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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
fast-paced
“Are you - are you sad?"
- No.
"But your - your songs are sad."
- My songs are of time and distance. The sadness is in you. Watch my arms. There is only the dance. These things you treasure are shells.”
- No.
"But your - your songs are sad."
- My songs are of time and distance. The sadness is in you. Watch my arms. There is only the dance. These things you treasure are shells.”
medium-paced
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Count Zero is the second book in the Sprawl Trilogy, and in my opinion, the better of the two that I have read so far.
The setting and noir style themes are similar to those in book one; Neuromancer, but this story is broken up into three perspectives, rather than Neuromancer's one, and I found that to be a HUGE improvement. Not only do we get to see the story unfold from multiple angles, but we see new places and meet other characters without the bias of a single protagonist's opinion.
The characters themselves were also improved. Despite them not quite having the "screen-time" that Case had in Neuromancer, I felt I understood each character a little better and I think that that simply came down to better writing and better pacing.
I'm going to combine brief character bios with the main body of my review, extrapolating and breaking down what I enjoyed and appreciated most from each perspective and plot thread to give an overall impression of the story as a whole.
- Bobby Newmark, otherwise known as Count Zero, was a very likable perspective to read from for me.
Bobby is a small-time "cowboy" (what they call hackers) and he spent the majority of this book very out of his depth, caught up in events a lot bigger than him. This made our "Count" relatable to a degree, and I felt we learned about Sprawl and it's happenings alongside him.
- Turner is a hired gun, a mercenary. But, refreshingly, a smart and capable one.
Turner is hired by various big companies to help protect employees of rival companies defect to those that hired Turner.
Turner could very easily have been written as an "action man" type, and I think that is deliberately toyed with, before Gibson diverts that expectation. He is given some real depth, his past is explained and is used as a wonderful base for his character. With his introspective mindset and believable flaws we come to understand how he thinks pretty completely over the course of the story.
- Marly is a disgraced art gallery owner. Yes, I know that sounds like a strange occupation for a character in a cyberpunk novel, but it made for a fascinating plot thread, if for no other reason than that it doesn't really sound like it belongs... But it really does.
Marly, now notorious in the art world, gets offered a mysterious job. A very very wealthy man is looking for the source of a particular art piece, and gives Marly unlimited resources (meaning infinite money) to help do so.
Not only was this the plot line that stood out the most, but it also was the part of the book that contained the majority (although not all) of the links to the story of Neuromancer, which helped me place the events of this book on the timeline of Sprawl.
When, in the last few chapters, each of these individual stories being told came together, it created a well rounded, engaging and hard to predict finish.
In summation; Count Zero, in my opinion, greatly improves upon it's hugely popular predecessor.
There was far less time spent in the matrix in this installment, which I approved of.
I know it's a big part of the society that these books follow and I know the concept was thought up pre-internet, but I think it comes across as a horribly jarring and somehow still vague mess of abstract imagery and directions.
Also, our characters this time around weren't addicted to hardcore drugs, which led to there being less confusing chapters in which we miss out on the reality of what is happening for a first-person drug trip.
One thing I hope to see more of in future books by Gibson would be mystery and foreshadowing. I feel as though the world he has created would lend itself to both of them very comfortably.
We shall see.
4/5 stars.
______________________________
Thank you, as always, for reading my review!
I've been falling a bit behind reviewing recently because of the amount of time spent reading, but I'm doing my best to catch up.
Mona Lisa Overdrive, book 3 of the Sprawl Trilogy, is on the TBR pile, but I have a few other books to read before I wrap up this series.
I hope you're all having great days and that you are enjoying your current reads!
The setting and noir style themes are similar to those in book one; Neuromancer, but this story is broken up into three perspectives, rather than Neuromancer's one, and I found that to be a HUGE improvement. Not only do we get to see the story unfold from multiple angles, but we see new places and meet other characters without the bias of a single protagonist's opinion.
The characters themselves were also improved. Despite them not quite having the "screen-time" that Case had in Neuromancer, I felt I understood each character a little better and I think that that simply came down to better writing and better pacing.
"These things you treasure are shells."
I'm going to combine brief character bios with the main body of my review, extrapolating and breaking down what I enjoyed and appreciated most from each perspective and plot thread to give an overall impression of the story as a whole.
- Bobby Newmark, otherwise known as Count Zero, was a very likable perspective to read from for me.
Bobby is a small-time "cowboy" (what they call hackers) and he spent the majority of this book very out of his depth, caught up in events a lot bigger than him. This made our "Count" relatable to a degree, and I felt we learned about Sprawl and it's happenings alongside him.
