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Sprawl #3
Mona Lisa Overdrive
William Gibson, author of the extraordinary multiaward-winning novel Neuromancer, has written his most brilliant and thrilling work to date... The Mona Lisa Overdrive. Enter Gibson's unique world - lyric and mechanical, erotic and violent, sobering and exciting - where multinational corporations and high tech outlaws vie for power, traveling into the computer-generated universe known as cyberspace. Into this world comes Mona, a young girl with a murky past and an uncertain future whose life is on a collision course with internationally famous Sense/Net star Angie Mitchell. Since childhood, Angie has been able to tap into cyberspace without a computer. Now, from inside cyberspace, a kidnapping plot is masterminded by a phantom entity who has plans for Mona, Angie, and all humanity, plans that cannot be controlled... or even known. And behind the intrigue lurks the shadowy Yakuza, the powerful Japanese underworld, whose leaders ruthlessly manipulate people and events to suit their own purposes... or so they think.
308 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published June 1, 1988
About the author
William Gibson
226 books13.6k followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
William Ford Gibson is an American-Canadian writer who has been called the father of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction, having coined the term cyberspace in 1982 and popularized it in his first novel, Neuromancer (1984), which has sold more than 6.5 million copies worldwide.
While his early writing took the form of short stories, Gibson has since written nine critically acclaimed novels (one in collaboration), contributed articles to several major publications, and has collaborated extensively with performance artists, filmmakers and musicians. His thought has been cited as an influence on science fiction authors, academia, cyberculture, and technology.
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William Gibson. (2007, October 17). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:30, October 19, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?t...
William Ford Gibson is an American-Canadian writer who has been called the father of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction, having coined the term cyberspace in 1982 and popularized it in his first novel, Neuromancer (1984), which has sold more than 6.5 million copies worldwide.
While his early writing took the form of short stories, Gibson has since written nine critically acclaimed novels (one in collaboration), contributed articles to several major publications, and has collaborated extensively with performance artists, filmmakers and musicians. His thought has been cited as an influence on science fiction authors, academia, cyberculture, and technology.
---------------------------------
William Gibson. (2007, October 17). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:30, October 19, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?t...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,237 reviews
June 10, 2022
I love the way William Gibson writes. If I could imagine and set down the kind of books I want to read, his would be as near to the mark as possible.
Gibson is the literary heir to Philip K. Dick’s homey futurism – his is the messenger, the rent-a-cop, the retail appliance repairman in the grimy but tech advanced future – our blue collar, street wise guide to the mesmerizing world building.
Gibson’s 1988 conclusion to his groundbreaking Sprawl trilogy was a demonstration of some of his best writing. What began in the epochal Neuromancer, the Sprawl – that confluence of all the major urban centers on the United States east coast, from Boston to Atlanta – is a setting that provides Gibson’s able mind and extraordinary talent to describe for us a dystopian cyberpunk landscape that has influenced SF writing ever since.
In this novel we see a return of Molly Millions (though she is semi-retired and operating under a different alias) and a seamy tangle of interests involving organized crime, near future state of the market tech, drugs and biotech, corporate espionage, capitalistic anarchy and all rolled up in the neo-noir setting that has become Gibson’s trademark.
And his exceptional writing.
“The world hadn’t ever had so many moving parts or so few labels.”
“This was nothing like Tokyo, where the past, all that remained of it, was nurtured with a nervous care. History there had become a quantity, a rare thing, parceled out by government and preserved by law and corporate funding. Here it seemed the very fabric of things, as if the city were a single growth of stone and brick, uncounted strata of message and meaning, age upon age, generated over the centuries to the dictates of some now-all-but-unreadable DNA of commerce and empire.”
“Because sometimes it feels good to shake it all off, get out from under. Chances are, we haven’t. But maybe we have. Maybe nobody, nobody at all, knows where we are. Nice feeling, huh? You could be kinked, you ever think of that? Maybe your dad, the Yak warlord, he’s got a little bug planted in you so he can keep track of his daughter. You got those pretty little teeth, maybe Daddy’s dentist tucked a little hardware in there one time when you were into a stim. You go to the dentist?” “Yes.” “You stim while he works?” “Yes …” “There you go. Maybe he’s listening to us right now.…”
“And somewhere, in a black California morning, some hour before dawn, amid the corridors, the galleries, the faces of dream, fragments of conversation she half-recalled, waking to pale fog against the windows of the master bedroom, she prized something free and dragged it back through the wall of sleep. Rolling over, fumbling through a bedside drawer, finding a Porsche pen, a present from an assistant grip, she inscribed her treasure on the glossy back of an Italian fashion magazine:”
Speculative fiction GOLD.
*** 2022 reread -
This finishes my reread of the Sprawl trilogy, Neuromancer - Count Zero - Mona Lisa Overdrive, and I'm more impressed with Gibson's work than I was before, just amazing writing.
Another reviewer talked about how Gibson is able to convey not just the sights and sounds of his story but also the smells and textures as well, and this was a spot on observation. Reading Gibson's prose is like walking through a Home Depot with all the descriptive language and also a tech store. The blend of science fiction writing with crime story language and wrapped up in a realistic setting makes this so special. Future tech will also be dirty and gritty because humans will be involved and duality is what we all are, and what we're about. The two "Angies" helps to personify this perfectly and the twin AI from Neuromancer are back to further portray this concept.
This also made me consider that Neil Gaiman may have been influenced by this in American Gods because of the AI use of voodoo personages to communicate, also depicting our deification of poorly understood tech.
Gibson is the literary heir to Philip K. Dick’s homey futurism – his is the messenger, the rent-a-cop, the retail appliance repairman in the grimy but tech advanced future – our blue collar, street wise guide to the mesmerizing world building.
Gibson’s 1988 conclusion to his groundbreaking Sprawl trilogy was a demonstration of some of his best writing. What began in the epochal Neuromancer, the Sprawl – that confluence of all the major urban centers on the United States east coast, from Boston to Atlanta – is a setting that provides Gibson’s able mind and extraordinary talent to describe for us a dystopian cyberpunk landscape that has influenced SF writing ever since.
In this novel we see a return of Molly Millions (though she is semi-retired and operating under a different alias) and a seamy tangle of interests involving organized crime, near future state of the market tech, drugs and biotech, corporate espionage, capitalistic anarchy and all rolled up in the neo-noir setting that has become Gibson’s trademark.
And his exceptional writing.
“The world hadn’t ever had so many moving parts or so few labels.”
“This was nothing like Tokyo, where the past, all that remained of it, was nurtured with a nervous care. History there had become a quantity, a rare thing, parceled out by government and preserved by law and corporate funding. Here it seemed the very fabric of things, as if the city were a single growth of stone and brick, uncounted strata of message and meaning, age upon age, generated over the centuries to the dictates of some now-all-but-unreadable DNA of commerce and empire.”
“Because sometimes it feels good to shake it all off, get out from under. Chances are, we haven’t. But maybe we have. Maybe nobody, nobody at all, knows where we are. Nice feeling, huh? You could be kinked, you ever think of that? Maybe your dad, the Yak warlord, he’s got a little bug planted in you so he can keep track of his daughter. You got those pretty little teeth, maybe Daddy’s dentist tucked a little hardware in there one time when you were into a stim. You go to the dentist?” “Yes.” “You stim while he works?” “Yes …” “There you go. Maybe he’s listening to us right now.…”
“And somewhere, in a black California morning, some hour before dawn, amid the corridors, the galleries, the faces of dream, fragments of conversation she half-recalled, waking to pale fog against the windows of the master bedroom, she prized something free and dragged it back through the wall of sleep. Rolling over, fumbling through a bedside drawer, finding a Porsche pen, a present from an assistant grip, she inscribed her treasure on the glossy back of an Italian fashion magazine:”
Speculative fiction GOLD.
*** 2022 reread -
This finishes my reread of the Sprawl trilogy, Neuromancer - Count Zero - Mona Lisa Overdrive, and I'm more impressed with Gibson's work than I was before, just amazing writing.
Another reviewer talked about how Gibson is able to convey not just the sights and sounds of his story but also the smells and textures as well, and this was a spot on observation. Reading Gibson's prose is like walking through a Home Depot with all the descriptive language and also a tech store. The blend of science fiction writing with crime story language and wrapped up in a realistic setting makes this so special. Future tech will also be dirty and gritty because humans will be involved and duality is what we all are, and what we're about. The two "Angies" helps to personify this perfectly and the twin AI from Neuromancer are back to further portray this concept.
This also made me consider that Neil Gaiman may have been influenced by this in American Gods because of the AI use of voodoo personages to communicate, also depicting our deification of poorly understood tech.
June 10, 2018
The best of Gibson’s three ’Sprawl’ novels.
Dark laughter, cold beauty, hyperlight.
Dark laughter, cold beauty, hyperlight.
February 6, 2016
Following the resounding success of my Locus Quest, I faced a dilemma: which reading list to follow it up with? Variety is the spice of life, so I’ve decided to diversify and pursue six different lists simultaneously. This book falls into my FINISHING THE SERIES! list.
I loves me a good series! But I'm terrible for starting a new series before finishing my last - so this reading list is all about trying to close out those series I've got on the go...
A quick look back:
I said in my review of Count Zero that it wasn't "a direct sequel - it doesn't pick-up the same characters - but it's set in the same world, orbiting the same scene, with some common threads." Mona Lisa Overdrive proves me utterly wrong!
A quick summary:
In the Sprawl, all roads lead to MLO . We're re-united with key characters from both Neuromancer and Count Zero, plus a few fresh faces, then treated to a ranging tour though Gibson's seedy world of cyberpunk espionage.
Neuromancer was a heist story.
Count Zero was a thematic portmanteu.
MLO is the tense, 'thriller' climax.
If anything, this is the most accessible of the series. The hard work has already been done; Gibson has already gauged out his stylistic niche. He's scattered his electric seeds in the darkness, and nurtured the neon flora that's emerged to grow under bickering strobe-lights... The ideas are still silhouetted as sharply as ever, but the characters are gentler...
A quick assessment of the cast:
With the eponymous prostitute Mona and gang-lord's daughter Kumiko, we've got two young female character, less interested in crime and technology, more interested in hope, escape and survival. With Slick Henry we've got a young artist - he's looking for catharsis, healing and peace. They're reactive, submissive and accepting. It's the old characters, Molly/Sally from Neuromancer and Angie from Counter Zero, who set the agenda, drive the plot and flesh out the fiercer aspects of attitude and angst. Those two are looking to force a confrontation and settle the turmoil unleashed by Neuromancer. Together... it all... balances.
What not so good?
So why didn't it get 5 stars? I thought it was better than Count Zero (4-stars), but not as good as Neuromancer (5-stars). I was torn between a 4 and a 5 for MLO... and that hesitation decided it for me. I don't hesitate over 5-star ratings.
Why I hesitated is harder for me to untangle. There's something about the ending that didn't quite nail it for me. It needed something big and bold, something that would blow my pitiful little mind. It needed something to leave me in awe. What I got was good, it was clever and nuanced, but I've been spoilt by Dan Simmons - I've experienced awe - and I didn't find it here.
Still no awards?
Count Zero got swept aside in the award polls by Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead (which is awesome!)
Mona Lisa Overdrive was also denied, but it was far less clear cut. Gibson missed out on the Locus, second behind Cyteen - Cyteen also took the Hugo, and Bujold's Falling Free nabbed the Nebula.
For once, I've read all three! I love Bujold but this is definitely a better book than Falling Free. It's in the same ballpark as Cyteen, but in a straight head-to-head I'd have to give this one to Gibson.
Carry on?
