My first time reading Gibson's Sprawl trilogy was through the first and third books, "Neuromancer" and "Mona Lisa Overdrive". So naturally I began to seek out the second book of that series "Count Zero", and for a while now I had been keeping an eye out for a copy. And eventually I would get my hands on it and now I have just finished reading it!
The thing about the Sprawl trilogy is that while, yes, it is set in the same universe I'm always getting something different with each book. Kind of feels like reading a stand alone; always getting introduced to a new cast of characters, with some older characters making some appearances also, and new scenarios.
In "Count Zero" I'm introduced to a corporate mercenary who is recovering from a previous mission that nearly killed him and had his body reconstructed, only to be reactivated again by the Hosaka Corporation for an even more dangerous one that involves a defecting R&D man and a new chip he has perfected. Which also attracted the interest of others, with some who might not be human at all.
There is nothing dull about this series as everything kicks into high gear with tons of action to spare. And it also shows a future, which in a very dark and disturbing way, could be very plausible! And that pretty much completes my reading of that series; and there are still others that I still need to get to, or complete, whichever comes first. Plus there is his sole short story collection, "Burning Chrome", that's waiting in my TBR stack. Hope to get to that one!
Count Zero is absolutely my favorite William Gibson book, and I've read most of them. I reread it every eight years or so, the only book I've reread multiple times.
Disgraced art dealer, mystery art, the corporate entities basically becoming warring nation states. Not that different from how our oligopolistic corporations behave today.
Great cyberpunk.
For a good non-Gibson next read, I recommend The Electric Church by Jeff Somers. Similar cyberpunk dark gritty feel, exploring the line between man and machine.
Agree, and Bobby is one of the most relatable sci-fi characters of all time.
Gibson added the final line of Neuromancer to ensure he’d never write a sequel… which didn’t quite go as planned, but forced him to do something different yet obviously very related. Backing himself into that corner probably helped the entire trilogy be as great as it is.
It's a strength of his series that they're not really direct sequels, he hits the themes and ideas and changing society of each trilogy through a bunch of different angles.
Great thing each novel has its own cast. Fits the worldbuilding where human bodies are mostly tools that are employed for some purpose before being disposed.
As iconic as Neuromancer's opening sentence is, I actually prefer Count Zero's opening:
Talk about starting a story with a bang. And more than that, the nocturnal, indoor world of Neuromancer explodes into brightness. This time Gibson is going to show us the future in broad daylight.
Overall, I didn't enjoy Count Zero or Mona Lisa Overdrive quite as much as Neuromancer, but Count Zero in particular is packed full of remarkably stylish, vivid images that still leap off the page directly into my mind's eye, right from the very first page.
Howdy - FYI your quotes didn’t come through.
Balls. Here's what should have been there:
They set a slamhound on Turner's trail in New Delhi, slotted it to his pheromones and the color of his hair. It caught up with him in a street called Chandni Chawk and came scrambling for his rented BMW through a forest of bare brown legs and pedicab tyres. Its core was a kilogram of recrystallised hexogene and flaked TNT.
He didn't see it coming. The last he saw of India was the pink stucco façade of a place called the Kush-Oil Hotel.
Was listening to a sci-fi book podcast on the Sprawl Trilogy, one of them contends that Chapter 1 of Count Zero is Gibson's best story. I like it as a framing, though I haven't taken the time to fully decide if I agree. But that first chapter is sure as hell a real firecracker of a way to start things off.
I quickly went and reread the opening after reading this thread. Gibson has this way of writing wistful melancholic scenes that is beautiful. I can't quite describe it, but it's the same as the hanglider scene in Neuromancer. I find his writing quite moving at times. And then something brutal happens to snap me out of my reverie.
The opening of Count Zero is my favorite cyberpunk opening, hands down. Grabs you right away and does not let go.
Count Zero is alsoo my favorite of the three even though everyone always talks about Neuromancer. Neuromancer was my entry though. the multiple POV structure and how it all crashes together at the end made me love it.
Count Zero is my favourite of the trilogy. Turners story is the drawn out mental breakdown of an immensely traumatised man, but of course being a tough guy he never directly identifies it as such. I think that arc is presented brilliantly.
Just be careful not to pull a Wilson
The whole trilogy is great, although I'm not rational about speaking about them because I read them all dozens of times when I was an adolescent. The braided story arc works so well too, I wish it was used more often.
I love the origin of Bobby’s handle. It was actually a Z80 machine instruction.
Yeah the Z80 CPU's "count zero and jump if not zero" instruction! It was written as "CNZ" in assembly language. Gibson was so clever using that as a hacker handle - perfect for a character who's constantly testing limits and jumping into the unknown. Classic 80s microcomputer reference.
Gibson certainly avoided the second book curse in his trilogy-a lot of people I know (myself included) think ‘Count Zero’ either the best book of the three or of his entire œuvre for that matter, though I’m a little partial to ‘Pattern Recognition‘ for lifetime achievement, which edges out ‘Count Zero’ by a sliver of a nose.
Hot take: CZ & MLD are Neuromancer’s core story beats spread over 2 books.
I remember reading a review long ago that described the title "Mona Lisa Overdrive" as a "delicious pun". I could never work out why?
I read it when I was in line fifth grade and really liked the pistol and also the variable geometry attack plane
Gibson's later book " Pattern Recognition" has many similarities to " Count Zero" and in my view is an even better book.
It follows a similar plot- a young woman is employed by a very wealthy man to find the source of mysterious art works.
I'm in awe of Gibson's use of language. This shows up a little in CZ ( that scene with the maker: " watch my arms- there is only the dance"), but PR is full of phrases that make me stop, and think, and smile.
I have only read the first one in the trilogy so far, the classic Necromancer, as I suspect most people have. I look forward to reading it all in one go in the not too distant future, but, so many books, so little time 😎☹️😎