Count Zero by William Gibson

I read William Gibson's Neuromancer last month and really enjoyed it. As it is part of a trilogy, I decided to continue on with the story. Count Zero is the second book in the series. I went into the reading expecting more gritty, cyberpunk action and mildly confusing plot points. In this, I was not disappointed.

The novel consists of three separate stories that eventually intersect. The first thread follows Turner, a corporate mercenary who is hired by the Hosaka Corporation to help a brilliant scientist from a rival corporation, Maas Biolabs, defect to them. The extraction plan, however, is a complete disaster. Several members of Turner's team are killed and he ends up escaping with the scientist's teenage daughter, Angela Mitchell, instead of his intended target. In the aftermath of the attempt, Turner discovers that Angie is no ordinary teenager. Her father left plans for a valuable new piece of technology, a biochip, inside her head. He also gave her the ability to jack into cyberspace at will, without needing an external computer. With Maas Biolabs hot on his trail, anxious to reclaim Angie for themselves, Turner follows a trail of obscure clues in an attempt to bring her to safety.

The second thread follows a young man named Bobby Newmark. He's an aspiring hacker living in a rough section of New Jersey. He's taken the name Count Zero as his cyberspace handle, and is anxious to start taking on jobs and stealing data. Unfortunately for him, his first job goes awry when he attempts to test a new hacking software for a client and is nearly killed. Just before his death, a mysterious girl appears in Cyberspace and helps him extricate himself from the program. His interaction with the mysterious girl attracts the attention of a group of people investigating the appearance of a series of voodoo deities that have recently shown up in Cyberspace. They believe the girl is related to these gods and they draw Bobby into their quest to find her.

The third thread follows a woman named Marly Krushkova. She was recently forced to close her Paris art gallery after being caught selling a forgery. Her fortunes improve, however, when she is approached by the enormously wealthy Josef Virek and commissioned to find the maker of a series of art pieces. The pieces are boxes filled with seemingly random, old bits and bobs like scraps of lace and bone. One of the boxes, however, contains a fragment of a biochip, and that is what Virek is after. He's looking to extend his life, and needs access to this technology, so he hires Marly to find the artist. Marly's search brings her all the way into space and what she discovers there about the boxes and the artist is quite surprising.

If it sounds like all these threads are very weird and complicated, it's because they are. Eventually, all of the characters come together to tell a complete story, but the connections between them aren't always direct or clear. Much like in Neuromancer, I enjoyed this book, but I was always on the edge of being really confused about what was happening. The story is multi-layered and difficult to describe to someone that hasn't read it. If someone were to ask me what the story was about, I wouldn't be able to give anything approximating a concise summary. It deals with questions about using technology to extend human life, the power and immortality that comes with incalculable wealth, the connection between religion and technology, and the potential for covert warfare between powerful and corrupt corporations, but I would not say that any one theme stands out as the "point" of the book. The story is twisty and challenging, and fans of the cyberpunk genre will fall into Gibson's gritty world, but the narrative is definitely scattered.

Aside from the inclusion of one minor character and a few hazy references, the connections between Neuromancer and Count Zero are, surprisingly, almost nonexistent. I was a bit disappointed by this, as I was curious to see what Case and Molly would get up to next. I was also disappointed with the mystical elements of the work. The voodoo stuff felt really out of place and a little insensitive to Caribbean cultures. In a universe where your characters could take on any form in a limitless cyber world, why pluck real things from Haitian religions? It didn't feel necessary to the story, just bizarre.

Despite these issues, I did still like the story and I plan to finish out the trilogy. Gibson is one of those authors where you literally have no idea where his narrative will drift to next, and I am interested to see what the end of this series will be like. Count Zero is a middle book, and those often are the weaker entries in a trilogy, so I have higher hopes for Mona Lisa Overdrive. I'm hoping that will tie everything together and provide something resembling a satisfying ending.


Challenge Tally
Classics Club (Sequel to List Book): 42/100 

Total Books Read in 2019: 19