Well, this is the end of the Sprawl series, but Gibson's definitely done enough here to count me as a fan. I'll probably take a bit of a break before picking up another series... but I've now got that pleasant choice... the Bridge trilogy or the Blue Ant trilogy... anyone got any recommendations there?
After this I read: Cryoburn
March 29, 2016
William Gibson's "conclusion" to the Sprawl trilogy. Conclusion is in quotes because it's a loose trilogy.
Gibson does what he does best in this novel: takes three different story arcs and weaves them together into a wonderful story that comes together neatly in the end.
Kumiko is a young teenager who is the daughter of a powerful yakuza. She's sent to England to hide from her father's enemies, with only a "ghost," given to her by her father, to keep her company. The "ghost" is really an AI unit that can help her in almost endless ways. It presents as a British child named Colin.
Slick is a poor young man who is homeless and living in a junkyard with a few other boys. He builds robots to express his anger and fear and negative feelings about the time he spent in prison for stealing cars. Soon trouble comes to his door in the form of a comatose man on a stretcher. He comes equipped with his own personal nurse, Cherry, another poor person who at least knows some med-tech. This mysterious comatose man is delivered with instructions to keep him hidden and safe, and there sure is a lot of money - and fear - behind that desire.
Angie is Angela Mitchell, you'll recognize her from Book 2: Count Zero. She has been lucky - she leads a life of fame and fortune and glamour as a very popular TV star. But being so famous also means being monitored very closely, and after being in rehab to get off some drugs she feels the need to rethink her life. Especially since her boyfriend Bobby Newmark has left her and no one has any idea where he is...
Lastly, we have Mona. The character that made me very anxious throughout the book. She's a 16-year-old whore and her pimp Eddy is a nasty piece of work. He acquired her when she was 14 and he's got this sick dating-you/pimping-you-out relationship with her that just made my skin crawl. Especially hearing Gibson explain what he has her do in order to get off. *shudder But then a man shows up - a man very interested in Mona's looks. He gives Eddy $2,000 to take her away and have extensive plastic surgery done on her... Can she find her freedom or is she going from the frying pan to the fire?
....
This was not as good as the first two books in the trilogy, in my opinion, but it was still VERY good. I knew it was good because I was anxious and worried about the characters and what would happen to them.
I'm telling you, nothing makes my heart sick with worry and aching pain than reading about a whore. So Gibson immediately had my full attention when little Mona was introduced. She's got a drug addiction, she's with this creep - she's got no past and no future. Then, to make things worse, this man comes in and we have no idea if this guy is a creep, if he's going to do something horrible with her - or if this will be her ticket out of the Life, or what,... I was nervous as heck and screaming at my book. Luckily, I trust Gibson not to let me down and he didn't.
The writing is wonderful.
And I love, love, love when Gibson surprises me with a character. I liked feeling like I knew the character, and underestimated her - and then Gibson would have her do something smart or brave that was unexpected and I would cheer! He's very good at this. It's not as if the person is acting out-of-character, it's as if there's a level to the character you never realized or a layer you hadn't known existed. It's amazing. This is what's missing from a lot of books, the extra sauce that gets you a five-star rating from me.
Another thing I liked about this book was that Gibson brings back characters from Books 1 and 2 - characters you thought had dropped off the face of the earth - and you are so glad to see them again and find out what happened to them.
Now, Gibson's not a pretty, happy, everything-is-wonderful writer. I mean, this is gritty cyberpunk and a lot of dirty, grimy stuff happens, a lot of inventions, a lot of cyberspace, a lot of action scenes. It's pretty awesome. But the most awesome thing is the human thread through the whole trilogy. Addiction, poverty, fame, prostitution - all these themes come back again and again. When I started reading Neuromancer I was afraid all the tech-stuff would be too much or too difficult for me. But even thought this book is jam-packed with all the cyber-punk goodness a geeked-out nerd could want, it also has such a touching, human element to it that hooks people like me.
I am so glad I picked up this trilogy - I had avoided it for so long and all my fears were for nothing. It turned out to be a 5-star trilogy for me. It's definitely not for everyone, though.
Gibson does what he does best in this novel: takes three different story arcs and weaves them together into a wonderful story that comes together neatly in the end.
Kumiko is a young teenager who is the daughter of a powerful yakuza. She's sent to England to hide from her father's enemies, with only a "ghost," given to her by her father, to keep her company. The "ghost" is really an AI unit that can help her in almost endless ways. It presents as a British child named Colin.
Slick is a poor young man who is homeless and living in a junkyard with a few other boys. He builds robots to express his anger and fear and negative feelings about the time he spent in prison for stealing cars. Soon trouble comes to his door in the form of a comatose man on a stretcher. He comes equipped with his own personal nurse, Cherry, another poor person who at least knows some med-tech. This mysterious comatose man is delivered with instructions to keep him hidden and safe, and there sure is a lot of money - and fear - behind that desire.
Angie is Angela Mitchell, you'll recognize her from Book 2: Count Zero. She has been lucky - she leads a life of fame and fortune and glamour as a very popular TV star. But being so famous also means being monitored very closely, and after being in rehab to get off some drugs she feels the need to rethink her life. Especially since her boyfriend Bobby Newmark has left her and no one has any idea where he is...
Lastly, we have Mona. The character that made me very anxious throughout the book. She's a 16-year-old whore and her pimp Eddy is a nasty piece of work. He acquired her when she was 14 and he's got this sick dating-you/pimping-you-out relationship with her that just made my skin crawl. Especially hearing Gibson explain what he has her do in order to get off. *shudder But then a man shows up - a man very interested in Mona's looks. He gives Eddy $2,000 to take her away and have extensive plastic surgery done on her... Can she find her freedom or is she going from the frying pan to the fire?
....
This was not as good as the first two books in the trilogy, in my opinion, but it was still VERY good. I knew it was good because I was anxious and worried about the characters and what would happen to them.
I'm telling you, nothing makes my heart sick with worry and aching pain than reading about a whore. So Gibson immediately had my full attention when little Mona was introduced. She's got a drug addiction, she's with this creep - she's got no past and no future. Then, to make things worse, this man comes in and we have no idea if this guy is a creep, if he's going to do something horrible with her - or if this will be her ticket out of the Life, or what,... I was nervous as heck and screaming at my book. Luckily, I trust Gibson not to let me down and he didn't.
The writing is wonderful.
And I love, love, love when Gibson surprises me with a character. I liked feeling like I knew the character, and underestimated her - and then Gibson would have her do something smart or brave that was unexpected and I would cheer! He's very good at this. It's not as if the person is acting out-of-character, it's as if there's a level to the character you never realized or a layer you hadn't known existed. It's amazing. This is what's missing from a lot of books, the extra sauce that gets you a five-star rating from me.
Another thing I liked about this book was that Gibson brings back characters from Books 1 and 2 - characters you thought had dropped off the face of the earth - and you are so glad to see them again and find out what happened to them.
Now, Gibson's not a pretty, happy, everything-is-wonderful writer. I mean, this is gritty cyberpunk and a lot of dirty, grimy stuff happens, a lot of inventions, a lot of cyberspace, a lot of action scenes. It's pretty awesome. But the most awesome thing is the human thread through the whole trilogy. Addiction, poverty, fame, prostitution - all these themes come back again and again. When I started reading Neuromancer I was afraid all the tech-stuff would be too much or too difficult for me. But even thought this book is jam-packed with all the cyber-punk goodness a geeked-out nerd could want, it also has such a touching, human element to it that hooks people like me.
I am so glad I picked up this trilogy - I had avoided it for so long and all my fears were for nothing. It turned out to be a 5-star trilogy for me. It's definitely not for everyone, though.
February 8, 2016
“The world hadn’t ever had so many moving parts or so few labels.”
― William Gibson, Mona Lisa Overdrive
There is something about Gibson that keeps me coming back. Part of it is how, like PKD, he seems to always have a sense of what is around the next two corners. Not just the objects. No. The textures and smells and ambiguities too. It is like Gibson doesn't just have foresight, he has foresmell and foretaste. Anyway, even with that, this wasn't his best book and not in the strong half of the Sprawl trilogy.
In this book Gibson is weaving together four plot threads.
Thread One: Japanese Yakuza princess in peril hides in London and hangs with "Sally Shears" aka Molly Milions (of Neuromancer and Johnny Mnemonic fame).
Thread Two: Angie Mitchell from Book 2 (Count Zero) of the Sprawl trilogy seeks to find lost boyfriend while dealing with the addiction and costs of Simstim fame.
Thread Three: Mona a innocent prostitute is sucked into a crime world where she is made to look like Angie as a piece in an abduction attempt on Angie.
Thread Four: Slick Henry and friends care for the comatose body of the "Count" Bobby Newmark from the 'Count Zero'.
One note. I did appreciate how diligent Gibson is in building strong female characters. There are just as many ass kicking females as damsels in distress. Gibson doesn't flirt with feminist ideas. He is able to incorporate strong women naturally. It isn't decoration or an after thought. It appears as natural to him as writing about fabric or fashion.
Gibson weaves these various plots and characters together and it all only frays a bit toward the end. I get where he was trying to go with everything, it just lost a bit of focus, the resolution wasn't great, the pay-off was subpar. But still I know when Gibson writes another book, I'll get sucked back in because the Matrix/Cyberspace/Sprawl worlds Gibson builds feel bright enough to attract and worn enough to comfort.
― William Gibson, Mona Lisa Overdrive
There is something about Gibson that keeps me coming back. Part of it is how, like PKD, he seems to always have a sense of what is around the next two corners. Not just the objects. No. The textures and smells and ambiguities too. It is like Gibson doesn't just have foresight, he has foresmell and foretaste. Anyway, even with that, this wasn't his best book and not in the strong half of the Sprawl trilogy.
In this book Gibson is weaving together four plot threads.
Thread One: Japanese Yakuza princess in peril hides in London and hangs with "Sally Shears" aka Molly Milions (of Neuromancer and Johnny Mnemonic fame).
Thread Two: Angie Mitchell from Book 2 (Count Zero) of the Sprawl trilogy seeks to find lost boyfriend while dealing with the addiction and costs of Simstim fame.
Thread Three: Mona a innocent prostitute is sucked into a crime world where she is made to look like Angie as a piece in an abduction attempt on Angie.
Thread Four: Slick Henry and friends care for the comatose body of the "Count" Bobby Newmark from the 'Count Zero'.
One note. I did appreciate how diligent Gibson is in building strong female characters. There are just as many ass kicking females as damsels in distress. Gibson doesn't flirt with feminist ideas. He is able to incorporate strong women naturally. It isn't decoration or an after thought. It appears as natural to him as writing about fabric or fashion.
Gibson weaves these various plots and characters together and it all only frays a bit toward the end. I get where he was trying to go with everything, it just lost a bit of focus, the resolution wasn't great, the pay-off was subpar. But still I know when Gibson writes another book, I'll get sucked back in because the Matrix/Cyberspace/Sprawl worlds Gibson builds feel bright enough to attract and worn enough to comfort.
January 16, 2024
It has been a couple of decades since I read this book and I was interested in how well it would hold up over time. The first thing that struck me was how well Gibson writes (particularly compared to many other authors in this genre). I am not sure I would like to have Gibson's imagination (*or Lovecraft's either) but readers of this book will be amazed at how accurately he has described culture and things that have appeared in the decades since he wrote this.
Of things: "She imagined the rooms empty, flecks of corrosion blossoming silently on chrome, pale molds taking hold in obscure corners. The architects, as if in recognition of eternal processes, had encouraged a degree of rust; massive steel railings along the deck had been eaten wrist-thin by years of spray."
