Virtual Light
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Our view
“Virtual Light” is a cyberpunk novel of near-future California with a lively, sharply observed setting and a well-matched pair of leads. The prose is concise and rich in description; some readers find that it explains too little, so that the opening feels slow and hard to follow, and some consider the jargon heavy and the future dated. It opens the “Bridge” trilogy, set around an earthquake-damaged bridge that has become a makeshift settlement.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Virtual Light is a 1993 novel by the American-Canadian writer William Gibson. First published by Bantam Books, it is the first volume in Gibson's Bridge trilogy. Set in a near-future California, the novel takes place after an earthquake has damaged the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and turned it into an improvised settlement known as the Bridge.
Reading order · Bridge trilogy
Full order & progress →- Virtual LightThis book
7.77.7 / 10 - Idoru
7.77.7 / 10 - All Tomorrow's Parties
7.77.7 / 10
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.6 across 197 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 57% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Science fiction average of 7.8. That is how 7.7 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardcover | 7.6 | 197 | 100% |
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Science fiction — and a score of 7.7, the closest to this book.
