Review of "The Difference Engine" by William Gibson & Bruce Sterling

The ‘punk’ in ‘cyberpunk’ comes from the generally rebellious stance of the sub-genre.  In contrast to the squeaky-clean space visions produced by the likes of Asimov and Clarke, sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll, mixed with near-future tech, are instead presented as the future.  So when two of its most prominent representatives genre decided to collaborate on a novel, what better way to rebel than defy expectation?

One its premiere stylist, the other its most outspoken media voice, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling buck cyberpunk expectation with their cooperative effort The Difference Engine.  Applying computing in Western society nearly a century before it occurred in reality, the two create an imaginative alternate history, and in the process pen one of the most influential works of steampunk to date.

The Difference Engine is set in London of 1855.  Charles Babbage’s theories of computing having been made mechanically possible in difference engines—primitive computers powered by steam that process punch cards (see Section B.4 here).  Spindles, gears, and feeder chutes, alongside steam gurneys, telegraphs, and smog abound in this alternate vision of England’s capital.  The plot is centered around a peculiar set of punch cards which are being pursued by various personages.  Luddites, Communards, Industrial Radicals, and other political interests giving chase, adventure and intrigue propel the plot through social and political waters, the use of the cards growing ever more mysterious as the story develops.

Review of "Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology" Edited by Bruce Sterling

There are a handful of people who have/had their finger on the pulse of cyberpunk.  Love him or hate him, Bruce Sterling has perhaps two.  In 1986 he decided to pull together a collection of stories he felt were representative of the sub-genre.  Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology the result, it is both broad in scope yet delimits the idea of what cyberpunk, or at least can be.  Sterling’s agenda his own, some stories will be immediately recognizable for their mood and voice, while others will require more thought toward determining just how they fit into the sub-genre, if at all.  The following is a brief introduction to each.

 

"The Gernsback Continuum" by William Gibson – A connoisseur’s piece, this story requires an understanding of the evolution of science fiction to fully appreciate.  Commentary on modernism’s influence, this is Gibson’s first published work.  It is also perhaps his most overtly ideological work, the result an iconoclast opening salvo.

"Snake-Eyes" by Tom Maddox - George Jordan, a soldier who has been cybernetically altered to fight a war that never happened, is now looking for employment.  Where he finds it may take advantage of George’s alterations in ways he never wanted. 

The Uncertainty of Reality: William Gibson’s Sprawl Series

William Gibson’s Sprawl series stands as a landmark event, not only in science fiction, but in literature as a whole.  Rather than rehashing the thematic staples of realist literature: cultural relativism, post-colonialism, feminism, etc., he moves discussion to the next logical step. Humanity envisioned through the glass of technological saturation, trans/post-humanism takes center stage, instead.  His fictional technology seeing beyond the 90’s tech boom, advances in online virtual gaming, second-life applications, plastic surgery, designer drugs, web interfacing, simulated neuro stimuli, etc. have only moved society closer to rather than farther from his vision in the time since the four books were published, 1984-1989.  As humanity transitions, melding with its chemical, mechanical, and biological creations, the definitions of psychology, sociology, and existence itself have acquired previously unrealized levels of ambivalence.  This uncertainty is the nail at which Gibson aims his literary hammer.  With the free market paradigm integrating society and technology, what does it mean to be human?  This essay hopes to examine this question.

“Sprawl” is a term used by planners, developers, and engineers to describe the long-term, unorganized creep of buildings, infrastructure, and humanity across the landscape.  A recurring backdrop to Neuromancer (1984), Burning Chrome (1986), Count Zero (1987), and Mona Lisa Overdrive (1989), such is the Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Area (BAMA).  Though never explicitly stated, the urban enclaves of these two cities, along with those located between (New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, etc.), have spread outward until the suburbs and industrial zones, housing and commercial centers of each have conmingled with one another, creating a single massive urban zone that stretches the length of the American east coast.  Gibson using less than utopian terms, he describes BAMA as a mix of cookie-cutter streets filled with planned suburban housing, post-modern skyscrapers full of tech and money, block after block of urban tenements slowly crumbling alongside those freshly painted, and factories and warehouses in various states of decomposition - a haze lingering over all.  In other words, Gibson has portrayed the modular dimensions of present-day humanity evolving to a logical point in the future: new development is erected, the old remains, and all is subject to entropy. 