And character’s thoughts: "She tried to imagine a past for the place, other houses, other voices. She was accompanied, on these walks, by an armed remote, a tiny Dornier helicopter that rose from its unseen rooftop nest when she stepped down from the deck. It could hover almost silently, and was programmed to avoid her line of sight. There was something wistful about the way it followed her, as though it were an expensive but unappreciated Christmas gift. She knew that Hilton Swift was watching through the Dornier’s cameras. Little that occurred in the beach house escaped Sense/Net; her solitude, the week alone she’d demanded, was under constant surveillance. Her years in the profession had conveyed a singular immunity to observation."
"“I don’t understand,” Kumiko said, as she followed Sally back along Portobello Road. “You have involved me in an intrigue.…” Sally turned up her collar against the wind. “But I might betray you. You plot against my father’s associate. You have no reason to trust me.”"
As I was reading the book, I was getting an image of Gibson sitting at a typewriter that was more like E. Power Biggs sitting at his massive pipe organ and using the pedals and switches to create something that can move readers off of their comfortable center and into the maelstrom.
I believe Gibson succeeds in his twisting of multiple plot lines and eventually integrating them, but it has been quite a journey!
4.5
The quotations below will help you decide whether to invest time in his stylized writing. If you do, you will see that his imagination encompasses a future view that has often come true. I should pray that his full vision in never realized in our near future.
"“Then why were you so cautious today?” “Because sometimes it feels good to shake it all off, get out from under. Chances are, we haven’t. But maybe we have. Maybe nobody, nobody at all, knows where we are. Nice feeling, huh? You could be kinked, you ever think of that? Maybe your dad, the Yak warlord, he’s got a little bug planted in you so he can keep track of his daughter. You got those pretty little teeth, maybe Daddy’s dentist tucked a little hardware in there one time when you were into a stim. You go to the dentist?” “Yes.” “You stim while he works?” “Yes …” “There you go. Maybe he’s listening to us right now.…”"
"The talent wore a bottle-green velvet suit and immaculate suede wingtips, and Sally found him in another pub, this one called the Rose and Crown. She introduced him as Tick. He was scarcely taller than Kumiko, and something was skewed in his back or hip, so that he walked with a pronounced limp that heightened an overall impression of asymmetry. His black hair was shaved close at the back and sides, but piled into an oily loaf of curls above his forehead."
"Colin was studying their exchange with amused fascination, moving his head from side to side as though he were watching a tennis match. Kumiko had to remind herself that only she could see him."
"“I don’t know what to do.…” “Turn the unit over.” “What?” “On the back. You’ll see a sort of half-moon groove there. Put your thumbnail in and twist.…” A tiny hatch opened. Microswitches."
"She was sixteen and SINless, Mona, and this older trick had told her once that that was a song, “Sixteen and SINless.” Meant she hadn’t been assigned a SIN when she was born, a Single Identification Number, so she’d grown up on the outside of most official systems. She knew that it was supposed to be possible to get a SIN, if you didn’t have one, but it stood to reason you’d have to go into a building somewhere and talk to a suit, and that was a long way from Mona’s idea of a good time or even normal behavior."
"Then the wiz flashed a final card, ragged cascade of neurons across her synapses: Cleveland in the rain and a good feeling she had once, walking. Silver."
"“How do the stories about—” she hesitated, having almost said the loa, “about things in the matrix, how do they fit in to this supreme-being idea?” “They don’t. Both are variants of ‘When it Changed.’ Both are of very recent origin.” “How recent?” “Approximately fifteen years.”"
"There were gliders tethered there, translucent membrane drawn taut over fragile-looking frames of polycarbon. They quivered slightly in the morning breeze."
"Feeling entirely dislocated now, Kumiko watched as Sally made a survey of available vehicles, quickly bribed a uniformed dispatcher, intimidated three other prospective fares, and chivied Kumiko into a pockmarked, slabsided hovercraft, painted in diagonal bands of yellow and black. The passenger compartment was barren and remarkably uncomfortable-looking. The driver, if there was one, was invisible beyond a scrawled bulkhead of plastic armor. The nub of a video camera protruded where the bulkhead met the roof, and someone had drawn a crude figure there, a male torso, the camera its phallus."
"To Slick’s relief, Gentry had skipped the whole business of the Shape and launched straight into his theory about the aleph thing. As always, once Gentry got going, he used words and constructions that Slick had trouble understanding, but Slick knew from experience that it was easier not to interrupt him; the trick was in pulling some kind of meaning out of the overall flow, skipping over the parts you didn’t understand."
"The old New Suzuki Envoy had been Angie’s favorite Sprawl hotel since her earliest days with the Net. It maintained its street wall for eleven stories, then narrowed jaggedly, at the first of nine setbacks, into a mountainside assembled from bedrock excavated from its Madison Square building site. Original plans had called for this steep landscape to be planted with flora native to the Hudson Valley region, and populated with suitable fauna, but subsequent construction of the first Manhattan Dome had made it necessary to hire a Paris-based eco-design team. The French ecologists, accustomed to the “pure” design problems posed by orbital systems, had despaired of the Sprawl’s particulate-laden atmosphere, opting for heavily engineered strains of vegetation and robotic fauna of the sort encountered in children’s theme parks, but Angie’s continued patronage had eventually lent the place a cachet it would otherwise have lacked."
Of things: "She imagined the rooms empty, flecks of corrosion blossoming silently on chrome, pale molds taking hold in obscure corners. The architects, as if in recognition of eternal processes, had encouraged a degree of rust; massive steel railings along the deck had been eaten wrist-thin by years of spray."
And character’s thoughts: "She tried to imagine a past for the place, other houses, other voices. She was accompanied, on these walks, by an armed remote, a tiny Dornier helicopter that rose from its unseen rooftop nest when she stepped down from the deck. It could hover almost silently, and was programmed to avoid her line of sight. There was something wistful about the way it followed her, as though it were an expensive but unappreciated Christmas gift. She knew that Hilton Swift was watching through the Dornier’s cameras. Little that occurred in the beach house escaped Sense/Net; her solitude, the week alone she’d demanded, was under constant surveillance. Her years in the profession had conveyed a singular immunity to observation."
"“I don’t understand,” Kumiko said, as she followed Sally back along Portobello Road. “You have involved me in an intrigue.…” Sally turned up her collar against the wind. “But I might betray you. You plot against my father’s associate. You have no reason to trust me.”"
As I was reading the book, I was getting an image of Gibson sitting at a typewriter that was more like E. Power Biggs sitting at his massive pipe organ and using the pedals and switches to create something that can move readers off of their comfortable center and into the maelstrom.
I believe Gibson succeeds in his twisting of multiple plot lines and eventually integrating them, but it has been quite a journey!
4.5
The quotations below will help you decide whether to invest time in his stylized writing. If you do, you will see that his imagination encompasses a future view that has often come true. I should pray that his full vision in never realized in our near future.
"“Then why were you so cautious today?” “Because sometimes it feels good to shake it all off, get out from under. Chances are, we haven’t. But maybe we have. Maybe nobody, nobody at all, knows where we are. Nice feeling, huh? You could be kinked, you ever think of that? Maybe your dad, the Yak warlord, he’s got a little bug planted in you so he can keep track of his daughter. You got those pretty little teeth, maybe Daddy’s dentist tucked a little hardware in there one time when you were into a stim. You go to the dentist?” “Yes.” “You stim while he works?” “Yes …” “There you go. Maybe he’s listening to us right now.…”"
"The talent wore a bottle-green velvet suit and immaculate suede wingtips, and Sally found him in another pub, this one called the Rose and Crown. She introduced him as Tick. He was scarcely taller than Kumiko, and something was skewed in his back or hip, so that he walked with a pronounced limp that heightened an overall impression of asymmetry. His black hair was shaved close at the back and sides, but piled into an oily loaf of curls above his forehead."
"Colin was studying their exchange with amused fascination, moving his head from side to side as though he were watching a tennis match. Kumiko had to remind herself that only she could see him."
"“I don’t know what to do.…” “Turn the unit over.” “What?” “On the back. You’ll see a sort of half-moon groove there. Put your thumbnail in and twist.…” A tiny hatch opened. Microswitches."
"She was sixteen and SINless, Mona, and this older trick had told her once that that was a song, “Sixteen and SINless.” Meant she hadn’t been assigned a SIN when she was born, a Single Identification Number, so she’d grown up on the outside of most official systems. She knew that it was supposed to be possible to get a SIN, if you didn’t have one, but it stood to reason you’d have to go into a building somewhere and talk to a suit, and that was a long way from Mona’s idea of a good time or even normal behavior."
"Then the wiz flashed a final card, ragged cascade of neurons across her synapses: Cleveland in the rain and a good feeling she had once, walking. Silver."
"“How do the stories about—” she hesitated, having almost said the loa, “about things in the matrix, how do they fit in to this supreme-being idea?” “They don’t. Both are variants of ‘When it Changed.’ Both are of very recent origin.” “How recent?” “Approximately fifteen years.”"
"There were gliders tethered there, translucent membrane drawn taut over fragile-looking frames of polycarbon. They quivered slightly in the morning breeze."
"Feeling entirely dislocated now, Kumiko watched as Sally made a survey of available vehicles, quickly bribed a uniformed dispatcher, intimidated three other prospective fares, and chivied Kumiko into a pockmarked, slabsided hovercraft, painted in diagonal bands of yellow and black. The passenger compartment was barren and remarkably uncomfortable-looking. The driver, if there was one, was invisible beyond a scrawled bulkhead of plastic armor. The nub of a video camera protruded where the bulkhead met the roof, and someone had drawn a crude figure there, a male torso, the camera its phallus."
"To Slick’s relief, Gentry had skipped the whole business of the Shape and launched straight into his theory about the aleph thing. As always, once Gentry got going, he used words and constructions that Slick had trouble understanding, but Slick knew from experience that it was easier not to interrupt him; the trick was in pulling some kind of meaning out of the overall flow, skipping over the parts you didn’t understand."
"The old New Suzuki Envoy had been Angie’s favorite Sprawl hotel since her earliest days with the Net. It maintained its street wall for eleven stories, then narrowed jaggedly, at the first of nine setbacks, into a mountainside assembled from bedrock excavated from its Madison Square building site. Original plans had called for this steep landscape to be planted with flora native to the Hudson Valley region, and populated with suitable fauna, but subsequent construction of the first Manhattan Dome had made it necessary to hire a Paris-based eco-design team. The French ecologists, accustomed to the “pure” design problems posed by orbital systems, had despaired of the Sprawl’s particulate-laden atmosphere, opting for heavily engineered strains of vegetation and robotic fauna of the sort encountered in children’s theme parks, but Angie’s continued patronage had eventually lent the place a cachet it would otherwise have lacked."
June 7, 2017
One of the later books of Gibson that I read. It left me with the fundamental idea of warring corporations and states on the wane that still lives with me now.
February 1, 2017
Executive Summary: I've owned this book for years, and for some reason never picked it up and read it. Thankfully I participated in a "Secret Santa" book thing of sorts, and someone out there finally got me to read it.
Full Review
I've always been more of a Snow Crash person than a Neuromancer person. I found it the easier read, and enjoyed the lighter nature/faster pace of the story. It took me quite a few years to circle back and read Count Zero and later Burning Chrome. I enjoyed them all, but partially because I love the ideas of cyberpunk worlds and appreciate the role of these books played in the genre than for the actual story itself. I know, I'll go turn in my computer geek card later.
I picked up this book at the same time as Count Zero, but I was just never in a rush to read it. As it's been quite some time since I read those books, I'm hard pressed to say this is my favorite of the series, but it's quite possible.
I always enjoyed Molly more than Case. Add in a Yakuza plot line on top of all the fun cyberpunk tech and I couldn't put it down. Of course I read this book mostly while I was on a 5 hour plane ride, but it seemed to make the time pass rather quickly.
