SF NOIR...POETIC DREAMSCAPES OF A DISTOPIC FUTURE...(Part 2)
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I have read this masterpiece (together with the other two of the Sprawl series: NEUROMANCER and MONA LISA OVERDRIVE) during my university years, about a decade ago. Since then I have re-read it countless times.
Of the three this is my favorite: good and evil voodoo legbas as AI cyberspace avatars; life in the Sprawl comes into focus, sharply. The eye-watering smog and the ozone smell of new electronics surround a storyline that moves on deserted highways with the assurance of an armored hovercraft..
Even reading only some pages brings up powerful imagery, unforgettable prose...
Start with NEUROMANCER. Then this one. And then MONA LISA OVERDRIVE.
A Masterpiece Trilogy!!! Own them all!!!
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Tightly interweaving strands
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I read this a long time after 'Neuromancer', so some of the echoes from that first part of the trilogy were somewhat faint, but I found it very easy to get back into Gibson's disturbingly compelling world. The contrast between the three main protagonists and their (at first separate, then increasingly connected) stories is well-done, and the the allusiveness of the plot still gives you plenty to think about after the book is over.
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Brilliant (but also complex)!
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First realise that this is the 2nd book of a trilogy that is "Neuromancer", "Count Zero" and "Mona Lisa Overdrive". I don't advice reading this until you've read Neuromancer and have got into the whole cyberpunk vocabulary.
The plots in the storyline are deliciously challenging to unravel and Gibson certainly doesn't spoon-feed you all the threads that intertwine everything. I think putting everything together took me 24 hours after finishing the book.
The secret (and illegal by Turing police rules) unification of two AI's called Wintermute and Neuromancer has left unexplained entities in the matrix - "Yeah, there's things out there, Ghosts, voices. Why not? Oceans had mermaids, and we have a sea of silicon, see?" These matrix "voodoo gods" are referred to as the "loa" by Wig, Beauvoir, Lucas and their associates (who basically worship them). The problem is that the "loa" have found a way to inhabit the real world by designing biochips and having them grafted into people's brains. This technology provokes the interest of one of the richest men in the world who is seeking to free his mind from his cancer-ridden body. The resulting power struggle pulls the strings of all the pawns that are characters in the book. Read it, you might see what I mean?
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excellent - should be in every sci-fi collection.
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Although I am quite familiar with the cyberpunk world, this was my first gibson book and i loved it. Its kindof a mass of ideas and futuristic cool, entangled over a story. The interesting thing is that one of the main aspects of the book isn't the plot but the backdrop which is kinda cool (though the plot itself holds well). Gibson pulls it all off very well and even though this book is 16 years old, the futuristic imagry hasn't dated much which says a lot. The only thing I would add is that both the style and the genre might be a little bit confusing if you knew nothing about cyberpunk so probably not best for total beginners (my little brother found it pretty tough at first for instance).
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Good, but not wonderful
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This is a good cyberpunk book. It's not as involved as something like Cryptonomicon (some people might like that!) but a good read. It is far into the future and the ideas aren't grounded (e.g. the cyberspace) - but it's cheap and worth a read simply as a good story.
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