Mona Lisa Overdrive

[jazzfish]

William Gibson, Mona Lisa Overdrive

It's not as good as Count Zero. I don't even think it's as good as Neuromancer. But then, it had pretty darn high standards to live up to.

Four viewpoint characters this time: the daughter of a Yakusa oyabun who's been sent to England for protection during a Yakusa war; a mechanic who winds up taking care of Bobby 'Count Zero' Newmark's comatose corpus; Angie Mitchell, the MacGuffin of CZ; and Mona, a street girl who looks a lot like Angie. The main story revolves around a plot to kidnap Angie, who'd had her head tampered with in CZ and still occasionally talks to the ghosts in the machines

MLO is a sequel to both Neuro and CZ, and maybe that's why it doesn't impress me. Angie-the-plot-device seems completely different from Angie-the-character, and all the Yakusa daughter added was some insight into Molly Sally's character; not really enough to justify the amount of time spent with her. There's still neat stuff going on, but . . . I dunno . . . it didn't move me as much. It's still exploring the ramifications of the end of Neuro, but it also brings in 3Jane, just to give Sally someone to worry about. CZ was all about "When It Changed;" MLO wants to make it more about the characters than the world. Which is a shame, because the characters are cool, but the world-changing made for a better story. (The last page or two redeems this, somewhat. Very cool way to end it.)

Comments

[platypusgirl.livejournal.com]

Neuromancer is still one of my favorites.
Have you read any of Bruce Sterling's books? Same genre, I know that he and Gibson worked on at least one together, if not more.

[jazzfish]

Neuromancer verily rocks. I bought a copy for a quarter to give to someone else over Thanksgiving, and idly flipped through the first couple pages, and was [re]hooked.

I've not read any Sterling, though I get the impression that I ought to at some point. My stack is a bit full at the moment, though. :)