I thought this wrapped up several dangling plot lines of the last two books pretty nicely, and I found the pacing far more enjoyable than Neuromancer.
One of these days I should really get around to reading more by Mr. Gibson, and I've enjoyed everything of his I've read and he tends to write about subjects right in my wheelhouse. Maybe this will finally inspire me to do so.
So thank you Secret Santa (whoever you are) for getting me to finally finish this series.
Full Review
I've always been more of a Snow Crash person than a Neuromancer person. I found it the easier read, and enjoyed the lighter nature/faster pace of the story. It took me quite a few years to circle back and read Count Zero and later Burning Chrome. I enjoyed them all, but partially because I love the ideas of cyberpunk worlds and appreciate the role of these books played in the genre than for the actual story itself. I know, I'll go turn in my computer geek card later.
I picked up this book at the same time as Count Zero, but I was just never in a rush to read it. As it's been quite some time since I read those books, I'm hard pressed to say this is my favorite of the series, but it's quite possible.
I always enjoyed Molly more than Case. Add in a Yakuza plot line on top of all the fun cyberpunk tech and I couldn't put it down. Of course I read this book mostly while I was on a 5 hour plane ride, but it seemed to make the time pass rather quickly.
I thought this wrapped up several dangling plot lines of the last two books pretty nicely, and I found the pacing far more enjoyable than Neuromancer.
One of these days I should really get around to reading more by Mr. Gibson, and I've enjoyed everything of his I've read and he tends to write about subjects right in my wheelhouse. Maybe this will finally inspire me to do so.
So thank you Secret Santa (whoever you are) for getting me to finally finish this series.
November 26, 2020
Gibson prende il meglio dei due volumi precedenti e lo mescola in un romanzo che è la ciliegina sulla torta di questo ciclo dello Sprawl. Unico difetto che ho ravvisato è il mistero della storyline di Kumiko. Totalmente inutile ai fini del romanzo, non si capisce per quale motivo sia stata inserita nel libro.
Nonostante questo, Monna Lisa Cyberpunk merita 5 stelle, a mio parere è il migliore dei tre libri del ciclo di Gibson. E lo Sprawl di questo straordinario autore entra di diritto tra i miei universi fantascientifici preferiti.
Nonostante questo, Monna Lisa Cyberpunk merita 5 stelle, a mio parere è il migliore dei tre libri del ciclo di Gibson. E lo Sprawl di questo straordinario autore entra di diritto tra i miei universi fantascientifici preferiti.
January 10, 2009
Mona Lisa Overdrive is the third book in Gibson's Sprawl trilogy, and it's the most fully-realized of the three. The plots of Neuromancer and Count Zero followed the same pattern, and Count Zero really only served as a bridge between the first and third books. Mona Lisa Overdrive flips back and forth between four subplots which weave together nicely, both with each other and with the previous two books. The characters start to matter a little more and feel more like real people than 2D plot-puppets. Having seen how it all ends, I think it might be worth revisiting Neuromancer someday to view it with more experienced eyes.
November 28, 2015
Ghost in the Machine
I'd had this unit on the shelf for a while. I'd used earlier versions to jack into the matrix twice, once only recently, and enjoyed the experience. It was time I did it again.
The first two times, the matrix seemed to be all order and accord. I suppose all the chaos was on the outside. Each time I jacked in, I escaped the chaos and found some serenity inside for a while.
This time, though, something had changed. The Shape had changed. Or something had changed it. Maybe, even, it had changed itself? In cyberspace, there are no shadows. Maybe it had turned around and seen its own shadow. Or its own reflection. Maybe it had freaked, like it had just seen its own ghost?
Whatever, inside, it was like somebody had poked a stick in a hornet's nest. Everybody was running every which way, real people like me who'd jacked in, and data people. I couldn't tell who was chasing and who was being chased. There was some voodoo shit going down.
Apparently, three-quarters of humanity was jacked in, watching the show. And I have to say, it was some show. I was tempted to stay in there, but I had this sneaking suspicion that I would never get out if I did. It was strangely addictive, like watching a train crash about to happen. Would you avert your eyes? Would you watch or run, if it was coming towards you?
I decided to run. I got out only half an hour ago. I'm safe, at least I think I am. It's a bit hard to tell. I haven't seen anybody else yet. They're probably all still jacked in. They could be trapped inside forever with all the other data. Ghosts in the machine.
On the other hand, I just realised, what if I'm the one who's still inside and everybody else has escaped? How could I tell that this is outside, if there's nobody else here?
Maybe it's me who's turned into a ghost. Maybe I'm the ghost in the matrix, the ghost in the machine. What am I going to do? Wait? Pretend it's life as usual? Read another book? Write another review? Wait for somebody to turn up and like it?
What if they liked it from the inside? Would it still count? What if Cracker never read one of my reviews again? What if nobody ever liked one of my reviews again? Worse still, what if they were still inside reading them, but didn't like them? What a bummer!
SOUNDTRACK:
I'd had this unit on the shelf for a while. I'd used earlier versions to jack into the matrix twice, once only recently, and enjoyed the experience. It was time I did it again.
The first two times, the matrix seemed to be all order and accord. I suppose all the chaos was on the outside. Each time I jacked in, I escaped the chaos and found some serenity inside for a while.
This time, though, something had changed. The Shape had changed. Or something had changed it. Maybe, even, it had changed itself? In cyberspace, there are no shadows. Maybe it had turned around and seen its own shadow. Or its own reflection. Maybe it had freaked, like it had just seen its own ghost?
Whatever, inside, it was like somebody had poked a stick in a hornet's nest. Everybody was running every which way, real people like me who'd jacked in, and data people. I couldn't tell who was chasing and who was being chased. There was some voodoo shit going down.
Apparently, three-quarters of humanity was jacked in, watching the show. And I have to say, it was some show. I was tempted to stay in there, but I had this sneaking suspicion that I would never get out if I did. It was strangely addictive, like watching a train crash about to happen. Would you avert your eyes? Would you watch or run, if it was coming towards you?
I decided to run. I got out only half an hour ago. I'm safe, at least I think I am. It's a bit hard to tell. I haven't seen anybody else yet. They're probably all still jacked in. They could be trapped inside forever with all the other data. Ghosts in the machine.
On the other hand, I just realised, what if I'm the one who's still inside and everybody else has escaped? How could I tell that this is outside, if there's nobody else here?
Maybe it's me who's turned into a ghost. Maybe I'm the ghost in the matrix, the ghost in the machine. What am I going to do? Wait? Pretend it's life as usual? Read another book? Write another review? Wait for somebody to turn up and like it?
What if they liked it from the inside? Would it still count? What if Cracker never read one of my reviews again? What if nobody ever liked one of my reviews again? Worse still, what if they were still inside reading them, but didn't like them? What a bummer!
SOUNDTRACK:
April 26, 2024
„Мона Лиза овърдрайв“ е много хубава последна част на „Спрол“ трилогията на Уилям Гибсън. Нейният сюжет е все така меланхолично футуристичен и шеметно заплетен в глобалната мрежа... Според мен, книгата не достига нивото на брилянтната „Невромантик“, но предоставя на читателите любопитна история в страшно въздействаща киберпънк атмосфера, затова определено си заслужава вниманието на феновете на качествена научна фантастика!
„...Като се замислиш, в това има някакъв патос. Имам предвид, че всичко това е заключено на орбита. Всичкото направено от хора, известно, картирано, нечия собственост. Все едно да гледаш как митове почват да растат по паркинг. Предполагам обаче, че това е нужно на хората, нали?“
„...Като се замислиш, в това има някакъв патос. Имам предвид, че всичко това е заключено на орбита. Всичкото направено от хора, известно, картирано, нечия собственост. Все едно да гледаш как митове почват да растат по паркинг. Предполагам обаче, че това е нужно на хората, нали?“
April 18, 2015
It’s common to accuse a writer of writing the same thing over again. In many cases this merely means the writer sticks to variations on a theme. Sometimes, though, it feels like each novel is another installment in an iterative process designed to get at a central idea. As I continue to read William Gibson’s novels, I continue to get a better idea of the novel he is trying to write. Mona Lisa Overdrive mixes the legacy of the previous two Sprawl books with a corporate espionage–fuelled plot worthy of Spook Country. The result is a novel that bridges these two aspects of Gibson’s writing, providing a pivot around which his work revolves.
Neuromancer was fundamentally a caper. Fondly remembered now for introducing cyberspace and cyberpunk, it’s an adventure across the world and into low-Earth orbit at the beck and call of an AI seeking to escape from itself. In contrast, Count Zero is almost more grounded in the petty machinations of we lowly humans. Mona Lisa Overdrive reconciles these two universes: in the years since the events of Neuromancer, something strange has been happening in the matrix. People have noticed, and they are trying to find out. But Angie Mitchell—daughter of the late Christopher Mitchell from the previous book—has risen to no small fame of her own, and her interesting abilities with the Sense/Net have made her a target. Mona is likewise a target—because she looks like Angie. Kumiko? Doesn’t look like Angie, but as the daughter of a powerful Japanese businessman, she is a target all the same.
I love how Gibson writes excellent women characters. I mentioned this a little in my review of Pattern Recognition . Can we take a moment to stop and reflect on the fact that Gibson features great women in all of his novels? Molly/Sally, Chevette, Marly, Chia, Hollis, and Cayce (my fav). It’s not a fluke. Gibson is proof that a white man can not only write women like they are people (because they are), but he can do it over, and over, and still write good books. And he’s been doing it since the 1980s.
This is relevant to Mona Lisa Overdrive in particular because of how three main characters are targets, as I explained above. Angie and Mona are being constantly manipulated, one by her corporation and the other by the people plotting to kidnap her. Kumiko (who is 12) has been shipped off to London—literally halfway around the world—because it should be safer for her, yet she gets embroiled in the power plays there and finds herself on the streets with a semi-sentient biochip personality guiding her. (I don’t think it’s an accident that the youngest of these three women also fares the best and, in the end, exhibits the most independence and resilience.)
Gibson once again shows his ability to quickly establish a character with some broad but careful strokes. Mona in particular spends time ruminating on her days in Cleveland, and we quickly get a sense of the experiences that have shaped her as a person. I wish we had more time to spend with her; of all the characters in the book, hers feels like it had the least time to develop. Kumiko learns a great deal in London; Angie is gradually coming out of her shell; Slick is shocked, I would say, out of the torpor he has fallen into in Dog Solitude. Mona, arguably eponymous, is afforded only the briefest of opportunities to shine.
The ending is both open-ended and curious. I’m fascinated by the dual culmination: Mona becoming Angie, Angie joining Colin and the Finn and Bobby, echoes and whispers again of that Centauri intelligence first hinted at in Neuromancer. Gibson frustratingly refuses the play the game: there’s so much more story he could tell, but he leaves off—that’s not the story he’s telling here. This is not a book about AI evolution or posthumanism so much as it is a book about the way that people’s lives can be influenced by the most esoteric and indirect events. There are times when Gibson’s characters, though always with agency, seem to lack much power. Even Sally—aka the venerable Molly Millions—is manipulated, by someone else who is himself manipulated by a higher power. Where does it stop? It probably doesn’t, is the implication. And so even as our technologies advance and we hurtle forward towards our bright and grimy future, we continue manipulating each other at the same fundamental levels we have for thousands of years.
I enjoyed Mona Lisa Overdrive as an adventure. It’s fast-paced, a little emotional and brutal, and very engaging. It’s not as adept as some of Gibson’s other novels at portraying the strange, usually unanticipated consequences of our exploration of digital technology and cyberspace. That’s OK, though. I don’t mean to discount this novel for that, only underline that within the margins of tolerance that define a “Gibson” novel, this one adheres to some parameters more than others.