Like Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, setting the scene in this fashion draws strong parallels to Spengler’s ideas concerning humanity’s cultural decline, rather than Golden Age modernist notions of a glorious, healthy future for the planet.  Gibson at no time portrays a world peace, shiny-happy-people, everybody-loves-their-neighbor state of existence.  Social Darwinism persists, each person eking out their existence.  Accordingly, commodities in the Sprawl prey upon individual’s desires and self-destructive habits rather than any collective perception of a sustained, cross-cultural aspiration to improve global living standards.  Environmental problems persist, crime continues to pervade, newer and trendier drugs ensnare and addict, and money and power--or lack thereof--remain the most common carrots luring individuals.  If it weren’t for the open hand with which Gibson offers the imagery, one might consider nihilism the theme of the series.

If the basic economic structure motivating societal effort has not evolved in the Sprawl, then what has?  The answer is technology.  The virtual world Case explores, the variety of pharmaceuticals and chemicals available to Mona, the holographic dreams of Riviera, the advanced biotech that nearly kills Bobby, the motivations of the AI constructs Wintermute and 3Jane, the ready availability of plastic surgery and physical enhancements to Angie, and the “free islands” in orbit around the earth all add dimensions to life available currently only to the imagination. 

The number of options and facets to life these advancements expose is myriad.  If one can afford it, earthly desires become heavenly in the hyper-Las Vegas style of luxury promoted on the Freeside orbital.  By jacking into cyberspace, a person can escape the exigencies of life and “fly” in another dimension.  Like Huxley’s ‘feelies’ in Brave New World, theater and cinema have been brought to the sensual level, simstim granting people the vicarious experience of being a supermodel or rock star--virtual realities available to match any fetish or desire.  And not only individually, these experiences can be combined, as Case does by consuming stimulants and jacking in for days at a time. Our current capitalist paradigm in full effect, if you’ve got money, then technology can supply your dreams. 

With the exception of Marley from Count Zero, the middle class is not represented in the Sprawl.  Gibson instead selects the opposite ends of the life quality spectrum as focal points for the narratives.  Occupying the upper echelons of power and wealth are characters like Virek, the Tessier-Ashpoles, and Kumiko and her yakuza family.  These, however, pale in number to what Gibson presents as the futuristic version of the common man.  Case is arguably criminal and poor, his acquaintances whores, drug dealers, pimps, bartenders, criminals and other “low” forms of existence.  Bobby’s life is detailed as being one which is far from certain financially.  His mother ignores the family, soothing her soul on soap operas in a dilapidated tenement, his father nowhere to be found.  Slick, Little Bird, Gentry, and Cherry are a group scraping by, their day to day life lived at an abandoned landfill, opportunities more than limited.  And lastly, Mona is an American teenager from a broken home, no money or family to care for her.  Raised by an indifferent uncle, she does what she can to get by, including prostituting herself and taking drugs to escape hardships.  Mona’s existence at the bottom of the barrel is one none envy.  The circumstances of these characters serve to highlight the disparity of life quality which Gibson envisions as being the natural result if the current shape of state market economy continues.  Money, via commercializing legal and illegal technology, is access to a higher quality of life, and vice versa.  Thus, based on the character viewpoints Gibson selects, it would seem the majority do not have access, and are sliding from middle class toward poverty, and the choices that accompany the mode. 

One such provision of technology through money is physical modification.  From those superficial in appearance to deeper, structural alterations, a full menu of reconstructions and remodels are available to humanity in the Sprawl.  People with money or financial backing no longer have to bemoan the crudity of morality.  Molly walks the streets with digital cues registering constantly in the spectacles mounted to her skull.  She also knows her surgically enhanced reflexes not only give her an advantage in defending herself from the criminals around her, but also make her a dangerous human weapon on the offense.  The slap-in-the-face opening paragraphs of Count Zero inform the reader in direct terms of the complete stripping and biological refurbishing Turner undergoes to return to stellar physical form after suffering horrible injury.  Mona is pressured and succumbs to having facial re-sculpturing to look like a famous superstar--an act which a person can easily imagine other young people in the Sprawl wanting to perform should they also have the means.

