famously William Gibson never went to Japan, and if that worked for [b:Neuromancer|22328|Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1)|William Gibson|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1285017005s/22328.jpg|909457], where Japan's sleek cyberpunk aesthetic, blue LEDs, mirror-like black skyscrapers leaping into night skys, then it does not work for Idoru, where the characters are somewhat caricatures rather than fleshed-out individuals, and the Japanese Fan Club identical-bowl-cutted schoolgirls seem like some sort of bad joke rather than either (a) how they really are or (b) how they superficially can be.
authors are hit or miss, somebody wrote on GR, and this, unfortunately, is not a book anybody needs to keep in their collection. it's nice Gibson chose to give us more of his work, but he may, it seems, be that most famous-type of artist, the One Hit Wonder