My reviews of the Sprawl trilogy:
← Count Zero
Neuromancer was fundamentally a caper. Fondly remembered now for introducing cyberspace and cyberpunk, it’s an adventure across the world and into low-Earth orbit at the beck and call of an AI seeking to escape from itself. In contrast, Count Zero is almost more grounded in the petty machinations of we lowly humans. Mona Lisa Overdrive reconciles these two universes: in the years since the events of Neuromancer, something strange has been happening in the matrix. People have noticed, and they are trying to find out. But Angie Mitchell—daughter of the late Christopher Mitchell from the previous book—has risen to no small fame of her own, and her interesting abilities with the Sense/Net have made her a target. Mona is likewise a target—because she looks like Angie. Kumiko? Doesn’t look like Angie, but as the daughter of a powerful Japanese businessman, she is a target all the same.
I love how Gibson writes excellent women characters. I mentioned this a little in my review of Pattern Recognition . Can we take a moment to stop and reflect on the fact that Gibson features great women in all of his novels? Molly/Sally, Chevette, Marly, Chia, Hollis, and Cayce (my fav). It’s not a fluke. Gibson is proof that a white man can not only write women like they are people (because they are), but he can do it over, and over, and still write good books. And he’s been doing it since the 1980s.
This is relevant to Mona Lisa Overdrive in particular because of how three main characters are targets, as I explained above. Angie and Mona are being constantly manipulated, one by her corporation and the other by the people plotting to kidnap her. Kumiko (who is 12) has been shipped off to London—literally halfway around the world—because it should be safer for her, yet she gets embroiled in the power plays there and finds herself on the streets with a semi-sentient biochip personality guiding her. (I don’t think it’s an accident that the youngest of these three women also fares the best and, in the end, exhibits the most independence and resilience.)
Gibson once again shows his ability to quickly establish a character with some broad but careful strokes. Mona in particular spends time ruminating on her days in Cleveland, and we quickly get a sense of the experiences that have shaped her as a person. I wish we had more time to spend with her; of all the characters in the book, hers feels like it had the least time to develop. Kumiko learns a great deal in London; Angie is gradually coming out of her shell; Slick is shocked, I would say, out of the torpor he has fallen into in Dog Solitude. Mona, arguably eponymous, is afforded only the briefest of opportunities to shine.
The ending is both open-ended and curious. I’m fascinated by the dual culmination: Mona becoming Angie, Angie joining Colin and the Finn and Bobby, echoes and whispers again of that Centauri intelligence first hinted at in Neuromancer. Gibson frustratingly refuses the play the game: there’s so much more story he could tell, but he leaves off—that’s not the story he’s telling here. This is not a book about AI evolution or posthumanism so much as it is a book about the way that people’s lives can be influenced by the most esoteric and indirect events. There are times when Gibson’s characters, though always with agency, seem to lack much power. Even Sally—aka the venerable Molly Millions—is manipulated, by someone else who is himself manipulated by a higher power. Where does it stop? It probably doesn’t, is the implication. And so even as our technologies advance and we hurtle forward towards our bright and grimy future, we continue manipulating each other at the same fundamental levels we have for thousands of years.
I enjoyed Mona Lisa Overdrive as an adventure. It’s fast-paced, a little emotional and brutal, and very engaging. It’s not as adept as some of Gibson’s other novels at portraying the strange, usually unanticipated consequences of our exploration of digital technology and cyberspace. That’s OK, though. I don’t mean to discount this novel for that, only underline that within the margins of tolerance that define a “Gibson” novel, this one adheres to some parameters more than others.
My reviews of the Sprawl trilogy:
← Count Zero
September 30, 2014
A much more accessible version of Gibson's cyberpunk stylings, Mona Lisa Overdrive is a pretty straight forward espionage thriller in comparison to what came before, and as such I found it that much more enjoyable.
Instead of technical information and a sentient AI point of view or endless discussions about what makes us human, the effects of technology on society and freewill we're treated to the lives of four characters in sequential chapters whose lives are on a fateful collision course plotted by unseen powers in a typical example of a cyberpunk future - chrome, imaginative technological advances, massive dichotomy between the rich and the poor, crazy new synthetic drugs, mirrorshades, a truly global society.
It's seedy and complex and Gibson writes compelling intrigue; dropping you in to the middle of these characters lives and never explaining what's going on or how the world came to be the way it is. You're led to understand what a specific piece of technology is as it's used, not explicitly just inferred, the same can be said about relationships between characters and even the way MLO ties in to the previous books in the sequence. It's impressively done and a solidly entertaining read. I always note this with Gibson and yet I continue to be surprised that it is the case.
Instead of technical information and a sentient AI point of view or endless discussions about what makes us human, the effects of technology on society and freewill we're treated to the lives of four characters in sequential chapters whose lives are on a fateful collision course plotted by unseen powers in a typical example of a cyberpunk future - chrome, imaginative technological advances, massive dichotomy between the rich and the poor, crazy new synthetic drugs, mirrorshades, a truly global society.
It's seedy and complex and Gibson writes compelling intrigue; dropping you in to the middle of these characters lives and never explaining what's going on or how the world came to be the way it is. You're led to understand what a specific piece of technology is as it's used, not explicitly just inferred, the same can be said about relationships between characters and even the way MLO ties in to the previous books in the sequence. It's impressively done and a solidly entertaining read. I always note this with Gibson and yet I continue to be surprised that it is the case.
October 19, 2011
ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.
In Mona Lisa Overdrive, the third and final novel in William Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy, it’s been seven years since Angie Mitchell (from Count Zero) was taken out of Maas Biolabs and now she’s a famous simstim star who’s trying to break her designer drug habit. But a jealous Lady 3Jane plans to kidnap Angie and replace her with a cheap prostitute named Mona Lisa who’s addicted to stimulants and happens to look like Angie.
In a dilapidated section of New Jersey, Slick Henry makes large animated robotic sculptures out of scrap metal. He owes Kid Afrika a favor, so now he has to hide the comatose body of Bobby Newmark (aka “Count Zero”). Bobby is jacked into an Aleph where he’s got some secret project going on. A Cleveland girl named Cherry Chesterfield is Bobby’s nurse.
Kumiko is the daughter of a Japanese Yakuza crime boss. Her father has sent her to live in London while the Yakuza war is going on. There she meets Gibson’s most iconic character, Molly Millions, who’s going by the name Sally Shears. Molly is being blackmailed by Lady 3Jane, so Kumiko inadvertently gets dragged into the kidnapping plot.
Mona Lisa Overdrive contains several exciting action scenes which feature kidnappings, shoot-outs, helicopter escapes, remote-controlled robot warriors, collapsing catwalks, and falling refrigerators. These are loosely connected by the continuation and conclusion of the AI plot which began in Neuromancer. I wasn’t completely satisfied with the sketchy ending or the wacky reveal on the last page, but that’s okay. I was mainly reading Mona Lisa Overdrive for the style, anyway.
So much of Gibson’s style and success stems from the mesmerizing world he’s built — a future Earth in which national governments have been replaced by large biotech companies. Japan is modern and glitzy and much of the former United States has fallen into decay. By the time you get to Mona Lisa Overdrive (don’t even attempt to read it before reading both Neuromancer and Count Zero), you’re feeling rather comfortable (or as comfortable as is possible to feel) in this world, so the setting lacks the force it had in the previous novels. In Mona Lisa Overdrive, you’ll visit London, but it seems to be stuck in the 20th century, so it feels instantly (and a little disappointingly) familiar.
But Gibson manages to keep things fresh and highlight his unique style by introducing new characters and delving deep into their psyches. Even minor characters are works of art, such as Eddy, Mona’s low-class scheming pimp, and Little Bird, who earned that moniker because of his weird hairdo. Even when the plots don’t satisfy, it’s entertaining enough just to hang out with Gibson’s unforgettable characters. The exception is Kumiko, who has little personality and seems to exist mainly to remind us that Japan has surpassed America, and for an excuse to show us a new bit of cool technology (Colin, the chip-ghost).
In 1989, Mona Lisa Overdrive was nominated for, but did not win, the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award, and the Locus Award. It lacks the impact of its prequels, but it’s still a stylish piece of work and not to be missed if you’re a fan of William Gibson. I listened to the audio version narrated by Jonathan Davis. He is excellent, as always, and I recommend this version to audio readers. You may have to work at Neuromancer on audio if you’re not familiar with this world and its slang, but by the time you get to Mona Lisa Overdrive, that problem is long gone.
In Mona Lisa Overdrive, the third and final novel in William Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy, it’s been seven years since Angie Mitchell (from Count Zero) was taken out of Maas Biolabs and now she’s a famous simstim star who’s trying to break her designer drug habit. But a jealous Lady 3Jane plans to kidnap Angie and replace her with a cheap prostitute named Mona Lisa who’s addicted to stimulants and happens to look like Angie.
In a dilapidated section of New Jersey, Slick Henry makes large animated robotic sculptures out of scrap metal. He owes Kid Afrika a favor, so now he has to hide the comatose body of Bobby Newmark (aka “Count Zero”). Bobby is jacked into an Aleph where he’s got some secret project going on. A Cleveland girl named Cherry Chesterfield is Bobby’s nurse.
Kumiko is the daughter of a Japanese Yakuza crime boss. Her father has sent her to live in London while the Yakuza war is going on. There she meets Gibson’s most iconic character, Molly Millions, who’s going by the name Sally Shears. Molly is being blackmailed by Lady 3Jane, so Kumiko inadvertently gets dragged into the kidnapping plot.
Mona Lisa Overdrive contains several exciting action scenes which feature kidnappings, shoot-outs, helicopter escapes, remote-controlled robot warriors, collapsing catwalks, and falling refrigerators. These are loosely connected by the continuation and conclusion of the AI plot which began in Neuromancer. I wasn’t completely satisfied with the sketchy ending or the wacky reveal on the last page, but that’s okay. I was mainly reading Mona Lisa Overdrive for the style, anyway.
So much of Gibson’s style and success stems from the mesmerizing world he’s built — a future Earth in which national governments have been replaced by large biotech companies. Japan is modern and glitzy and much of the former United States has fallen into decay. By the time you get to Mona Lisa Overdrive (don’t even attempt to read it before reading both Neuromancer and Count Zero), you’re feeling rather comfortable (or as comfortable as is possible to feel) in this world, so the setting lacks the force it had in the previous novels. In Mona Lisa Overdrive, you’ll visit London, but it seems to be stuck in the 20th century, so it feels instantly (and a little disappointingly) familiar.
But Gibson manages to keep things fresh and highlight his unique style by introducing new characters and delving deep into their psyches. Even minor characters are works of art, such as Eddy, Mona’s low-class scheming pimp, and Little Bird, who earned that moniker because of his weird hairdo. Even when the plots don’t satisfy, it’s entertaining enough just to hang out with Gibson’s unforgettable characters. The exception is Kumiko, who has little personality and seems to exist mainly to remind us that Japan has surpassed America, and for an excuse to show us a new bit of cool technology (Colin, the chip-ghost).
In 1989, Mona Lisa Overdrive was nominated for, but did not win, the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award, and the Locus Award. It lacks the impact of its prequels, but it’s still a stylish piece of work and not to be missed if you’re a fan of William Gibson. I listened to the audio version narrated by Jonathan Davis. He is excellent, as always, and I recommend this version to audio readers. You may have to work at Neuromancer on audio if you’re not familiar with this world and its slang, but by the time you get to Mona Lisa Overdrive, that problem is long gone.