Beyond alterations of a person’s genealogical visage, however, mind modification, temporary and permanent, must also be taken into consideration when neurological advancements are available.  The zillionaire Virek spends part of his fortune keeping the deteriorated shell of his body alive in a vat while he pursues cyber-immortality in the matrix.   Along with drugs, Case is able to extend his conscious awareness beyond the physical and into virtual, cyber, and other dream-like realities merely by attaching electrodes to his body and plugging into a digital system with wires.  Angie in particular is representative of the mind-body changes possible.  A middle point between being pure human and being pure technology, she is the nexus of unaltered homo sapien sapien and AI.  Her brain hard wired with bio-filament, she can access cyberspace and communicate with AI constructs without the need to jack in, yet still need to eat, sleep, and perform the other necessary functions of a mortal.

The bio-physical enhancements such as Angie’s brain or Case’s built in hardware jack move the discussion from the physical to the psychological.  In other words, from physical, objective reality to the subjective manner in which reality is perceived.  And it is precisely at this turn that Gibson makes his point.

Time has yet to prove whether the human psyche is its greatest advantage or disadvantage.  Perception faulty, the brain depends largely on empirical evidence to support its suppositions. By establishing patterns and relationships, it paints pictures as to what general reality is or might be.  This reality can be foreboding (the imminence of death) and it can be effervescent (seeing a child born or a walk in nature), in turn requiring escape or immersion.  Through atypical experiences of reality, people garner respite from the stress, doldrums, ennui, and day-to-day activity that form the lion’s share of our existence.  In today’s society, this is accomplished in a variety of fashions, including travel, socializing, literature, media distraction, and, as Gibson directly asserts, drugs and alcohol.

The habitual usage of drugs by Case, Mona, Riviera, and others serves not only as a spotlight on their need to escape or better the reality they perceive, but also a parallel to the virtual realities in which they immerse their consciousnesses, for example, simstim or cyberspace.  As Neuromancer progresses, Case spends increasingly less time perceiving reality unhindered by drugs, such that by the time he arrives at 3Jane’s Straylight near the climax, the world seems more surreal than real - a point Gibson accentuates by adding the blind ninja, fish pool in space, and other esoteric elements of interior design.  Similarly, after Mona takes a hit and goes on a stroll around New York, she encounters people who seem not wholly human, and as a result her attitude toward them becomes equivocal under the influence of chemicals.  Friend or foe, she knows not what to make of them, and ends up lost, the deeper emotion of losing Eddie and not knowing what tomorrow will bring subconsciously motivating her desire to find something familiar and permanent.

Drugs being physical effectors, however, are only the first degree of separation from reality.  Add to this the variety of virtual realities available in the Sprawl and things become more than distracting.  Throughout Neuromancer Case switches between realities (objective reality, Molly’s simulated reality, cyberspace, and the simulated reality created by the AIs), and the fact he ends up inside an orbiting tube with irregular gravity--reality--only serves to confuse the senses further and stretch the mental line anchoring Case to objective, “earthly” reality.  Wholly a different view than in a mirror, the scene most exemplary of this stretching is when Case views himself through Molly’s eyes.  His slumped body and bloodshot eyes nearly unrecognizable, the sensations Case feels are not his own but yet are channeled through his own.  Further evidence is the loss of faith Case experiences regarding his memories when pondering the notion that the AI Wintermute may be manipulating him, making him see events and sequences which did not really happen, but nevertheless seem so lifelike and real. 

Though Case is able to pull through in the end and settle on which reality is real, Armitage is not.  Hallucinations, virtual realities, and simulated experiences serve to confuse him to the point he no longer knows what is and isn’t objective reality.  His mind snaps and Wintermute disposes of his psychologically torched husk as if it were rubbish.  It is through this extreme example that Gibson illustrates the potential danger of conflicting perceptions of realities.  Without clear distinctions between the memory of an objective experience and the memory of a virtual yet 100% realistic experience, a person’s psyche is left at odds with itself, and the baseline from which experiences are weighed loses clarity.

