The world of Virtual Light is the California of the near future — 2005. Now the state is divided into NoCal and SoCal in what appears to be a post-cataclysmic world of the haves and the have-nots. Earthquakes and political upheaval have devastated not only California but Japan, and although some remnants of government remain, the world is controlled by powerful corporations for whom misconduct, fraud, and greed are the status quo.

Gibson pursues the concept of community in much more detail here than in previous novels. The devastation brought about by the earthquakes has, for some, forced increased separation and solitude. Wealthy inhabitants of SoCal live in bunkers protected by the security service IntenSecure or in barricaded enclaves. Late in the novel, Gibson satirizes the separatist quality of community when he describes the religious enclave of Paradise, a gated community that conducts an examination of conscience on any visitor who wants to enter. In sharp contrast to this, Gibson creates the vibrant chaos of the Bridge, a diverse, creative, organic neighborhood that has sprung up spontaneously on the remnants of the earthquake-damaged Golden Gate Bridge in what was formerly San Francisco. On the Bridge, Chevette and Skinner's home, the inhabitants care for and watch over their neighbors in the difficult times and begin to create their own rituals and culture.

The religious community of Paradise is only one part of Gibson's satire on religion in the novel. In the background, but there as a continuing motif, is the story of J. D. Shapely, a savior of sorts for this diseased world. Shapely is idolized as the "saint" who, through the miracle of his blood which has served as the basis for a new vaccine to prevent the AIDS virus, was martyred and has thus become the center of a cult. Shapely has become a godlike sacrificial figure often compared to Jesus, subject of religious fervor and ritual. Gibson also satirizes conservative religion in the figure of the Reverend Fallon, a shyster evangelist whose cult worships old television shows and movies because they all contain the word of God. Followers of the religion lament the fact that the only thing young people want to do is enter into virtual reality, at the expense of the more wholesome and purposeful activity of watching television.

Gibson's satire does not stop at religion. He satirizes the phenomenon of instant TV fame in his introduction of the television program Cops in Trouble. The program highlights police officers who have become involved in controversy, but the producers are only interested in a story until the next big story comes along. Berry, for instance, is being groomed as the next big Cops in Trouble star for killing a man who has supposedly taken his wife and children hostage. Berry's fifteen minutes of fame are over, however, when the Pooky Bear serial killer becomes the next media star.

Popular culture resonates as memorably in Virtual Light as it does in other Gibson novels. Gibson creates a visual world filled with an emphasis on the sights and sounds of 2005. Part of the advantage of having a near future world is that Gibson can reminisce on the recent past of "the black singer whose face turned white and then caved in" and can also create near-future extensions of such fads as body piercing, tattoos, a porn star named McDonna, and slang. Gibson's world is built on the debris of the past. Not only has Golden Gate Bridge been transformed, for instance, but Golden Gate Park has now been privatized and renamed Skywalker Park.

A further advantage of creating a near-future...