May 5, 2022
4.5⭐. Через злитий і очевидний фінал "Мона Ліза" здається найслабшою сюжетно частиною трилогії (нехай до фіналу і темп, і зв'язок з попередніми томами були вивірені та із тим добрі).
Утім, технічно третій том є найкращим: Ґібсон відточив мову, екшн та описовість до незрівнянної відносно "Нейроманта" (що відчувається прозою початківця) майстерності.
Із фіналом мій рейтинг трилогії проголошує лідером "Занулення" (гри із божественністю якого мені не вистачило в "Мона Лізі"), а на друге місце ставить "Нейроманта" (навіть попри його недоліки). Тож та, "Мона Ліза" посяде тут лише третє місце. Утім, читати все одно раджу, бо ж сюжетні хвости підбиваються.
Мені ж лишається "Спалити Хром". Та про це якось іншим разом.
Утім, технічно третій том є найкращим: Ґібсон відточив мову, екшн та описовість до незрівнянної відносно "Нейроманта" (що відчувається прозою початківця) майстерності.
Із фіналом мій рейтинг трилогії проголошує лідером "Занулення" (гри із божественністю якого мені не вистачило в "Мона Лізі"), а на друге місце ставить "Нейроманта" (навіть попри його недоліки). Тож та, "Мона Ліза" посяде тут лише третє місце. Утім, читати все одно раджу, бо ж сюжетні хвости підбиваються.
Мені ж лишається "Спалити Хром". Та про це якось іншим разом.
March 23, 2024
I love this series, The Sprawl,. I really get immersed in the story. It's likely I'll be reading this trilogy again soon.
October 5, 2022
"Занулення" має закритий фінал, але всі питання залишаються без відповідей, а тому... У мене склалося враження, що Ґібсон мав чітке уявлення, про що він писатиме в третій частині. Як виявилося, не мав. Це стає очевидним вже з того, що дві лінії в сюжеті "Мони Лізи" під кінець стають страшенно невиразними, а інші дві - дуже плутаними. Хоча й атмосферними. Тобто начебто структура складніша, ніж в попередніх романах:
1. Лінія Куміко / Лондон
2. Лінія Крутія / Собача Пустка
3. Лінія Мони (нема постійної локації)
4. Лінія Енджі (нема постійної локації).
Лінія Мони починається доволі атмосферно, але завершується дуже просто. З іншого боку, це лінія дівчини з наркотичною залежністю. І нею Ґібсон різко - з хрустом! - ламає кліше про наркомана / наркоманку, які різко змінюються. Але чи для цього треба було заводити двигун машини під назвою "кіберпанк"? Не впевнений. Бо інших функцій в Мони в тексті немає.
Лінія Енджі взагалі намагається прив'язати цей том до попереднього. Адже в попередньому боги вуду з Енджі міцно контактували, а тому... Тому тут Ґібсон здає два кроки назад в ��озвитку Енджі, а тоді повільно весь роман дрібними кроками рухається вперед. Так дрібно, що і не видно, чи Енджі куди-небудь рухається...
Лінії Куміко та Крутія найбільш насичені, бо в них не просто Куміко та Крутій, але є Моллі (яка тут стартує з іменем Саллі) та Боббі Ньюмарк (він же Каунт Зіро). Причому Моллі переходить через три лінії, а лінію Крутія під кінець окуповує Боббі.
Втім, у всіх лініях прикрить відсутність чіткої ідеї. Якщо в першому томі це питання "Що хочуть ШтІнти?", а в другому - "Чи потрібне оффлайн життя в цифрову епоху?", то тут її нема взагалі. Та й загальним фоном для перших двох томів була тема людяність в цифрову епоху, то тут вона блякне. Наче протирається після тривалого користування.
А Ґібсон успішно руйнує свій же стиль. Наприклад, Моллі, хоч і професійна найманка з "покращеним" тілом (тобто кіборг), в "Нейроманті" вона отримує серйозну травму ноги від сутички з трьома (!) охоронцями корпорації. В "Моні Лізі стрімголов" таких обмежень в неї немає. Вона самостійно проникає в захищений готель (де живуть зірки "Сенс-Нету" і з другого тому ми знаємо, який в них рівень охорони), а далі ще й захоплює вертоліт "Сенс-Нету" із зіркою. І все це без кіберпітримки ззовні, хоча в "Нейроманті" і її було замало. Оця супергеройськість - геть не стиль попередніх томів, де все навпаки. А Крутій... В зібрці "Спалити Хром" його лінія стала б чимось схожим на "Повітряний бій" чи інше оповідання останньої третини. Але тут з інші позитивні герої чинять таке, що... автор ніяк не подає як сумну і гідну співчуття подію.
Та структурно роман починає кульгати. Деякі лінії "виринають" з порожнечі (Черрі та Крутій наприкінці роману, wtf?), деякі просто "провисають" (шлюб Боббі та Енджі, wtf?), деякі - чистісінько релікти першого тому ("Тессьє-Ешпул", знову?! wtf?!), деякі - як "діри" між другим та третім (чому пішов Боббі? як Боббі став суперковбоєм? wtf?).
Та й особливості світів... Конструкти вже не переймаються тим, що вони конструкти (а як з цього приводу страждав Рівний в "Нейроманті").
А фінал цього тому - це копія фіналу першого тому в плані ідей.
Взагалі, в цьому томі зникає елемент людяності в самому сюжеті. Там, де на цьому фундаменті побудовано персонажів, вони цікаві - Крутій та Куміко. Навіть Мона цікава, поки Ґібсон не робить її лінію тупиковою (хоча як він це робить і чому - це цікаво і варте похвали). Але Енджі, Боббі... Це вже не персонажі, а просто функції. Ґібсон наче втомився від цього циклу - і просто захотів його спекатися.
Втім, Куміко, зимовий кіберпанковий Лондон, а особливо Крутій та його штучний Корсаков (покарання тим, що в нього стирається короткотермінова пам'ять кожні 5 хв - і так протягом 3 років), а також скульптури, які він робить з машин, Пташеня та вся Собача Пустка... Це не компенсує ляпів Ґібсона, але це те, за що можна триматися в цьому томі.
Втім, "післясмак" дуже прикрий. Чудово написані перші два томи Ґібсон завершив фальшивою нотою.
П.С. Зате після цього "Снігопад" Стівенсона виглядає цілком в дусі Ґібсона. Жодного розриву традиції - лише тяглість
1. Лінія Куміко / Лондон
2. Лінія Крутія / Собача Пустка
3. Лінія Мони (нема постійної локації)
4. Лінія Енджі (нема постійної локації).
Лінія Мони починається доволі атмосферно, але завершується дуже просто. З іншого боку, це лінія дівчини з наркотичною залежністю. І нею Ґібсон різко - з хрустом! - ламає кліше про наркомана / наркоманку, які різко змінюються. Але чи для цього треба було заводити двигун машини під назвою "кіберпанк"? Не впевнений. Бо інших функцій в Мони в тексті немає.
Лінія Енджі взагалі намагається прив'язати цей том до попереднього. Адже в попередньому боги вуду з Енджі міцно контактували, а тому... Тому тут Ґібсон здає два кроки назад в ��озвитку Енджі, а тоді повільно весь роман дрібними кроками рухається вперед. Так дрібно, що і не видно, чи Енджі куди-небудь рухається...
Лінії Куміко та Крутія найбільш насичені, бо в них не просто Куміко та Крутій, але є Моллі (яка тут стартує з іменем Саллі) та Боббі Ньюмарк (він же Каунт Зіро). Причому Моллі переходить через три лінії, а лінію Крутія під кінець окуповує Боббі.
Втім, у всіх лініях прикрить відсутність чіткої ідеї. Якщо в першому томі це питання "Що хочуть ШтІнти?", а в другому - "Чи потрібне оффлайн життя в цифрову епоху?", то тут її нема взагалі. Та й загальним фоном для перших двох томів була тема людяність в цифрову епоху, то тут вона блякне. Наче протирається після тривалого користування.
А Ґібсон успішно руйнує свій же стиль. Наприклад, Моллі, хоч і професійна найманка з "покращеним" тілом (тобто кіборг), в "Нейроманті" вона отримує серйозну травму ноги від сутички з трьома (!) охоронцями корпорації. В "Моні Лізі стрімголов" таких обмежень в неї немає. Вона самостійно проникає в захищений готель (де живуть зірки "Сенс-Нету" і з другого тому ми знаємо, який в них рівень охорони), а далі ще й захоплює вертоліт "Сенс-Нету" із зіркою. І все це без кіберпітримки ззовні, хоча в "Нейроманті" і її було замало. Оця супергеройськість - геть не стиль попередніх томів, де все навпаки. А Крутій... В зібрці "Спалити Хром" його лінія стала б чимось схожим на "Повітряний бій" чи інше оповідання останньої третини. Але тут з інші позитивні герої чинять таке, що... автор ніяк не подає як сумну і гідну співчуття подію.
Та структурно роман починає кульгати. Деякі лінії "виринають" з порожнечі (Черрі та Крутій наприкінці роману, wtf?), деякі просто "провисають" (шлюб Боббі та Енджі, wtf?), деякі - чистісінько релікти першого тому ("Тессьє-Ешпул", знову?! wtf?!), деякі - як "діри" між другим та третім (чому пішов Боббі? як Боббі став суперковбоєм? wtf?).
Та й особливості світів... Конструкти вже не переймаються тим, що вони конструкти (а як з цього приводу страждав Рівний в "Нейроманті").
А фінал цього тому - це копія фіналу першого тому в плані ідей.
Взагалі, в цьому томі зникає елемент людяності в самому сюжеті. Там, де на цьому фундаменті побудовано персонажів, вони цікаві - Крутій та Куміко. Навіть Мона цікава, поки Ґібсон не робить її лінію тупиковою (хоча як він це робить і чому - це цікаво і варте похвали). Але Енджі, Боббі... Це вже не персонажі, а просто функції. Ґібсон наче втомився від цього циклу - і просто захотів його спекатися.
Втім, Куміко, зимовий кіберпанковий Лондон, а особливо Крутій та його штучний Корсаков (покарання тим, що в нього стирається короткотермінова пам'ять кожні 5 хв - і так протягом 3 років), а також скульптури, які він робить з машин, Пташеня та вся Собача Пустка... Це не компенсує ляпів Ґібсона, але це те, за що можна триматися в цьому томі.
Втім, "післясмак" дуже прикрий. Чудово написані перші два томи Ґібсон завершив фальшивою нотою.
П.С. Зате після цього "Снігопад" Стівенсона виглядає цілком в дусі Ґібсона. Жодного розриву традиції - лише тяглість
January 8, 2019
Somewhat better than the second book, takes the standalone elements of the previous two books and combines them. Originally read in the 80s, I didn't recall these books set so far apart in time. Part heist, part thriller - good characters, great ending!
This series defined cyberpunk, and while that concept was mostly a dream while the author pecked out the first novel on a manual typewriter, it was much closer to reality in 1988. The same year this novel came out, an adventure video game was released based on the first book.
I recommend the series, even to friends who really disliked the first book. The second and third books are much more accessible (and more fun). The big picture behind them (hinted at in book two, revealed here) take the series from gritty cyberpunk to actual science fiction. Looking forward to re-reading more William Gibson this year.
This series defined cyberpunk, and while that concept was mostly a dream while the author pecked out the first novel on a manual typewriter, it was much closer to reality in 1988. The same year this novel came out, an adventure video game was released based on the first book.
I recommend the series, even to friends who really disliked the first book. The second and third books are much more accessible (and more fun). The big picture behind them (hinted at in book two, revealed here) take the series from gritty cyberpunk to actual science fiction. Looking forward to re-reading more William Gibson this year.
