All Tomorrow's Parties

By MICHAEL KRANTZ

In a fog-choked, dreamscapey San Francisco, refugees from the author's novels Idoru and Virtual Light navigate the blurry boundary between terrestrial reality and cyberspace, meeting a new raft of 21st century weirdos as an ill-defined societal apocalypse nears. The ferociously talented Gibson (Neuromancer) delivers his signature melange of techno-pop splendor and postindustrial squalor, but this time his teasing, multicharacter narrative leads only to an irritating head scratcher of a conclusion. Genre freaks: this appears to complete the trilogy. Connoisseurs: just reread Neal Stephenson.

--By Michael Krantz