- Turner is a hired gun, a mercenary. But, refreshingly, a smart and capable one.
Turner is hired by various big companies to help protect employees of rival companies defect to those that hired Turner.
Turner could very easily have been written as an "action man" type, and I think that is deliberately toyed with, before Gibson diverts that expectation. He is given some real depth, his past is explained and is used as a wonderful base for his character. With his introspective mindset and believable flaws we come to understand how he thinks pretty completely over the course of the story.
- Marly is a disgraced art gallery owner. Yes, I know that sounds like a strange occupation for a character in a cyberpunk novel, but it made for a fascinating plot thread, if for no other reason than that it doesn't really sound like it belongs... But it really does.
Marly, now notorious in the art world, gets offered a mysterious job. A very very wealthy man is looking for the source of a particular art piece, and gives Marly unlimited resources (meaning infinite money) to help do so.
Not only was this the plot line that stood out the most, but it also was the part of the book that contained the majority (although not all) of the links to the story of Neuromancer, which helped me place the events of this book on the timeline of Sprawl.
When, in the last few chapters, each of these individual stories being told came together, it created a well rounded, engaging and hard to predict finish.
In summation; Count Zero, in my opinion, greatly improves upon it's hugely popular predecessor.
There was far less time spent in the matrix in this installment, which I approved of.
I know it's a big part of the society that these books follow and I know the concept was thought up pre-internet, but I think it comes across as a horribly jarring and somehow still vague mess of abstract imagery and directions.
Also, our characters this time around weren't addicted to hardcore drugs, which led to there being less confusing chapters in which we miss out on the reality of what is happening for a first-person drug trip.
One thing I hope to see more of in future books by Gibson would be mystery and foreshadowing. I feel as though the world he has created would lend itself to both of them very comfortably.
We shall see.
4/5 stars.
______________________________
Thank you, as always, for reading my review!
I've been falling a bit behind reviewing recently because of the amount of time spent reading, but I'm doing my best to catch up.
Mona Lisa Overdrive, book 3 of the Sprawl Trilogy, is on the TBR pile, but I have a few other books to read before I wrap up this series.
I hope you're all having great days and that you are enjoying your current reads!
This book was pretty good, but it appears to have suffered during the editing process, or something similar. There are a lot of times when the plot is confusing and meandering with little to no explanation for some of the made-up future words the author is using complicating things further. What really hurt this book's rating for me was the lack of any sense of the main characters as believable people. This type of borderline sociopathic behavior was really disconcerting when it is present in most if not all of the characters.
The tech is pretty cool in a steampunk / retro kind of way, since it's written in the near future as of 1987 (I'm guessing the book takes place around 2000). I really liked some of the settings Gibson created and I thought several of the story arcs were very interesting. But I keep getting hung up on things that just seemed unbelievable for the characters to be doing and reacting to. The casual murders and complete lack of any sort of conscience in every single character is very off-putting, and if it's supposed to be a result of the world they live in, more detail and connection to this is needed. It seems like Gibson wrote a more complete book and maybe the editor cut out way too much. Or perhaps Gibson is just smarter than I am and thought his writing was clearer. Either way, a confusing book that I will probably read the sequel to in hopes of figuring out what's going on.
Spoiler
At one point a main character's mother is killed and he has little to no reaction, to the point that even starts working with the people he suspects killed her. Then, at the end of the book he discovers she's alive and still has no reaction at all. Maybe this was intended as character development somehow or a plot point, but if so it's not fleshed out enough to be understood. Another example is when a character bombs two entire floors of a residential building because she knows her target is in one of the rooms and simply doesn't care about killing the other residents.The tech is pretty cool in a steampunk / retro kind of way, since it's written in the near future as of 1987 (I'm guessing the book takes place around 2000). I really liked some of the settings Gibson created and I thought several of the story arcs were very interesting. But I keep getting hung up on things that just seemed unbelievable for the characters to be doing and reacting to. The casual murders and complete lack of any sort of conscience in every single character is very off-putting, and if it's supposed to be a result of the world they live in, more detail and connection to this is needed. It seems like Gibson wrote a more complete book and maybe the editor cut out way too much. Or perhaps Gibson is just smarter than I am and thought his writing was clearer. Either way, a confusing book that I will probably read the sequel to in hopes of figuring out what's going on.
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
i really love the world building of cyberpunk and the characters are cool but I need Science fiction author to stop with the weird love age gap
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Gibson's style requires some patience, but once you make it past the thirty page mark, his novels usually turn out to be well worth the effort. "Count Zero" is no exception to this phenomenon.