Even after ruthless pruning, my stack of pending reading is intolerable. So, naturally, I embarked on an unplanned rereading of this Gibson classic.

it's been eighteen years since this novel -- Gibson's second -- appeared, and it's easy to find holes. The world changed: Japan's demographic problems weren't obvious back then, and the relegation of ideology to the dustbin of history seems a lot less likely today. The matrix, of course, isn't going to look much like Gibson's 3D videogame world, and perhaps there's not as much cultural energy in the Caribbean as Gibson hoped.

But Gibson still writes wonderfully, his plotting is nifty, and he sure can be spooky.