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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
Gibson's unique ability deliver primal human emotions through the garble of static is unparalleled. Hypnotic, overwhelming, and occasionally lyrical, Count Zero is a fitting sequel to Neuromancer.
It is very apparent how obsessed with fashion Gibson is in this book which foreshadows plot lines based on obscure fashion designers in future not sprawled based books. Enjoyable on second read but I found the corporate espionage portions more interesting this time around than the cyberspace portions which were just smatterings of obscure descriptions.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Got about halfway. This book requires a full attention span and patience. It requires a love of detailed metaphor and niche jargon. Will return someday when I have the time.
First a warning. This is a spiritual sequel. The Finn is the only real carryover character (and, in its own way, Wintermute, but not really. And not in a way I can explain without spoilers). The events of the first sprawl book are only hinted at in whispers by imperfect second hand accounts and play almost no part in this story. The only thing that is the same is the crushing world it takes place in.
The same wild dangerous cyberpunk world of Neuromancer but filled with people who are comfortable and familiar in the sprawl. The setups of the world, specifically with Turner was fascinating and in the beginning I could not fathom how these 3 POVs would eventually intertwine and find each other. It seemed obvious that they would since they all hinged on different facets of the larger mystery.
I take issue with naming the book count zero. Bobby or count zero does so little in the story he scarcely counts as a main character. Big interesting things happen around him, but he has almost no agency in the process. Contrast this with Turner who is the classic bladerunner archetype, grizzled merc for hire who gets backstabbed and then has to save a girl 'the virgin' and the very definition of innocence. Hell, the girl is the cover of the reprint of the book.
In fact, we could have told the entire story without Bobby and understood it just fine as long as Turner ran across Beauvoir and Lucas around the mid point (there were some opportunities as well). Bobby, who is purported to be a skilled deck cowboy, gets all of two runs through the matrix in the entire story and (I promise this doesn't spoil anything) trips over himself and nearly gets killed both times, and at other's expense.
Why did Gibson think that readers, after watching the best of the best get backstabbed and find his way back to glory in the previous installment, that we'd want to watch a snot-nosed kid who didn't know anything to spend the entire book wishing he had?
This leads me to my second issue. The book is very top heavy. Things start out promising, but then we spend an entire 43% of the book (according to kindle e-reader) establishing characters and stakes in a very Act 1 manner. I started wondering if there was any story at all, or if it was a strange slice-of-life. Especially Marly, who is nearly living in a separate reality from the other characters, and indeed, never learns of or interacts with the others at all. Even the world building around her seems more hopeful, more normal and a positive near future, confusingly contrasting with the ruined dystopian tech future of the rest who operate squarely in the sprawl universe.
I appreciate the attempt at the multiple perspectives, but Gibson writes Turner's arc the most effectively, with the high octane twists and turns and effective world building that we've come to expect. The other two POVs are fine stories in a vacuum, but they make the larger world feel inconsistent. The reveals of their mysteries make me ask, why do we care? They're interesting in their own right, but they're not world-changing.
The issue of the Biosofts—arguably the central crux of the story—is so pushed to the background you hardly know what is so great about them until the last ten pages. And even then, they don't offer any miraculous insight. They're a liability more than anything throughout.
Taking all of that into account, I enjoyed this book. If neuromancer didn't exist already, I'd be head over heels about this particular story. The writing is made up of the sort of elegant prose that makes me question all other kinds of writing. Makes me embarrassed and self conscious to even pen this review in my gross, overwrought conversational vernacular. The amount of beautiful visual detail Gibson can get across in a sentence or two takes other authors' pages, and to lesser effect. I could read this again just for the joy of its sheer style. Its audacity to pass off a major story changing plot in a single line. Here is an author fully in control of the medium.
He also has a knack for making dozens and dozens of characters memorable in a way that they can reappear 150 pages later, and I remember exactly who they are. The characters don't fall into stereotyped 1-dimensional archetypes, they all have depth and nuance. They come alive so readily that you can't help but remember them. Something many modern books struggle with even with far greater page count at their disposal.
And Gibson backs his characters into corners in a way few others dare to. Situations where the reader is left wondering what on earth (or off of it) they themselves would do in such a situation, only for the characters to pull out a wonderful solution that involves a fair amount of self sacrifice. Only on a few occasions does the story lean heavily on 'calling in a (previously unestablished) favor' and undermines our expectations of the trope enough I'm willing to let the deus ex pass.
Overall I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys dystopias, cyberpunk, or even speculative near-future fiction. It delivers a fair amount of Climate science fiction tenants without forcefeeding you any long tsk-tsk monologues. It shows the darker side of human adaptability when mega corporations and a crumbling world push us into something we no longer recognize. Giving us a startlingly true interpretation of what any of us are capable of when our survival is on the line.