And what of the effect of this immersion in alternate realities on relationships?   It is interesting that not one of the Sprawl characters forms what would be considered a warm, loving relationship.  The alienation brought about by regular existence in alternate realities have broken characters’ trust not only in their own perceptions of reality, but distanced them from the web of social involvement.  Mona, searching for drugs with money gained by selling her body, uses people and is used by people, no attempt at making more emotional connections.  Distrustful of everyone, she never forms a significant partnership with anyone she meets, Eddy only a meal ticket.  Likewise, the relationship between Angie and Bobby, though surviving for seven years, is swallowed by the egoistic habits of each: Bobby a craving to dig into cyberspace as deep as the Finn and Angie to the media conglomerate of T-A as their superstar.  The mental games played on Case by Wintermute and 3Jane create a rift between his glowing memories of his former girlfriend Linda Lee and their depictions of her--for better and worse--in simulated reality.  Case walks away from Neuromancer unfit and unwilling to pursue any meaningful relationship.  And lastly, Gibson plays the stylistic game so well that Kimiko never knows if Thom, the little AI in her helper disk, is a conscious being or an extremely lifelike AI construct.  The ambivalence prevents her from forming a natural relationship with Thom, the disk serving her needs as those around Mona do hers.

But for all of the metaphysical and social questions facing the characters, Gibson is able to take discussion regarding the definition of existence a step further.  The end of Neuromancer finds Finn inhabiting the matrix, his physical form no longer functioning in the real world.  Likewise, the climax of Mona Lisa Overdrive sees the characters Bobby and Angie dead in the real world but alive in an aleph.  An homage to Jose Louis Borges (who wrote a short story of the same title), an aleph is an object that can reveal the entire universe--a point that contains all other points, into infinity.  These two’s personalities still alive and interactive--as proved by Gentry and Slick when they jacked into the aleph to meet Bobby--serious questions are raised regarding the actuality of existence for Bobby, Angie and the Finn.  Lacking physical form, are they alive?  Their personalities interactive and for all practical purposes conscious, how to categorize personas lacking tangibility?  Do they fall under the same set of laws as typical humans?  What are their limits and possibilities for experience?  As long as the aleph maintains a power supply, are they effectively immortal?  The fear of death and the goal of immortality desirable for many in Western culture, to what lengths would humanity go to achieve a similar state as the three?  And the list could go on.

With Gibson’s future vision drawing closer by the year, these and other questions begin to occupy significant space aside the variety of social concerns society faces - and all due to changes in technology, not humanity.  By presenting the world as such, Gibson’s moral point of view is obvious.  Perhaps inescapable, humanity nevertheless needs to be aware of the physical, moral, and psychological effects of developing and applying technology.  Though undoubtedly black-listed by religious organizations and fundamentalists, the Sprawl series is not a grand glorification of sex, drugs, technology, and violence, but rather a presentation of these aspects as the natural outcome of the current state of capitalism’s application of scientific developments.  Perhaps mostly a thought experiment, the potential reality, like Orwell’s 1984 or Huxley’s Brave New World, should make the reader think, and moreover, prepare.

The Sprawl trilogy covers a lot of ground.  The degree to which scientific advances are commoditized and dispersed and integrated with humanity day by day, as well as the aspects of human nature which tends toward self-destruction (drugs, ecocide, etc.) are some of the issues taking the stage.  The slow dissolution of character, from the innocently unaware to the hardened tech-head, and accordingly, it is also an examination of the meaning of life; if AIs and digitized consciousnesses have thought and intelligence, what fundamentally separates them from standard humanity?  Thus, at all levels does Gibson’s Sprawl plant its crosshairs squarely on the near-future of humanity and ask the metaphysical questions that need answering before existence evolves beyond the bounds of definition.