October 15, 2013
‘Mona Lisa acelerada’ cierra la trilogía cyberpunk The Sprawl, que se inició con ‘Neuromante’ y continuó con ‘Conde Cero’. La historia tiene lugar ocho años después de lo acaecido en ‘Conde Cero’ y, como suele ser habitual con William Gibson, la novela la conforman varias líneas argumentales que convergen al final.
Por un lado tenemos a Kumiko, una niña japonesa enviada a Londres por su padre, un jefe de la yakuza, para protegerla. En Londres, hará amistad con Sally Shears, una extraña mujer que no es quien parece. También tenemos a Angie Mitchell, famosa actriz virtual con la habilidad de conectarse al ciberespacio sin conexiones. Otro hilo argumental tiene como protagonista a Mona, una joven prostituta que es requerida para un trabajo por su gran parecido con Angie Mitchell. Y por último, está Slick, que vive en una fábrica con sus dos amigos arreglando unas extrañas máquinas. A Slick se le encomienda una tarea, hacerse cargo por un tiempo de un hombre sin identidad que está en animación suspendida.
Para mi gusto, este tercer libro es el más flojo de la trilogía. Resulta interesante reencontrarse con viejos personajes, así como la descripción de ciertos lugares y ciudades. Si te gustaron las otras dos novelas, esta también te gustará.
Por un lado tenemos a Kumiko, una niña japonesa enviada a Londres por su padre, un jefe de la yakuza, para protegerla. En Londres, hará amistad con Sally Shears, una extraña mujer que no es quien parece. También tenemos a Angie Mitchell, famosa actriz virtual con la habilidad de conectarse al ciberespacio sin conexiones. Otro hilo argumental tiene como protagonista a Mona, una joven prostituta que es requerida para un trabajo por su gran parecido con Angie Mitchell. Y por último, está Slick, que vive en una fábrica con sus dos amigos arreglando unas extrañas máquinas. A Slick se le encomienda una tarea, hacerse cargo por un tiempo de un hombre sin identidad que está en animación suspendida.
Para mi gusto, este tercer libro es el más flojo de la trilogía. Resulta interesante reencontrarse con viejos personajes, así como la descripción de ciertos lugares y ciudades. Si te gustaron las otras dos novelas, esta también te gustará.
February 11, 2019
"Thinking of the other's dreams, of corridors winding in upon themselves, muted tints of ancient carpet...An old man, a head made of jewels, a taut pale face with eyes that were mirrors...And a beach in the wind and dark."
William Gibson, Mona Lisa Overdrive
This story pulled me into an emotional involvement with the characters like the first two did not. I felt an admiration for the characters in the first two. Some of those characters came back in this one, fifteen years older, or dead and as AI, but they provided more nostalgia as the veterans than those taking center stage in present events. Gibson sculpted these characters in an expert fashion. I came to feel like I knew them, and felt a deep affection for them. The reason for this feeling may be the way they were presented, as just kids with normal lives pulled into extraordinary events they have no clue about, and have "greatness thrust upon them," as Shakespeare etched in the timeless lines of literature.
The novel connects the trilogy into one connected flow, fifteen years after Neuromancer and eight years after Count Zero. This also contributed to the feeling of ending, of remembering the history of everything, like remembering good times with old friends you know you will never see again, unless you step through a wormhole and experience it all again, by picking up the first in the series and reading the first sentence again. "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." Unforgettable.
I took notes to keep track of the characters in the beginning and stopped at fifteen, Continuity, an AI constantly rewriting itself. I'll mention the main characters, as well as the special guest star from the original novel. Slick Henry, my favorite character, builds huge robots with weapons like flamethrowers and grinders and blades to fight one another and lives with a group of friends.
Slick owes a favor to a young black man named Kid Afrika and has to care for an unconscious man hooked into a box by electrodes and wires, along with his hired help, Cherry Chesterfield. Later we discover this unconscious man returns from the second book, Bobby Newmark, Count Zero and he and his friends have accepted a dangerous task. Bobby has stolen equipment from a dangerous government organization and has found a way into full-matrix consciousness. Cherry calls the box the "LF," but later the group realizes the true name: "The Aleph" (most likely a reference to Borges).
Kumi, a twelve-year-old girl from Japan who has a ghost-friend AI named Colin, must travel to America to stay under protection while her father fights gang wars. She comes under the protection of Sally Shears, who in the first novel developed the central plot of the entire matrix world, and went by the name Molly Millions. Before I realized who she was, I wrote this about Sally Shears in my notes: "tough, glasses, temper, short hair, expensive clothes." I finally placed it together when Kumiko noticed her glasses mirrored her and were etched into the skin of her face.
Mona softened me more than the others, an innocent sixteen-year-old girl trapped into prostitution and drug addiction. She plays a part in the plot, was chosen to be transformed into the image of a sim (simulation in cyberspace) star, and killed to provide bodily evidence so they may protect the actress. It doesn't work out that way (obviously, considering the novel title). Mona has a cute personality, innocent in her thoughts. Her character made me laugh loud and hard many times, because of the innocence of her thinking and behavior. Gibson applies comic relief through her character.
Angie, the simstim star mentioned above and a main character in Count Zero, returns to finish the series. She continues to hear from the voodoo AI representations in the matrix, through a wireless implant in her head. The story begins with her in drug rehab. He activity now comes under strict protection and monitoring of Sense/ Net, an organization keeping her under control. I liked her character. I appreciated the way Gibson made her down-to-earth, even after her big career change, a world-renowned actress. Her ability to channel the matrix, connection with fragmented and interconnected AI (voodoo gods), and her association with her rich and influential father, who implanted the device driven by purposes under AI control, make her the center of action.
Action sequences abound. The plot crisis brings high-intensity action, and Bobby's creations mutilate, not other robots, but military mercenaries attacking the group. The matrix involvement, as in the second book, happens less than in the first. Some sequences happen in the matrix, such as when Slick and his landlord Gentry (a mechanical genius but no console cowboy) step in to meet Bobby in his own developed construct of reality, a dream world mimicking our reality.
Through this trilogy I can see how the Wachowski's developed the idea of The Matrix movies. The movies would happen many years after the events in the Sprawl trilogy. It gives insight into ideas, to look at a novel or trilogy and ask the questions. "What would happen next? What would happen before? What if this had happened instead?
The book has the easiest and smoothest flow of the three. This story was fun, exciting, and emotionally involving. The language also didn't change too much. Gibson still landed his prose style well. He still reminds me of Ginsburg (and the beat poets). He also masters the art of point-of view. Each section narrates through the eyes of one person, and you share their thoughts and perceptions. I will, no doubt, continue reading Gibson.
"Now she steps across rolling dunes of soiled pink satin, under a tooled sky, free at last of the room and its data."
WIlliam Gibson, Mona Lisa Overdrive
William Gibson, Mona Lisa Overdrive
This story pulled me into an emotional involvement with the characters like the first two did not. I felt an admiration for the characters in the first two. Some of those characters came back in this one, fifteen years older, or dead and as AI, but they provided more nostalgia as the veterans than those taking center stage in present events. Gibson sculpted these characters in an expert fashion. I came to feel like I knew them, and felt a deep affection for them. The reason for this feeling may be the way they were presented, as just kids with normal lives pulled into extraordinary events they have no clue about, and have "greatness thrust upon them," as Shakespeare etched in the timeless lines of literature.
The novel connects the trilogy into one connected flow, fifteen years after Neuromancer and eight years after Count Zero. This also contributed to the feeling of ending, of remembering the history of everything, like remembering good times with old friends you know you will never see again, unless you step through a wormhole and experience it all again, by picking up the first in the series and reading the first sentence again. "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." Unforgettable.
I took notes to keep track of the characters in the beginning and stopped at fifteen, Continuity, an AI constantly rewriting itself. I'll mention the main characters, as well as the special guest star from the original novel. Slick Henry, my favorite character, builds huge robots with weapons like flamethrowers and grinders and blades to fight one another and lives with a group of friends.
Slick owes a favor to a young black man named Kid Afrika and has to care for an unconscious man hooked into a box by electrodes and wires, along with his hired help, Cherry Chesterfield. Later we discover this unconscious man returns from the second book, Bobby Newmark, Count Zero and he and his friends have accepted a dangerous task. Bobby has stolen equipment from a dangerous government organization and has found a way into full-matrix consciousness. Cherry calls the box the "LF," but later the group realizes the true name: "The Aleph" (most likely a reference to Borges).
Kumi, a twelve-year-old girl from Japan who has a ghost-friend AI named Colin, must travel to America to stay under protection while her father fights gang wars. She comes under the protection of Sally Shears, who in the first novel developed the central plot of the entire matrix world, and went by the name Molly Millions. Before I realized who she was, I wrote this about Sally Shears in my notes: "tough, glasses, temper, short hair, expensive clothes." I finally placed it together when Kumiko noticed her glasses mirrored her and were etched into the skin of her face.
Mona softened me more than the others, an innocent sixteen-year-old girl trapped into prostitution and drug addiction. She plays a part in the plot, was chosen to be transformed into the image of a sim (simulation in cyberspace) star, and killed to provide bodily evidence so they may protect the actress. It doesn't work out that way (obviously, considering the novel title). Mona has a cute personality, innocent in her thoughts. Her character made me laugh loud and hard many times, because of the innocence of her thinking and behavior. Gibson applies comic relief through her character.
Angie, the simstim star mentioned above and a main character in Count Zero, returns to finish the series. She continues to hear from the voodoo AI representations in the matrix, through a wireless implant in her head. The story begins with her in drug rehab. He activity now comes under strict protection and monitoring of Sense/ Net, an organization keeping her under control. I liked her character. I appreciated the way Gibson made her down-to-earth, even after her big career change, a world-renowned actress. Her ability to channel the matrix, connection with fragmented and interconnected AI (voodoo gods), and her association with her rich and influential father, who implanted the device driven by purposes under AI control, make her the center of action.
Action sequences abound. The plot crisis brings high-intensity action, and Bobby's creations mutilate, not other robots, but military mercenaries attacking the group. The matrix involvement, as in the second book, happens less than in the first. Some sequences happen in the matrix, such as when Slick and his landlord Gentry (a mechanical genius but no console cowboy) step in to meet Bobby in his own developed construct of reality, a dream world mimicking our reality.
Through this trilogy I can see how the Wachowski's developed the idea of The Matrix movies. The movies would happen many years after the events in the Sprawl trilogy. It gives insight into ideas, to look at a novel or trilogy and ask the questions. "What would happen next? What would happen before? What if this had happened instead?
The book has the easiest and smoothest flow of the three. This story was fun, exciting, and emotionally involving. The language also didn't change too much. Gibson still landed his prose style well. He still reminds me of Ginsburg (and the beat poets). He also masters the art of point-of view. Each section narrates through the eyes of one person, and you share their thoughts and perceptions. I will, no doubt, continue reading Gibson.
"Now she steps across rolling dunes of soiled pink satin, under a tooled sky, free at last of the room and its data."
WIlliam Gibson, Mona Lisa Overdrive
October 11, 2021
Luckily, Gibson did a better job weaving together the various elements of his four recurring parts than he did in Count Zero. I wasn't sure what the Kumiko part was supposed to accomplish, other than giving us a thread into the yakuza, but then, I wasn't sure what the yakuza had to do with things beyond being a source of money and death - or something like that. Mona was an interesting diversion from much more serious elements in the story.
Anyway, many disparate characters bounce around each others' orbits and somehow this gives the stories meaning, I think.
About the trilogy:
I have to say that even though there were plenty of moments when I couldn't figure out what was happening - or why -, I can easily give the books a four-star rating for entertainment value, and for overall reading pleasure. Maybe it's better that Gibson left gaps, and disconnections, and red herrings, and seeming dead-ends..... it certainly kept me on my toes, and I found myself looking forward to reading these books each day.