The same wild dangerous cyberpunk world of Neuromancer but filled with people who are comfortable and familiar in the sprawl. The setups of the world, specifically with Turner was fascinating and in the beginning I could not fathom how these 3 POVs would eventually intertwine and find each other. It seemed obvious that they would since they all hinged on different facets of the larger mystery.
I take issue with naming the book count zero. Bobby or count zero does so little in the story he scarcely counts as a main character. Big interesting things happen around him, but he has almost no agency in the process. Contrast this with Turner who is the classic bladerunner archetype, grizzled merc for hire who gets backstabbed and then has to save a girl 'the virgin' and the very definition of innocence. Hell, the girl is the cover of the reprint of the book.
In fact, we could have told the entire story without Bobby and understood it just fine as long as Turner ran across Beauvoir and Lucas around the mid point (there were some opportunities as well). Bobby, who is purported to be a skilled deck cowboy, gets all of two runs through the matrix in the entire story and (I promise this doesn't spoil anything) trips over himself and nearly gets killed both times, and at other's expense.
Why did Gibson think that readers, after watching the best of the best get backstabbed and find his way back to glory in the previous installment, that we'd want to watch a snot-nosed kid who didn't know anything to spend the entire book wishing he had?
This leads me to my second issue. The book is very top heavy. Things start out promising, but then we spend an entire 43% of the book (according to kindle e-reader) establishing characters and stakes in a very Act 1 manner. I started wondering if there was any story at all, or if it was a strange slice-of-life. Especially Marly, who is nearly living in a separate reality from the other characters, and indeed, never learns of or interacts with the others at all. Even the world building around her seems more hopeful, more normal and a positive near future, confusingly contrasting with the ruined dystopian tech future of the rest who operate squarely in the sprawl universe.
I appreciate the attempt at the multiple perspectives, but Gibson writes Turner's arc the most effectively, with the high octane twists and turns and effective world building that we've come to expect. The other two POVs are fine stories in a vacuum, but they make the larger world feel inconsistent. The reveals of their mysteries make me ask, why do we care? They're interesting in their own right, but they're not world-changing.
The issue of the Biosofts—arguably the central crux of the story—is so pushed to the background you hardly know what is so great about them until the last ten pages. And even then, they don't offer any miraculous insight. They're a liability more than anything throughout.
Taking all of that into account, I enjoyed this book. If neuromancer didn't exist already, I'd be head over heels about this particular story. The writing is made up of the sort of elegant prose that makes me question all other kinds of writing. Makes me embarrassed and self conscious to even pen this review in my gross, overwrought conversational vernacular. The amount of beautiful visual detail Gibson can get across in a sentence or two takes other authors' pages, and to lesser effect. I could read this again just for the joy of its sheer style. Its audacity to pass off a major story changing plot in a single line. Here is an author fully in control of the medium.
He also has a knack for making dozens and dozens of characters memorable in a way that they can reappear 150 pages later, and I remember exactly who they are. The characters don't fall into stereotyped 1-dimensional archetypes, they all have depth and nuance. They come alive so readily that you can't help but remember them. Something many modern books struggle with even with far greater page count at their disposal.
And Gibson backs his characters into corners in a way few others dare to. Situations where the reader is left wondering what on earth (or off of it) they themselves would do in such a situation, only for the characters to pull out a wonderful solution that involves a fair amount of self sacrifice. Only on a few occasions does the story lean heavily on 'calling in a (previously unestablished) favor' and undermines our expectations of the trope enough I'm willing to let the deus ex pass.
Overall I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys dystopias, cyberpunk, or even speculative near-future fiction. It delivers a fair amount of Climate science fiction tenants without forcefeeding you any long tsk-tsk monologues. It shows the darker side of human adaptability when mega corporations and a crumbling world push us into something we no longer recognize. Giving us a startlingly true interpretation of what any of us are capable of when our survival is on the line.
I recently bought a Jeep Wrangler. No, I'm not bragging. If you've never driven or even ridden in one of the base trim Wranglers, you'd be surprised about the lack of actual features. It's a very very basic truck. No power windows, doors that swing out wildly, no A/C, no power locks, a noisy and pretty uncomfortable cabin, etc. It's not a truck you buy for comfort or ease of use. What I'm driving at here (pun intended! Zing!) is that it's catered to a type of function or person. After having read Neuromancer, and now Count Zero, I believe Mr. Gibson's writing is that of the Jeep Wrangler in comparison. I'm not exclusively talking about the quality of the writing either, but also my arrogance that I could read (listen to) this book passively while doing my normal other activities, which 9 times out of 10 involve gym activities or some sort of strenous form of exercise. The book and Mr. Gibson's approach to story telling is...elaborate. The events of the story generally follow a consecutive time line, so there's no (thankfully) jumping back and forth between timelines. But the book and story is just written in a way that is hard to engage with. I suppose that lends itself to the 'cyberpunk' rough around the edges style. But unless you're expecting this style and are well prepared for no hand holding, it can be very jarring. Terminology that is not explained is tossed at the reader and names given to characters in passing makes for a very bumpy ride. Just as the base Wrangler doesn't provide you with the niceties of other cars, and expects you to just get in, grab on and go for the ride, the same is true for Gibson's series thus far.