If looking for more information, below you will find my reviews of the books which comprise the Sprawl series:

Burning Chrome

Neuromancer

Count Zero

Mona Lisa Overdrive

Review of "Burning Chrome" by William Gibson

William Gibson is a unique figure in science fiction.  Able to parallel and juxtapose prescient technology across profound social and cultural lines in literary style, his writing can be both appreciated by genre fans and savored by an aesthete.  Published in 1986, Burning Chrome is a collection of Gibson’s short fiction from the early part of his career, 1977-1985.  Despite that much of the content pre-dates the success of Neuromancer, all the elements which inform the Sprawl world and the novels which follow can be found here.  Thus, the collection is a great introduction to not only that series, but the author’s worldview and style in general.  What follows is a short commentary on each piece in the collection.

“Johnny Mnemonic” – Unlike the film, the original does not try to jam all of Gibson’s ideas into a two hour popcorn marathon, nor does it translate to the imagination in such tones of… unintentional comedy.  The short story is tightly focused plot and character-wise and contains some of the most overt description of the Sprawl in print.  Not the best of the collection, it’s nevertheless a solid opener. 

“The Gernsback Continuum” – This piece highlights Gibson’s wider spread interests as an artist and presents his view of the genre of science fiction.  Modernist gushing of the early 20th century in focus, the hope and dreams of another time find their meaning changed in the future.  One of the best in the collection, this story is one of the defining moments of the cyberpunk movement--thematically, that is.

“Fragments of a Hologram Rose” – James Cameron would later (unadmittedly) borrow the premise of this story for his movie Strange Days, namely: what the effect of being able to replay memories has on lost love.  Suffice to say, Gibson’s original possesses none of the Hollywood flair and is relayed in far more convincing tones. 

“The Belonging Kind” (with John Shirley) – This look at the bar scene is the story of an introverted man trying to fit in.  Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground springing to mind (the surreal version, that is), the story is a harsh or uplifting commentary on nightlife and humanity's social side, depending how you view it.

“Hinterland” – Daily life on Straylight, or a shorter, lonelier vision of Pohl’s Gateway, either way, it is a haunting story of humanity and companionship in the isolation of space.

“Red Star, Winter Orbit” (with Bruce Sterling) – Perhaps the weakest in the collection, this story is of the cycles of political, societal, and technological power that Russia and the USA have had, have, and most importantly, perhaps will have.

“New Rose Hotel” – A hauntingly poetic entry, Gibson finds his groove in a Sprawl biotech deal gone wrong, the conspirator holed up in a Japanese tube hotel (a-la Case at the beginning of Neuromancer), fearing for his life. (Note: this story was made into a film starring Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe, and Asia Argento.  Easily outpacing Johnny Mnemonic, it is the best screen adaptation of Gibson's work produced thus far.)

“A Winter Market” – A Sprawl story that lays the groundwork for Slick, Gentry, Cherry, and Little Bird in Mona Lisa Overdrive, it asks the question: what if you could escape physical pain without committing suicide by casting aside your mortal body for a digital life inside cyberspace?

“Dogfight” (with Michael Swanwick) – Perhaps the most fun and entertaining of the collection, this story takes the joy of video gaming to the next level, and drags along with it drugs, tech, and the angst of youth.

“Burning Chrome” – The icing on the cake, this Sprawl story caps the collection in glorious fashion.  Harddrives smoking, ‘trodes channeling the matrix, and reality two steps behind, this is stereotypical cyberpunk in a neon nutshell - and may be the best of the collection.

In the end, Burning Chrome is not one of those short story collections intending to simply cash in on a writer's early success.  Though some stories are stronger than others, all have been crafted with the same literary care Gibson invests in his novels.  Each sentence, phrase, and word is parsed for meaning and impact.  Moreover, almost all the themes and plot devices which can be found in his novels can be found here in capsular form.  Thus, if you’re unsure of whether or not to invest yourself in Gibson’s works, this is a great place to start without having to worry about the filler publishers often try to push on readers.  For those who have read the Sprawl series but not Burning Chrome, then the recommendation is obvious: I wish I had read it first.