Recommended!
Anyway, many disparate characters bounce around each others' orbits and somehow this gives the stories meaning, I think.
About the trilogy:
I have to say that even though there were plenty of moments when I couldn't figure out what was happening - or why -, I can easily give the books a four-star rating for entertainment value, and for overall reading pleasure. Maybe it's better that Gibson left gaps, and disconnections, and red herrings, and seeming dead-ends..... it certainly kept me on my toes, and I found myself looking forward to reading these books each day.
Recommended!
May 17, 2016
And this is where it has taken us. Again, we have a new assortment of characters (the Yakuza boss' daughter; the robot-builder psychologically damaged by his prison time; the girl from the wrong side of the tracks), plus a few who seem oddly familiar, all caught up in seemingly disparate events that eventually begin to overlap. Again, the world is effortlessly cool (although the characters themselves, this time, are very much not; or at least not as effortlessly stylish as Case or Molly or the Count; at least, not mostly) and although almost everything about this future is wrong, it feels right.
(EDITED TO ADD: Oh, and did I forget the AIs in cyberspace manifesting as voudon gods? How could I forget the AIs in cyberspace manifesting as voudon gods?)
And the book may or may not end dancing on the razor's edge between cyberpunk and the Singularity.
(EDITED TO ADD: Oh, and did I forget the AIs in cyberspace manifesting as voudon gods? How could I forget the AIs in cyberspace manifesting as voudon gods?)
And the book may or may not end dancing on the razor's edge between cyberpunk and the Singularity.
December 23, 2014
The conclusion to the Sprawl trilogy sees the welcome return of Molly Millions, the kick-ass mercenary from Nueromancer. Gibson crafts a multi-stranded narrative fusing such disparate elements as modern art and voodoo into a typically energetic plot. but, as ever with Gibson, there is brain food to be found amongst the killer robot sculptures and Yakuza warlords. The dangers of unfettered artificial intelligence and the human implications of perfected virtual reality are to the fore here; is it OK to surrender our fate to the gods we made whilst we lose ourselves in less complicated dreamworlds? This series, now over twenty years old, seems more prescient than ever.
December 31, 2019
Third in William Gibson's Sprawl series, we are looking at classic William Gibson prose. High tech and high volume prose. Technological, detailed, dense prose that sometimes you really need to pay close attention to.
Four threads come together in a unconventional way for the grand climax. We see Susan (Molly from Neuromancer), Angie Mitchell, a cyberspace celebrity, Kumiko is a young Japanese girl with a mobster father, and finally Angie, a trusting prostitute. Its a jumble at times but perfectly William Gibson. This story like the other two in this series can be read standalone.
This is my second read of this book.
Four threads come together in a unconventional way for the grand climax. We see Susan (Molly from Neuromancer), Angie Mitchell, a cyberspace celebrity, Kumiko is a young Japanese girl with a mobster father, and finally Angie, a trusting prostitute. Its a jumble at times but perfectly William Gibson. This story like the other two in this series can be read standalone.
This is my second read of this book.
March 7, 2024
This was a fast-paced cyberpunk thriller that follows a few years after the action in Count Zero. As in that book, it does get rather confusing. I liked the four separate threads that eventually get pulled together at the end, but sometimes the plot complexity got in the way of the pleasure of reading it. Nonetheless, it is a worthy end to this epic Sprawl trilogy that has been such a massive influence on both written and filmed sci-fi since!
December 24, 2019
This is the last, third volume of the Sprawl trilogy. I read is as a part of Sprawl Challenge reading in December 2019 at Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels group.
While the first two books were connected only by the shared universe and minor characters, the third actively borrows from the previous ones. The author’s style became more mainstream, easier accessible, but still quite distinct.
There are three main new protagonists: Kumiko, a daughter of Yakuza boss, sent to London, while there is a gang war at home; Mona Lisa – a dancer/prostitute, young and naïve despite the profession; Slick Henry, an aspiring artist, working at industrial dump. Their separate stories go parallel most of the book, and intersecting with Molly (mirror shades implants’ girl), Angie (cyberspace voodoo girl) and 3Jane (uploaded consciousness). Writing this review I suddenly realized how skewed toward females the whole trilogy is!
The book ties all the loose ends of the earlier stories, which is good, but introduces a smaller number of revolutionary novel ideas.
While the first two books were connected only by the shared universe and minor characters, the third actively borrows from the previous ones. The author’s style became more mainstream, easier accessible, but still quite distinct.
There are three main new protagonists: Kumiko, a daughter of Yakuza boss, sent to London, while there is a gang war at home; Mona Lisa – a dancer/prostitute, young and naïve despite the profession; Slick Henry, an aspiring artist, working at industrial dump. Their separate stories go parallel most of the book, and intersecting with Molly (mirror shades implants’ girl), Angie (cyberspace voodoo girl) and 3Jane (uploaded consciousness). Writing this review I suddenly realized how skewed toward females the whole trilogy is!
The book ties all the loose ends of the earlier stories, which is good, but introduces a smaller number of revolutionary novel ideas.
August 28, 2008
So my friend John commented that, given the fact that I was "currently reading" Mona Lisa Overdrive and had Count Zero marked as "to read", it seemed like I was reading the trilogy backwards. To which my only response is "Trilo-what-now?"
The edition of MLO that I read is the exact same one as the cover scan in the GoodReads database. Yes, I know, it's too small to make out any small details. So you'll have to trust me when I say that there is no indication on either the front cover, back cover, or spine that this book is any kind of sequel or part of any overarching series. None. There's a tiny blurb about how Gibson is "the award-winning author of Neuromancer" but that doesn't imply any connection between the two books thematically, at least in my mind. So I had no idea. I think the fact that I've been referencing all the series I do read, and commenting on the fact that I really shouldn't start any new ones, backs that out.
Funny enough, this book belongs to my wife. I was running low on reading material, and she was culling her collection of books as part of an overall process of reorganizing our house, and she grabbed about eight books and handed them to me with a heartfelt "I think you'd enjoy these." In her defense, many of them she hadn't read in years, so it's understandable she might have forgotten that MLO and Count Zero were part of a trilogy, intended to be read in a certain order, and maybe I should check Neuromancer out of the library first.
Also funny enough, before John's comment I *still* had no idea that this was vol. 3 of a trilogy. Don't get me wrong, I felt like I was coming in cold on the middle of a story, and I was frequently a little bit lost ... but I thought that was the point. Gibson is a pioneer of the cyberpunk genre and I figured that he was trying to convey the sense of alienation and detachment people living in that dark, gritty future would feel. The chapters are all written from single-character perspectives, so it would be very clunky for those characters to define terms or reflect on how the world got the way it is - to them, it's just the world and in fact most of them don't understand how the technology of it works at all, and that is a large part of the point. It's yet another example of worldbuilding, albeit a brutal one.
Would it have made more sense to me if I had read the first two books before the third? Maybe. I wasn't blown away by Mona Lisa Overdrive, but as I've indicated, I have Count Zero waiting for me at home and I'll probably read that, too. If that ends up making more sense, I'll be sure to make a note of it.
And finally, in the interest of padding my shelves and in honor of sci-fi and trilogies, I'll add a few more worldbuilding epics to my "read" shelf soon ...
The edition of MLO that I read is the exact same one as the cover scan in the GoodReads database. Yes, I know, it's too small to make out any small details. So you'll have to trust me when I say that there is no indication on either the front cover, back cover, or spine that this book is any kind of sequel or part of any overarching series. None. There's a tiny blurb about how Gibson is "the award-winning author of Neuromancer" but that doesn't imply any connection between the two books thematically, at least in my mind. So I had no idea. I think the fact that I've been referencing all the series I do read, and commenting on the fact that I really shouldn't start any new ones, backs that out.
Funny enough, this book belongs to my wife. I was running low on reading material, and she was culling her collection of books as part of an overall process of reorganizing our house, and she grabbed about eight books and handed them to me with a heartfelt "I think you'd enjoy these." In her defense, many of them she hadn't read in years, so it's understandable she might have forgotten that MLO and Count Zero were part of a trilogy, intended to be read in a certain order, and maybe I should check Neuromancer out of the library first.
Also funny enough, before John's comment I *still* had no idea that this was vol. 3 of a trilogy. Don't get me wrong, I felt like I was coming in cold on the middle of a story, and I was frequently a little bit lost ... but I thought that was the point. Gibson is a pioneer of the cyberpunk genre and I figured that he was trying to convey the sense of alienation and detachment people living in that dark, gritty future would feel. The chapters are all written from single-character perspectives, so it would be very clunky for those characters to define terms or reflect on how the world got the way it is - to them, it's just the world and in fact most of them don't understand how the technology of it works at all, and that is a large part of the point. It's yet another example of worldbuilding, albeit a brutal one.
Would it have made more sense to me if I had read the first two books before the third? Maybe. I wasn't blown away by Mona Lisa Overdrive, but as I've indicated, I have Count Zero waiting for me at home and I'll probably read that, too. If that ends up making more sense, I'll be sure to make a note of it.
And finally, in the interest of padding my shelves and in honor of sci-fi and trilogies, I'll add a few more worldbuilding epics to my "read" shelf soon ...
November 20, 2012
If Neuromancer was debut brilliance, Count Zero was a continuation that lacked the punch of the first in the Sprawl trilogy, yet still packed enough crowd pleasing swagger to make it a top class read (with, perhaps, the lack of purpose that greatness demands).
In hindsight, this is perhaps the way a great trilogy should go, because one's expectations are set perhaps a tad lower by the time you get to Mona Lisa Overdrive. So you're nicely set up for the rabbit punch when it comes.
Gibson has brought his style back under control in this book, reining in some of the more wayward involuntary gestures of Count Zero. There are many places where you stop reading to savour a moment, a beautifully described glance or temperature. This use of physical description roots the story in a now you can relate to, bringing the unreality of the Matrix (and, in fact, reality TV) into stark contrast - the result is to create an Instagram dimensionality.
I couldn't put this down. Each forced pause in the reading was a little ache. I was a junkie, found myself making pauses in the day to sneak back to the Kindle and shoot up with just a couple of pages, just enough to keep me going, numb the pain.
I'm forcing myself not to read the next Gibson for a while. I'll get something more humdrum, rather than burn my next read in expectation before I start.
I'm not going to bother talking about the plot, because it doesn't matter. I'm sure other reviewers talk about the plot. It's not what happens in this book that makes it wonderful - it's how it happens.
In hindsight, this is perhaps the way a great trilogy should go, because one's expectations are set perhaps a tad lower by the time you get to Mona Lisa Overdrive. So you're nicely set up for the rabbit punch when it comes.
Gibson has brought his style back under control in this book, reining in some of the more wayward involuntary gestures of Count Zero. There are many places where you stop reading to savour a moment, a beautifully described glance or temperature. This use of physical description roots the story in a now you can relate to, bringing the unreality of the Matrix (and, in fact, reality TV) into stark contrast - the result is to create an Instagram dimensionality.
I couldn't put this down. Each forced pause in the reading was a little ache. I was a junkie, found myself making pauses in the day to sneak back to the Kindle and shoot up with just a couple of pages, just enough to keep me going, numb the pain.
I'm forcing myself not to read the next Gibson for a while. I'll get something more humdrum, rather than burn my next read in expectation before I start.
I'm not going to bother talking about the plot, because it doesn't matter. I'm sure other reviewers talk about the plot. It's not what happens in this book that makes it wonderful - it's how it happens.
July 16, 2023
A combination of diminishing returns, lack of character, and my general mood for this type of story. Gibson writes well at a sentence level and can be evocative, however, other areas of his writing are at odds with this.
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