Product Description
A corporate mercenary wakes in a reconstructed body, a beautiful woman by his side. Then Hosaka Corporation reactivates him, for a mission more dangerous than the one he's recovering from: to get a defecting chief of R&D-and the biochip he's perfected-out intact. But this proves to be of supreme interest to certain other parties-some of whom aren't remotely human.
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Amazon.com Review
Turner, corporate mercenary, wakes in a reconstructed body, a beautiful woman by his side. Then Hosaka Corporation reactivates him for a mission more dangerous than the one he's recovering from: Maas-Neotek's chief of R&D is defecting. Turner is the one assigned to get him out intact, along with the biochip he's perfected. But this proves to be of supreme interest to certain other parties--some of whom aren't remotely human. Bobby Newmark is entirely human: a rustbelt data-hustler totally unprepared for what comes his way when the defection triggers war in cyberspace. With voodoo on the Net and a price on his head, Newmark thinks he's only trying to get out alive. A stylish, streetsmart, frighteningly probable parable of the future and sequel to Neuromancer
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 Coasting on successful ideas. ( maull07 )
I'm worried that, as I read more Gibson, the man has been making a name on copying a few ideas into his novels while attempting to present them as novel each time. In fact, he merely rewrites the superficial details of the story around those core ideas, which, in his first novel, were of great interest.
Again, we have a world of low-life types populating a world that veers in and out of the artificial matrix and the more "real." We have characters within who can't distinguish between the two, or use elements from both to build their worlds. We have more noir-like corporate entities and overly ambitious artificial intelligence programs vying for control of this world of overlapping realities. There is more paranoia and reality bending.
The problem is that "Neuromancer" covered all of these elements while focusing more on a world -- rather than a set of characters that exist as a part of that world. In the previous book, there was a sense that reality bending and a sense of paranoia controlled everything. The biotechnological aspects were novel and he was breaking ground in the Dickian way of questioning our assumptions of reality through our use of computers and technology. Here, we have simple Dickens. Caricatures of people who Gibson thinks he knows and the world is there by accident, as if he did all of that work in Neuromancer so that he wouldn't have to do so again. These characterizations even include the AIs and corporations that he likes to use as the antagonists of his books.
His style is also an acquired taste, and I still have yet to warm up to it.
So, yes, he might have popularized some things we have come to accept as a part of our world -- credit cards, hackers, and so on. But I still am of the opinion that this is laziness on his part and he isn't willing to take risks with his own soul like he did in his previous one.
I shall try reading a couple of others by him, but I worry that he won't have much more of interest to relate to me if such continues.
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 Brilliant mindscapes, a cornucopia of scenes and characters. ( demopoly )
Count Zero is one of three novels that set Gibson a world apart from most of us authors. He is one man whose praise I am happy to sing. Reading this novel and some of his other works got me through more than five years of suicidal depression due to a failing marriage. Ironically, the tone of these novels is often less than happy, and certainly far from perfect, as in this... life is largely risk and disappointment, met with occasional moments of glory.
The angst, hopelessness, humor, and endurance of his characters felt so real that I could identify with them. These are like real people walking on pages. Each scene is so alive that you find yourself looking around Los Angeles, New York, or Tokyo trying to find the settings. This novel gives one a feel like no other, as though you're living it while you read.
The console cowboys of Count Zero are as alien to any of us as a real alien would be, and yet we find ourselves drawn into the corporate hacker culture as readily as a puppy to liver. Gibson makes it all accessible, understandable, and impossible to stop reading.
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On receiving an interrupt, decrement the count to zero.
If you loved Neuromancer, you'll love Count Zero. Great read.
Check it out.
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 More action
Gibson ramps up the action in the second of the Sprawl Trilogy books. Case and Molly are nowhere to be seen, but that's okay.
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Cyberpunk sweetness
First 25%, get your bearings on the story threads. A lot going on here- people, places, virtual reality, reality, etc. Had to be patient to put the new information into my folder called, "Sweet."
Middle 50%, feel out the people, plot and possibilities. Stacks of circumstances pile up. I ask myself if and when it will topple. Stacks weave, twist and waver until they form a wonderful skyscraper.
And the last 75% watch your expectations unravel into a tapestry of switchbacks and surprises. My expectations were set atop of that circumstantial skyscraper and taking the rapid elevator back down to the end of the book was a wicked read.
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