Review of "Neuromancer" by William Gibson

There are specific moments in literary history that define future generations.  Neuromancer is one. As The Lord of the Rings was a watershed event that shaped the decades of epic fantasy to come, so too has William Gibson’s novel of a console cowboy riding through cyberspace shaped and influenced a myriad of science fiction since the 80s.  Richard Morgan’s Takeshi Kovac's novels, Ian McDonald’s River of Gods, the Wachowski brothers’ The Matrix, Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos, Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, Masumune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell, Iain Banks’ Culture novels – just to name a few - all owe varying degrees of recognition to the seminal influence that is Neuromancer.

An underground success when it was released in 1984, building to a huge readership in the years that followed, Neuromancer is no worse for the wear.  Gibson’s vision remains as penetrating into technology and society then as today.  In direct opposition to the squeaky clean laboratory visions of the future presented by Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and Gene Rodenberry, the novel is set in a bleak, grittier version of a future earth.  Corporations rule and the consumption of commodities – legal and illegal - have overtaken quotidian life.  A virtual world of data superimposes and permeates the fabric of society.  In fact, the saturation of technology and commercialism so replete, few hints of nature remain.  Life is instead channeled through electrodes, simulators, and designer drugs – existence carried on in rundown urban conglomerations and jacked into the matrix.  In true Philip K. Dick style, this line between reality and virtual reality blurs to the point the reader themselves at times does not trust their senses.

The novel’s plot centers on the cyber cowboy Case and his struggles in his chosen profession of data thief.  An outright drug addict, Case lives with one eye over his shoulder, the other looking to stay ahead of the dangers that trail his under-the-table, high risk dealings.  Encountering an offer to sweet to turn down, the uncertainties fade in the neon hope of achieving a long-dreamed of escape from life on the run.  But the deal isn’t what he expected.  Case’s advanced cyberspace skills take him places out of the atmosphere and deep into his dreams.  And his nightmares.  Bombarded with holograms, fake memories, and constant switches between realities – virtual, simulated, and otherwise - he begins losing touch.  But when AIs enter the picture, the game is taken to another plane.  Based on the psychological, sociological, and technological dimensions Gibson stretches the story across, literature has never had such equivocal view of life.  

Though the latter two books in the Sprawl series, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive, offer tighter, more polished prose, Neuromancer is no slouch.  Gibson’s first novel is a mature offering and better than the majority of sci-fi published by established writers today.  It offers a powerful, highly-unique style, lingual innovation the neon burning through the light.  A simple look at the terms coined - “jacked in”, “matrix”, “cyberpunk”, etc. – indicate the integral role the text has played not only amongst sci-fi geeks, but everyday society and the language it uses to describe techno reality.  Few today in the Western world are unaware of the term “cyberspace”, yet most probably do not know of its root in Neuromancer.  

In the end, nobody calling themselves a fan of science fiction in the 21st century can go without reading this novel.  A quick look at the titles it has influenced in the opening paragraph (no slouches, themselves) and the book’s significance becomes readily apparent.  Picking up the mantle PKD left with his untimely death in 1982, Gibson, though less prolific, has evolved the genre for a new generation - it’s stimuli possessing the same innovative bite but in higher literary form.  Beyond entertainment, Neuromancer is an artistic statement with vision into the reality of technology’s integration with humanity.  It is a book that will endure for generations.

(If you have read the whole Sprawl trilogy and are interested in reading more, you may like to read my essay entitled The Uncertainty of Reality: William Gibson's Sprawl Series.)

Review of "Mona Lisa Overdrive" by William Gibson

Having established a pattern of publishing a book every two to three years (the exact opposite of Iain Banks, Philip K. Dick, or Charles Stross), it would seem William Gibson spends his time perfecting his prose, paring down the text to a maximum of detail in a paucity of words.   Packed from end to end with impacting sentences which paint vivid pictures of a devolving near-future America,  Mona Lisa Overdrive is no exception.  The third and final novel of Gibson’s Sprawl series is another masterpiece featuring a narrative drive focused like a laser.  

