William Gibson: Count Zero
“Are you - are you sad?"
- No."But your - your songs are sad."
- My songs are of time and distance. The sadness is in you. Watch my arms. There is only the dance. These things you treasure are shells.” (William Gibson: Count Zero)
William Gibson's Neuromancer was a defining reading experience. Even if the world didn't turned out as Gibson's imagined (well, not entirely), the novel's characters, mood and - of course my favourite part - the AI's were memorable and inspired such famous movies, like The Matrix. After I have finished Neuromancer, I knew, I want more of this world, and of course I was curious, what happened to the two AI-s at the end of the story. I used to read in English and I thought it would be a challenge if I first read Count Zero in English, then in Hungarian.
The plot of Count Zero takes place 7-8 years after the events of the Neuromancer. The plot is divided into three storylines. Turner is a corporate mercenary soldier who gets hired to do a dangerous mission; help a scientist to make an illegal carrier move from the Maas Biolab's fortress to a rival corporation. Marly is a young woman, who got fooled by his former lover and sold a forgery;her reputation is in pieces. And finally, Bobby (aka Count Zero) is a young amateur computer hacker, who gets involved in a shady business.
The three people and their storylines eventually meet, and we get a pretty exciting plot, full of tension, humour, artifical intelligence and vodou gods. The atmosphere of the novel is still sensational, the dialogues are catching, and some scenes made me feel like I am in the Matrix film. Unfortunately we only get hints about the fate of the Neuromancer's characters, I am really curious what happened between the two novels. And of course, my favourite parts were - again - anything that involves the AI-s of the matrix.
Gibson's text is clearer than the Neuromancer, the characters are more complex. Except for the parts where there were fights and description of different weapons and vehicles - I was sometimes lost there - it was easier to read than the first novel. However, Gibson's novels are full of cultural references and I suspect I haven't notice any (or most) of them.
I really like a good and exciting story, which makes my brain work; Count Zero is like this. The story and characters stayed with me after I've finished the novel, and I am certain, that I will read the third and final part of the Sprawl trilogy.
If you are interested in Gibson's cyberpunk world, I recommend Örkény Ajkay's posts. He is the original Hungarian translator of Gibson's works. They are full of interesting facts, pointing out contexts, which helps the reader understand Gibson's complicated (but fantastic) world:
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