Unfortunately, to pull this off properly... the story and characters must be top notch. And honestly while I liked the characters of Count Zero, none of them really stood out to me as really wanting to win in the end or much of anything really. Each character (of which there are 3 main protagonists, Bobby, Turner and Marley) is given a decent back story, proving that some thought was put into the characters, but it still didn't feel very engaging. Felt very detached from their emotions...Bobby Newmark, and the relationship with his mother was interesting, but it didn't really actively play a role in the story anyway.
Another bone of contention I have is the hodge podge of names and places that are tossed around. Now I've read some books with some very thick name dropping (think game of thrones), but William Gibson does this is a very clumsy way. I suppose the types of names he gives to places and characters is to place as well, but unless you really pay attention, I found myself caught up and a stew of names and places that left me baffled. Along those same lines is the stories uncanny ability to gloss over big events or tell them in a way that is so marred in the language that it's often near impossible to tell if something happened the way your interpretted it. For instance during the main mission of Turner's storyline, he's sent to retrieve one of the designers from a biotech corporation who's landing by jet. (To even get that much straight I had to read the wiki synopsis) The mission goes fubar, but due to the obscure and convoluted writing of Gibson, I didn't even know anything had gone wrong. Gibson, for better or for worse, writes in a way that tells things just happening, with no real clue or hint rather it's going as expected or something surprising happened, or the character is thrown off by an event..etc. This leads the reader to just accept that's given at face value, without knowing the context. So during the rescue mission he finds a young girl in the jet. I don't freaking know if it was part of the planned assignment or not? No emotion or inner dialogue is given, and by the end of it, I'm scratching my head thinking... 'wait...I think this Turner guy was supposed to be rescuing a man?'
Things like that just point back to my Jeep Wrangler argument. You're not given anything, you have to do the work yourself to really read into what's happening. Things are indeed "explained" later on, but even then it's done though wordy, slang that is used to set the tone and theme of the culture in the setting. So what this ultimately means is if you're not focusing on actually deciphering Gibson's masked language, you will be lost. Couple this with the speed and and rate of events. Things happen fast. And that again, I suppose comes with the nature and 'culture' of the book's theme. Even the narrator took to changing his tempo at times during events like dreams and high action sequences. Unfortunately there's no real recaps. Just reactions to the events so it leaves you wondering why is this character now reacting and thinking a certain idea.
The last major issue I have with the book ( and series so far...) is that it attempts or gives the illusion to attempt to ask some philosophical questions... but I still have no idea what those questions are.. In Neuromancer we have the merging of two AI systems, (which btw it took me midway through the book to realize what a wintermute and neuromancer were) and it seems like there should be some very "Ghost in the Machine" style question being raised as to what is real etc.. Two things with this. Since the books writing, that style of questioning has been done and gone over in so much sci fi, it's sort of cliche at this point. The anime series Ghost in the Shell and The Matrix have beaten that horse so much it respawned. That's not Gibson's fault of course. The other issue with it, is that it's not even done very well. The philosophy of the idea's raised is so subtle that I'm actually not even sure if it's intended or even there. Now there is definitely many topics of religion, sects, and cultism in the book. Voodoo has made a strong come back in the cultures of some of the cults on Earth, which seem to praise the gods or loa. (Again..NONE of this is given to you out right...I had to dig like bob the builder to get some of these info...this book isn't exactly well documented) And apparently the loa are permutations of the joining of Wintermute and Neurmancer? Now again, the subtlty of any sort of philosophical questioning leaves me feeling after I read this...Okay..what can I take away from it.. Umm I'm not really sure. At it's heart it's a book..with cyberpunkish ideas and themes, that seemed to try to make a point, but didn't quite know what it wanted to say. So it grabbed at using obfiscating language to make it sound edgy and intelligent. That sounds way harsher than intended, but I just can't see any other way to say it. I enjoyed the book, after having to literally re-listen to each chapter 2 or 3 times. It's a good book to sit down with, take notes, and actually see the names and titles of characters and places....listening to this book via audio..and I'm seeing this is a fact with all of Gibson's work...is not really viable. you'll miss out on a lot and like my Wrangler it doesn't offer power mirrors to adjust the vantage point...
Unfortunately, to pull this off properly... the story and characters must be top notch. And honestly while I liked the characters of Count Zero, none of them really stood out to me as really wanting to win in the end or much of anything really. Each character (of which there are 3 main protagonists, Bobby, Turner and Marley) is given a decent back story, proving that some thought was put into the characters, but it still didn't feel very engaging. Felt very detached from their emotions...Bobby Newmark, and the relationship with his mother was interesting, but it didn't really actively play a role in the story anyway.