Weighing in at a light 312 pages compared to much of sci-fi today (looking at you Hamilton, Stephenson, and Reynolds!), it’s obvious that Gibson believes there’s no need to overwhelm with volume to impress.  Quality rather than quantity, the author truly has his finger on the pulse of the language, the neologisms just waiting to be adopted into lingua franca.  Like triple distilled whiskey, the style can be savored, each word lean and sharp, and the most vivid of near-future dystopias swirling into view.  

Beginning roughly seven years after the events of Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive picks up the storylines of some old characters while introducing new ones.  Kumiko is the daughter of a powerful yakuza boss, sent to London to escape Tokyo internecine warfare.  Slick is an ex-con living in the wastelands of a New Jersey landfill, building bizarre robots in an attempt to clear his mind from the chemical brainwash he underwent in prison.  And Mona, a young prostitute, follows Eddy her pimp wherever the drugs take her.  These characters, as well as Angie and Bobby from Count Zero and Molly from Neuromancer, find their lives on a slow collision course that will have all of those jacked in to cyberspace standing at attention.

While there are some shallow fans who consider Neuromancer the only worthwhile offering of Gibson’s oeuvre, readers who appreciate his vision and insight will easily see how this novel advances the series to the next level.  Theme as well as story, Gibson continues to push at boundaries and is rewarded for his effort.  Worthy of notice alone is his ambition to comment upon technology, art, social ills, the environment, and the meaning of being human in a technologically saturated environs.  That he also tells a motivated, paced story filled with highly original ideas moves him to the alpha dogs of the sci-fi pack, no matter the era.  Other than plot threads which may or may not match up in the end, Mona Lisa Overdrive is worth every penny as a satisfying conclusion to what must be considered one of the best sci-fi series out there.

(If you have read the whole Sprawl trilogy and are interested in reading more, you may like to read my essay entitled The Uncertainty of Reality: William Gibson's Sprawl Series.)

Review of "Count Zero" by William Gibson

There are numerous examples of writers catching a wave and riding the idea for several books to great success.  Count Zero finds William Gibson shooting the curl.  Fitting between Neuromancer and Mona Lisa Overdrive, the imagery, terminology, and storyline are as fresh today as they were in the 1980s.  The just-out-of-reach future never seemed so realistic.  Neither u- or dystopia, Gibson’s vision features a society perpetually evolving and technology continuing to be exploited for better and worse.  And not a word is wasted in the telling.  Count Zero is a master of style and genre in full form. 

The story is of Virek, the world’s richest man and whose body survives in a vat.  From there, his brain spiders out across cyberspace, seeking the artist who created the seven most beautiful boxes he’s ever seen.  The reason: in their making lies the secret to his escape from the vat and return to the physical world.  Money no object, he employs at will those who will bring him closer to his goal, uncaring as to who is hurt along the way.  Despite being the catalyst, Virek remains a background character to the story.  Count Zero is instead told through the eyes of three people who are either directly involved with the mastermind, or drawn in regardless of intent.  Turner is the special forces man trying to do his job.  Bobby is the cyber cowboy suddenly experiencing the web like never before.  And Marly, the starving art student, is given a bottomless bank account and told by Virek to “follow her intuition” to the boxes’ creator.  As the plot progresses for each, what seem disparate storylines are woven together by Gibson in unfailing fashion, the narrative as smooth as the connection Booby jacks into at Jammer’s club.  What results is an ending not only breathtaking in form, but also one which strikes at the thematic heart of Gibson’s ideological exploration: the relationship of humanity with technology.  

High quality prose both anchoring and propelling the plot, the storyline of Count Zero does not lag for a moment.   Regardless of action on screen or not, the words roll.   Likewise, thematic content remains a backdrop to every scene, raising the novel above the majority of sci-fi available today which focuses only on the story.  Thus, for those interested in realistic portrayals of the future of the internet, a well-told sci-fi story, and a discussion point on the nature of humanity’s future with technology, the book comes highly recommended.  It is cyberpunk in full swing and not to be missed.

(If you have read the whole Sprawl trilogy and are interested in reading more, you may like to read my essay entitled The Uncertainty of Reality: William Gibson's Sprawl Series.)