writes "the question of the impact of sentiments and ideas carried from one domain to another, which is basic to our study, is ...well illustrated by the annals of the settlement of Buddhism in China..." Is there really enough evidence to support the idea of a single common mythology that spread from West to East? Is this theory accepted by modern specialists in mythology? A reader who comes to this book independently of a class or other mythology background can only speculate on these questions.

Campbell does a masterful job of laying out similarities across cultures, such as his description of the "archetypal Savior Biography", where he lists the following elements (among others):
--scion of a royal line
--miraculously born
--amid supernatural phenomena
--of whom an aged holy man prophesies a world-saving message
--whose childhood deeds proclaim his divine character
--engages in arduous forest disciplines
--which confront him with a supernatural adversary
He points out that this list applies to the Jains, Buddhists, as well as Christians, and, if I read him correctly, presents it as one piece of evidence for linkage between Western and Oriental mythologies.

The lucidity of Campbell's descriptions and summaries of myths vary. Sometimes he quotes stories or myths at great length. But other times, he passes over the details quickly with such statements as "We need not rehearse the legends of his miraculous birth..." in his haste to get to commentary about the stories in question. For newcomers to the topic, this can be somewhat of a disappointment, since the commentaries are difficult to understand if one is not already familiar with the stories, and it is to learn about the stories themselves that some readers pick up this book. The book itself seems to have developed from Campbell's notes. Thus, there is considerable explicit enumeration of points, as well as the occasional sentence fragment. This style of writing requires very active study from a reader who is determined to wrestle the kernel of meaning from Campbell's words.

The one disappointing chapter was the chapter on Tibet, which actually includes only a few paragraphs about the mythology of Tibet. The remainder of the chapter is a brief collection of ideas from Maoist communism, juxtaposed with stories of atrocities during the Chinese takeover of Tibet. While the story of Tibet is indeed extremely lamentable, perhaps these details would better fit in a political description of Tibet in order to make more room for an overview of Tibetan mythology.

The Inscrutable Orient is Explained.......2003-10-04

In this second volume of the "Mask" Trilogy, Campbell has moved from the perhistorical to historical. There is and has always been a great divide between the Occident and the Orient on matters of faith and Campbell thinks this has a lot to do with the mythical origins underlying all cultures and religions. Oddly, he begins in Egypt which eventually approached the Occidental viewpoint. But it is in the deserts of that ancient land that we begin with the ideas being set by the changeless seasons and the Nile.

Next a study of Buddhist, Hindu and other Oriental religions is undertaken. Somewhere along the line, East and West diverged on the issue of religious thought. One might say that Oriental belief systems harken back to the primitive in that multiple gods, representing various emotions, objects or ideas, were the norm. This was the way of ancient Greece and Egypt but both societies soon "evolved" toward a semi-monotheism or gave life to sects (ancient Judaism) that adopted the single god notion.

Product Description

The geographical divide between the Oriental and Occidental ranges of myth and ritual is the tableland of Iran. Eastward are the two spiritual provinces of India and the Far East; westward, Europe and Levant. ...

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