Count Zero
Ratings153
Average rating4
On rereading, this one holds up well. I forgot how similar the plot is to Pattern Recognition. It gets either hard to follow or hand-wavy at the end, or possibly both... I didn't care enough to try to reconstruct everything that was happening, and why.
Set in the Sprawl, the world of Gibson's Neuromancer, but easier to read. Neuromancer set the stage for this book but it was dark and complicated and for an introduction to cyberpunk it was difficult to grasp. Count Zero has dark moments but it is not as opaque as its predecessor.
Count Zero is a young man who wants to be a cyber hacker, a Cowboy. He's given some software to explore that turns out to have a secret danger. Once he's been exposed to the power behind the code there is no escape from the people who now pursue him.
The story has three prongs: the young hacker, an art dealer on the trail of a mysterious sculptor, and a mercenary employed to abduct a scientist from a rival company. Inevitably they come together in an explosive climax, having left a lot of dead bodies in their respective wakes.
Where Neuromancer threaded the reader through a dark underworld, Count Zero has everything out in the open - 4 1/2 exploding helicopters from me.
Definitely not as engaging as Neuromancer. I never knew it was a trilogy way back when I first read Neuromancer. Thinking it shouldn't be. I probably won't read the next book.
Classic of cyberpunk
It's been 20 years since I last read Count Zero and honestly, I had forgotten much of it. But this rereading was highly enjoyable. It was better than I remembered.
The book starts slow and it took me about 50% before I started getting into it. But then it just gets better and better. So stick with it early on. Gibson's writing always feels a little hectic and schizophrenic so it takes longer to get into the flow of it. Some people will find it a bit frustrating, but it's worth it for the way this book ends.
As a side note, the prominent mention of brands is curious and interesting. Many things are given explicit brands in CZ. The Honda helicopter. The Braun cyberspace deck (followed by the Hosaka and the ever-so-elite Ono-Sendai). Hosaka and Maas are big corporations that lawlessly kill to protect or steal talent. I don't know why this seemed to stick out so much more on this reading, but it did. And I found it interesting. I remember sitting and thinking about Braun and where that company was in 1985 that would make Gibson mention it as he did. There was definitely a Germany vs Japan future clash that was a low smoldering element throughout the book.
I think I actually prefer CZ over Neuromancer, at least at this point.
Gibson's first novel, Neuromancer, was greeted with hosannas and showered with awards. This second book, set in the same universe, again offers a faddish, glitzy surface not unlike that of Miami Vice. Gibson's central image is the shadow boxes constructed by the artist Joseph Cornell, collections of seemingly unrelated objects whose juxtaposition creates a new impression. In the same fashion, the novel has three protagonists, each of whom is putting together jigsaw clues in pursuit of his separate goal. The corporate headhunter, the art dealer and the computer hacker all find themselves being manipulatedjust as the author contrives to have their paths converge. This book is less appealing and less verbally skillful than Gibson's first novel, dense and dour as that was, but readers who liked that one will want to see this as well.
Executive Summary: A fast-paced thriller from the master of cyberpunk.Full ReviewI've had this book and [b:Mona Lisa Overdrive 154091 Mona Lisa Overdrive (Sprawl, #3) William Gibson http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320558292s/154091.jpg 1263322] sitting unread on my shelves for far too long. I kept finding other books to grab my attention.I finally got around to reading this, and I wish I had sooner. I wanted something short and fun and this fit the bill nicely.The book opens with Turner, a mercenary for hire, who specializes in aggressive corporate recruiting, of a sort. His job involves extracting high value employees from one corporation to another.We then meet Marly, the disgraced former operator of a small art gallery in Paris. She is hired by Herr Josef Virek, an enormously wealthy collector to track down the creator of some rare boxes.Finally we meet Bobby, a young cyber cowboy trying to make a name for himself.How do these three stories relate to one another? I asked myself the same question. The answer was in a fun and easy cyberpunk thriller. I'm looking forward to fitting in [b:Mona Lisa Overdrive 154091 Mona Lisa Overdrive (Sprawl, #3) William Gibson http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320558292s/154091.jpg 1263322] at some point soon.