Line #29 Literature/VirtualLight


1	''Virtual Light'' is a 1993 novel by Creator/WilliamGibson. It is the first volume of the ''Literature/BridgeTrilogy''.
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3	Nominated for a UsefulNotes/HugoAward.
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5	!!This novel contains examples of:
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7	* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: The trilogy, written in the 1990s, is set in 2006, after a massive earthquake has resulted in the abandonment of the Oakland Bay Bridge, which has since been resettled as a sort of squatters' shantytown.
8	* AbnormalAmmo: Loveless' gun fires "subsonic titanium bullets". Exactly what this ''does'' is unclear, but the gun is often described as being somewhat quiet.
9	* ActionGirl: Chevette Washington is really more of a subversion of this trope. While strong-willed, independent, and intelligent, she spends most of ''Virtual Light'' running and hiding from her pursuers. In one case, she gets in way over her head and only escapes thanks to Rydell.
10	* BalkaniseMe: General geopolitical and economic turmoil has led to the breakup of many of the world's larger nations, including [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn the USSR]] , UsefulNotes/{{Brazil}} and UsefulNotes/{{Canada}}, which in itself split into five countries. America has undergone a {{Downplayed}} version, with many of the larger states subdividing: California, where the book takes place, is now split into North and South.
11	* CelebrityResemblance: Berry Rydell is mentioned to look like a young Creator/TommyLeeJones--the first time by someone who ran his picture through a computer application that provides an InUniverse exploitation of this (the idea being that it helps people remember someone for identification purposes if they know which famous guy/girl they resemble). Ironically enough, Rydell doesn't even ''know'' who Jones is.
12	* ChekhovsGun: The bag of drugs Chevette gets from her ex-boyfriend. [[spoiler:She later uses it to spike Loveless' drink while he's holding her and Rydell at gunpoint.]]
13	* CoolCar: Several, most notably "Gunhead", Rydell's [=IntenSecure=] response vehicle. It's an armoured, six-wheeled Land Rover with two engines, an electrified exterior, an assortment of gadgetry and a satellite uplink.
14	* {{Courier}}:
15	** The {{Deuteragonist}} Chevette Washington works as a bicycle messenger in San Francisco.
16	** There's also "Mr. Blix", the creepy fellow who's delivering the glasses to the city from Costa Rica.
17	* CowboyCop:
18	** Rydell was booted out of his original job in Knoxville as a police officer for this kind of behaviour: during negotiations with a suspect who was holding his girlfriend and children hostage, Rydell broke into the suspect's house and killed him after he threatened the children.
19	** He later does it ''again'' while working for [[LawEnforcementInc IntenSecure]], [[DestructiveSaviour smashing his armoured [=SUV=] into the wall of a house]] where a similar hostage-taking is allegedly taking place... Only to find that the homeowner had hatched an elaborate plot to [[FramingTheGuiltyParty prove his wife was cheating on him]] and had hacked [=IntenSecure's=] systems so that the responding rent-a-cops would [[CaughtWithYourPantsDown catch her and her lover together]].
20	** This behaviour is actually somewhat {{Enforced}} InUniverse by the presence of popular reality series ''[[ImmoralRealityShow Cops In Trouble]]'', which dramatises the stories of law-enforcement personnel who break rules committing 'heroic' acts, siccing expensive lawyers on the police departments responsible so they are forced to keep the CowboyCop on. Rydell is nearly featured on the show, but unluckily for him, the producers get distracted by a more exciting incident involving a SerialKiller.
21	* CyberPunk: Or PostCyberpunk, depending on who you ask.
22	* DataDriveMacGuffin: A variation. Instead of a hard drive, it uses a pair of VR glasses that hold the data on a MegaCorp's plans for VillainousGentrification of San Francisco. When Chevette Washington gets a hold of said glasses by happenstance, the assassins of said mega corp come looking for her.
23	* EarlyBirdCameo: Early on, Chevette runs into a Padanian noble who is about to be married to a media mogul named Cody Harwood. Nothing really comes of it in this book, but in ''Literature/AllTomorrowsParties'', we learn that [[spoiler:their marriage quickly fell apart, while Harwood turns out to be the main antagonist of that novel]].
24	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Throughout the novel, J.D. Shapely and the HIV/AIDS vaccine he was responsible for[[note]](Shapely was a male prostitute who, while incarcerated, was discovered to have been infected with a (fictional) benign strain of HIV; a MegaCorp then extracted said strain and used it to crowd out the malign strains, making billions while Shapely died in prison)[[/note]] are brought up time and time again, but no mention of either (or even of AIDS itself) is made anywhere in the subsequent books. It may be a case of an AbortedArc, or maybe AIDS became less [[RippedFromTheHeadlines topical]] by the time ''Idoru'' was written (AIDS mortality peaked in 1996, the year it was published).
