Bridge Trilogy

The Bridge trilogy is the second trilogy of science fiction novels by William Gibson (better known for his Sprawl Trilogy), set Twenty Minutes Into the Future. To be exact, it takes place in 2006, so it's obviously fallen victim to Science Marches On, but the books are nowhere near irrelevent. When one projects them another twenty or fifty years into the future, it's quite easy to believe in the world in which they are set.

The Bridge trilogy is set primarily in the cities of San Francisco and Tokyo after a major earthquake that caused the Oakland Bay Bridge to be abandoned and then rebuilt as a shantytown of sorts. Tokyo, on the other hand, was rebuilt using nanotechnology and is, in many way, more impressive than it was before the quake. The Bridge, from which the trilogy takes its name, is an important location in the first and third books, but not mentioned in the second.

The books in the Bridge trilogy are, in order, Virtual Light (1993), Idoru (Literature) (1996), and All Tomorrow's Parties (1999).

Tropes used in Bridge Trilogy include:
  • Action Girl: Chevette Washington.
    • Chevette 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.
  • Aggressive Negotiations
  • The Cameo: Blackwell, an important character in Idoru, makes a brief appearance near the end of All Tomorrow's Parties. The book doesn't identify him by name, but rather by a description of his disfigured ear.
  • Cyberpunk: Or Post Cyber Punk, depending on who you ask.
  • Dystopia
  • Femme Fatale - Rei Toei
  • Hitman with a Heart - Konrad, from the third book.
  • Science Marches On: The trilogy takes place in the early 2000s, and features things like nanotech construction and a gloves-and-goggles VR Internet, and once again Gibson failed to predict the rise of cell phones.
    • He did however do a pretty good job with discussion boards, virtual stars and internet fandom.
  • Shoot the Messenger - Chevette
  • The Great Politics Mess-Up: The Soviet Union collapsed, but the U.S. hasn't fared much better, either.
  • Twenty Minutes Into the Future
  • Zeerust: The aforementioned nanotech construction and gloves/goggles VR? Still not here, and we're long past the books' timeframe now.
  • Chekhov's Gun: In All Tomorrow's Parties, the knife given to Chevette by Fontaine.
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