nicanical
A good follow-up to Neuromancer. Count Zero fleshes out William Gibson's Sprawl nicely, introducing a new cast, but also revisiting some characters and locations from Neuromancer for continuity.
Gibson goes with three narrative streams this time: one follows Turner, a mercenary hired to run a corporate defection; another follows budding console jockey Bobby Newmark—the titular Count; the final stream follows disgraced curator Marly Krushkhova, hired to find the creator of enigmatic box-shaped sculptures.
The story unfolds like a Greek tragedy. Unlike Neuromancer where Case and Molly ran the show, Turner, Bobby, and Marly aren't so much inciting events as they are being dwarfed and manipulated by wildly influential entities: multibillionaires, multinationals, and mysterious 'voodoo gods' in cyberspace—remnants of the Neuromancer-Wintermute merger.
Count Zero's prose and pacing is good, following the same propulsive style as Neuromancer's. Two complaints though. First, Gibson excessively name-drops corporations, e.g., Sony Biomonitor, Citroen-Dornier car. In moderation, this technique enhances the realism and grounds the world but here it's overused and distracting. Second, there are some decking sequences in the latter half but once again they underwhelm like in Neuromancer—just autopilot milk runs in the Matrix.
A good follow-up to Neuromancer. Count Zero fleshes out William Gibson's Sprawl nicely, introducing a new cast, but also revisiting some characters and locations from Neuromancer for continuity.
Gibson goes with three narrative streams this time: one follows Turner, a mercenary hired to run a corporate defection; another follows budding console jockey Bobby Newmark—the titular Count; the final stream follows disgraced curator Marly Krushkhova, hired to find the creator of enigmatic box-shaped sculptures.
The story unfolds like a Greek tragedy. Unlike Neuromancer where Case and Molly ran the show, Turner, Bobby, and Marly aren't so much inciting events as they are being dwarfed and manipulated by wildly influential entities: multibillionaires, multinationals, and mysterious 'voodoo gods' in cyberspace—remnants of the Neuromancer-Wintermute merger.
Count Zero's prose and pacing is good, following the same propulsive style as Neuromancer's. Two complaints though. First, Gibson excessively name-drops corporations, e.g., Sony Biomonitor, Citroen-Dornier car. In moderation, this technique enhances the realism and grounds the world but here it's overused and distracting. Second, there are some decking sequences in the latter half but once again they underwhelm like in Neuromancer—just autopilot milk runs in the Matrix.