25	* GogglesDoSomethingUnusual: A pair of seemingly ordinary sunglasses are in fact an augmented reality device that lets the user access some extremely valuable data.
26	* HelloAttorney: Karen Mendelsohn, an attractive lawyer for ''Cops In Trouble'', who sleeps with Rydell after he's recruited into the show. She immediately loses all interest in him after a more juicy renegade-cop incident involving a SerialKiller emerges.
27	* HypocriticalHumor: Rydell's landlord berates him for driving a Spanish car (technically he's borrowing it from Sublett), and suggests he consider something more 'patriotic'... Such as a German or Japanese model.
28	* ImmoralRealityShow: ''Cops In Trouble'', which lionises police officers who ignore procedure or pull VigilanteMan stunts as heroes, then proceeds to tie up their departments with expensive lawyers to stop the {{Cowboy Cop}}s from getting fired.
29	* LawEnforcementInc: After getting fired from Knoxville [=PD=], Rydell gets a job at [=IntenSecure=], a corporation providing standard commercial security guards alongside an armed rapid-response service to private clients.
30	* PsychoForHire: Good ''lord'', [[CorporateSamurai Loveless]]. He's a [[ProfessionalKiller ruthless assassin]] who [[KickTheDog never misses a chance to inflict needless pain and suffering]]. He kills a man by [[CruelAndUnusualDeath pulling his tongue through a hole in his throat]], uses banned nanotech handcuffs that tighten when struggled against to the point of causing severe bleeding, shoots dead Chevette's friend Sammy Sal, and makes it [[ShamefulStrip painfully obvious]] that [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil he's going to rape Chevette]] when he corners her and Rydell two-thirds of the way through the book, presumably before killing both of them horribly. Ultimately though, [[LaserGuidedKarma his depravity leads to his downfall]] -- in the latter scenario he arrives when the protagonists are both asleep, and could very easily have killed them both while retrieving the glasses, [[DickDastardlyStopsToCheat but since he was determined to rape and torture]], he waits until they wake up, which allows them to escape.
31	* RescueRomance: While there isn't an obvious RelationshipUpgrade moment, Rydell and Chevette begin to develop feelings for each other after he saves her from a pair of Russian {{Dirty Cop}}s by stealing Warbaby's car.
32	* SinisterSurveillance: The [=LAPD=] control a powerful SpySatellite that remains in geosynchronous orbit above the city, monitoring ''everything'' taking place in the streets below. It's known to all and sundry, even its creators, as the "[[Franchise/StarWars Death Star]]".
33	* ShootTheMessenger: Chevette Washington, a bicycle messenger, mentions this trope frequently. She's never shot, but she clarifies that the basic idea -- blaming a messenger for her message -- is true.
34	* UnintentionallyNotoriousCrime: A creepy guy leches at Chevette at a party, so, out of impulse, she grabs the sunglasses hanging out of his pocket ... which turn out to be the storage medium for a virtual-reality blueprint showcasing a shady Japanese MegaCorp's plan to [[VillainousGentrification fill Los Angeles with giant nanotech structures]]. As a result, she ends up with [[LawEnforcementInc private security forces]], {{Dirty Cops}} and CorporateSamurai coming after her.
35	* VillainousGentrification: [[spoiler: The [=VR=] glasses contain the details of an EvilPlan in this vein: a plot by the Japanese [[MegaCorp Sunflower Corporation]] and their [=US=] backers to construct a grid of bleeding-edge {{Nanotech}} towers around San Francisco, which will gradually link up to each other, turning the city into a LayeredMetropolis in true {{Cyberpunk}} style.]]
36	* VillainRespect: Warbaby subtly salutes Rydell after the latter lures him, Freddie, Svobodov and Orlovsky to Los Angeles and [[FrameUp SWATs them]] with AttackDrones, resulting in all four antagonists getting dragged away by the [=LAPD=]. This makes some sense, as it was already established that Warbaby had a fondness for Rydell, and he [[AffablyEvil tended to be the nicest of the antagonists]].
37	* WhatAPieceOfJunk: Subverted: Chevette's bicycle is a cutting-edge paper-wrapped carbon-fiber frame with a rather serious security system, but carefully painted to ''look'' like a beat-up old junker.

Context Literature / VirtualLight