Count Zero: Amazon.ca: William Gibson: Books

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Turner, corporate mercenary, wakes in a reconstructed body, a beautiful woman by his side. Then Hosaka Corporation reactivates him for a mission more dangerous than the one he's recovering from: Maas-Neotek's chief of R&D is defecting. Turner is the one assigned to get him out intact, along with the biochip he's perfected. But this proves to be of supreme interest to certain other parties--some of whom aren't remotely human.

Bobby Newmark is entirely human: a rustbelt data-hustler totally unprepared for what comes his way when the defection triggers war in cyberspace. With voodoo on the Net and a price on his head, Newmark thinks he's only trying to get out alive. A stylish, streetsmart, frighteningly probable parable of the future and sequel to Neuromancer

From Publishers Weekly

Gibson's first novel, Neuromancer, was greeted with hosannas and showered with awards. This second book, set in the same universe, again offers a faddish, glitzy surface not unlike that of Miami Vice. Gibson's central image is the shadow boxes constructed by the artist Joseph Cornell, collections of seemingly unrelated objects whose juxtaposition creates a new impression. In the same fashion, the novel has three protagonists, each of whom is putting together jigsaw clues in pursuit of his separate goal. The corporate headhunter, the art dealer and the computer hacker all find themselves being manipulatedjust as the author contrives to have their paths converge. This book is less appealing and less verbally skillful than Gibson's first novel, dense and dour as that was, but readers who liked that one will want to see this as well.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Customer Reviews

48 Reviews

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

Average Customer Review

4.3 out of 5 stars (48 customer reviews)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling, Sep 3 2003

By

Napualani Ahina (Honolulu, HI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Count Zero (Mass Market Paperback)

"Count Zero" pulls it off without being cheesey. I was surprised by how unstupid this futuristic setting was. I also thoroughly appreciate that Gibson does not write down to his audience... he acknowldeges our ability to understand the lingo and nuances of his future-world without having to explain it to us. His style is fresh and sharp.

The three main characters are flawed and written to be believable. There is little character development but that does not seem to be the point. It appears that the focus is more on us getting to know them- the real them. At first they are strangers and then they become more to the point where you HAVE to know that they will be ok in the end. Few authors have the capability to inspire such empathy. (My favorite part was when the Box Maker made a box for Marly.)

The story is capitvating. The pace moves along slowly at first and builds to a frenzy. Reading this book leaves you with the obvious impression that Gibson definately knew what he was doing when he wrote it. The story is a puzzle. You know that everything fits together somehow... but how exactly?

If you loved "The Matrix," take the time to read "Count Zero." You'll find similarities and you'll also find "Count Zero" to be a superior story. More sci-fi needs to be like this.

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3.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as Neuromancer, Sep 29 2003

By

J. Umbach "zerrodefex" (Bartlett, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Count Zero (Mass Market Paperback)

I loved Neuromancer and was happy to find that it was made into a sort of trilogy, but I was quite disappointed with Count Zero. I think it is a combination of the writing style, characters, and overall plot.

As part of a trilogy, it does not have all that much in common with Neuromancer other than the world it is set in. None of the main characters from Neuromancer appear except for the Finn but it's only a cameo appearance here. We get the impression that the Wintermute AI sort of split into multiple entities at some time between the stories, which is suggested to be a few years.

As for the characters, none of them really appealed to me the way the ones from Neuromancer did. The main protaganists are underdeveloped and rather bland at the end. They just weren't that sympathetic and I couldn't really get myself to care about them.

Then there is the writing style. While Neuromancer was written entirely from Case's point of view, Count Zero is seen through the eyes of three different people who take different paths throughout the story. At the end of the book the paths converge but they do so in a rather sudden and Deus-Ex-Machina like way that is hard to swallow. It felt to me like Gibson was running out of pages and had realized that he needed to tie all these plot threads together. The book could have used a couple more chapters to straighten everything out, rather than having the non-ending it has like Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (a small flaw in an otherwise phenomenal book.) This writing style however, has become common in Gibson's later novels, though fortunately in Virtual Light he learns to tie the three characters together better and in Idoru he sticks to only two main protagonists, which makes it easier to follow.

Overall, I would only recommend reading Count Zero if you intend to read Mona Lisa Overdrive (final book in the trilogy) as it takes off shortly from the end of Count Zero with some of the same main characters and developes them more. In the big picture, Count Zero doesn't stand very well on it's own and mainly bridges the gap between the beginning and the end.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars SF NOIR...POETIC DREAMSCAPES OF A DISTOPIC FUTURE...(Part 2), Sep 6 2007

By

NeuroSplicer (Freeside, in geosynchronous orbit) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME) (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Count Zero (Paperback)

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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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Might just be Gibson's best ...
I first read this book (many years and many rereads ago) with low expectations. I'd been told that Gibson was a one book wonder, that he'd never managed to pull off a second book... Read more

Published on Sep 14 2003 by Chris Moriarty, author of SPIN...

1.0 out of 5 stars Dull Dull Dull
This is a very poorly written book. The characters are one dimensional, predictable and uninteresting. The plot is slow, dim witted and mundane. All in all a waste of paper. Read more

Published on Jun 8 2003