Idoru Book Summary and Study Guide

Colin Laney has an unusual sensitivity for node shifts in the world information flow. After losing his job at Slitscan, a celebrity-tracking news show, he goes to Japan to be hired by a mysterious team that turns out to represent mega rock star Rez of the band Lo/Rez. His handlers are concerned because Rez seems determined to marry Rei Toei, a totally electronic personification of a perfect woman. Chia, a 14-year-old member of the singer's Seattle fan club, also comes to Tokyo to check out the rumor, but becomes the unwitting "mule" of big crime interests when a strange woman slips an expensive piece of electronic contraband in her pack at the airport. Laney, Chia, and other characters regularly "port" into cyberspace to check on one another's movements, and Gibson includes a hilarious peek into a Japanese "love hotel" of the future. As always, the plotting is effective but characterizations a bit thin.
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