SOURCE: Olsen, Lance. Review of Virtual Light, by William Gibson. Review of Contemporary Fiction 14, no. 1 (spring 1994): 215-16.

In the following review of Virtual Light, Olsen lauds Gibson's dark humor, detailed imagery, narrative voice, and imaginativeness.

William Gibson stands at the center of the cultural whirlwind called cyberpunk, that recent subset of science fiction intent on commingling the technosphere of cybernetics, cybernauts, and computer hacking with the countercultural sociosphere of punk's anarchic violence, fringe mentality, and a sincere (if naive) attempt to return to the raw roots of its being. Through his Matrix Trilogy—Neuromancer (1984), Count Zero (1986), and Mona Lisa Overdrive (1990)—Gibson explored, among other things, computer-generated reality, information as the new power base, and a grungy near-future universe that looked way too much like our own present one for comfort.

In Virtual Light his future-present (in cyberpunk tomorrow is always a metaphor for today) has lost the mystical...