Another bone of contention I have is the hodge podge of names and places that are tossed around. Now I've read some books with some very thick name dropping (think game of thrones), but William Gibson does this is a very clumsy way. I suppose the types of names he gives to places and characters is to place as well, but unless you really pay attention, I found myself caught up and a stew of names and places that left me baffled. Along those same lines is the stories uncanny ability to gloss over big events or tell them in a way that is so marred in the language that it's often near impossible to tell if something happened the way your interpretted it. For instance during the main mission of Turner's storyline, he's sent to retrieve one of the designers from a biotech corporation who's landing by jet. (To even get that much straight I had to read the wiki synopsis) The mission goes fubar, but due to the obscure and convoluted writing of Gibson, I didn't even know anything had gone wrong. Gibson, for better or for worse, writes in a way that tells things just happening, with no real clue or hint rather it's going as expected or something surprising happened, or the character is thrown off by an event..etc. This leads the reader to just accept that's given at face value, without knowing the context. So during the rescue mission he finds a young girl in the jet. I don't freaking know if it was part of the planned assignment or not? No emotion or inner dialogue is given, and by the end of it, I'm scratching my head thinking... 'wait...I think this Turner guy was supposed to be rescuing a man?'
Things like that just point back to my Jeep Wrangler argument. You're not given anything, you have to do the work yourself to really read into what's happening. Things are indeed "explained" later on, but even then it's done though wordy, slang that is used to set the tone and theme of the culture in the setting. So what this ultimately means is if you're not focusing on actually deciphering Gibson's masked language, you will be lost. Couple this with the speed and and rate of events. Things happen fast. And that again, I suppose comes with the nature and 'culture' of the book's theme. Even the narrator took to changing his tempo at times during events like dreams and high action sequences. Unfortunately there's no real recaps. Just reactions to the events so it leaves you wondering why is this character now reacting and thinking a certain idea.
The last major issue I have with the book ( and series so far...) is that it attempts or gives the illusion to attempt to ask some philosophical questions... but I still have no idea what those questions are.. In Neuromancer we have the merging of two AI systems, (which btw it took me midway through the book to realize what a wintermute and neuromancer were) and it seems like there should be some very "Ghost in the Machine" style question being raised as to what is real etc.. Two things with this. Since the books writing, that style of questioning has been done and gone over in so much sci fi, it's sort of cliche at this point. The anime series Ghost in the Shell and The Matrix have beaten that horse so much it respawned. That's not Gibson's fault of course. The other issue with it, is that it's not even done very well. The philosophy of the idea's raised is so subtle that I'm actually not even sure if it's intended or even there. Now there is definitely many topics of religion, sects, and cultism in the book. Voodoo has made a strong come back in the cultures of some of the cults on Earth, which seem to praise the gods or loa. (Again..NONE of this is given to you out right...I had to dig like bob the builder to get some of these info...this book isn't exactly well documented) And apparently the loa are permutations of the joining of Wintermute and Neurmancer? Now again, the subtlty of any sort of philosophical questioning leaves me feeling after I read this...Okay..what can I take away from it.. Umm I'm not really sure. At it's heart it's a book..with cyberpunkish ideas and themes, that seemed to try to make a point, but didn't quite know what it wanted to say. So it grabbed at using obfiscating language to make it sound edgy and intelligent. That sounds way harsher than intended, but I just can't see any other way to say it. I enjoyed the book, after having to literally re-listen to each chapter 2 or 3 times. It's a good book to sit down with, take notes, and actually see the names and titles of characters and places....listening to this book via audio..and I'm seeing this is a fact with all of Gibson's work...is not really viable. you'll miss out on a lot and like my Wrangler it doesn't offer power mirrors to adjust the vantage point...
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Disappointing. There is a very interesting, dystopian world here, but the story never seems to do it justice. The characters weren't interesting, which made the first 200 pages a bit of a slog. Although, to be fair, I kept going because I was interested in how it would all end. The rest of the book was fast paced and fun, but the ending didn't really feel earned. Mainly, as mentioned before, because the characters are never really fleshed out. Gibson spends most of his time describing scenes/objects that don't really need to be described.
It would have been a much more interesting book if there had been more focus on the global picture of the world, and the sentient computer programs/voodoo gods. In the end, those don't really show up until the end. Reminded me a bit of the problem with American Gods. A lot of cool things told well that never really gel.
It would have been a much more interesting book if there had been more focus on the global picture of the world, and the sentient computer programs/voodoo gods. In the end, those don't really show up until the end. Reminded me a bit of the problem with American Gods. A lot of cool things told well that never really gel.
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced