Count Zero
I finished Count Zero as part of my read-a-thon. It’s loosely the sequel to Neuromancer, which I read a few months ago and loved. This ‘sequel’ is set in the same world and a few years later, but has none of the same characters, although they are obliquely mentioned. It’d be easy to argue that it’s not a true sequel at all, but it continued one important plot thread was left behind at the end of Neuromancer. (No I’m not going to give that away. Everyone should read Neuromancer, not pick it up through a review.)
Count Zero has the same rock solid prose, as fast paced as an old detective novel, but with post-modern (literally) color. The world is the same paranoid, hyper-technological wasteland as the first. The characters were not as good as Neuromancer. They were interesting and had their quirks, but none of them changed all that much. Even the character that was literally dragged into a new world didn’t experience all that much of an epiphany at his new surroundings and the female lead that was similarly introduced to world very much beyond her seemed to pick up it in her very first chapter. Still, it was excellent and not just from the writing or the world (which I’m fond of.) The story kept along the thread that I mentioned before and read in that context you can see a certain devious subtlety that hints at more to come.
If anything, the story just suffered from having a bigger world to work with. Neuromancer only had the necessity of describing the protagonists’ immediate world. A sequel, nearly by definition, has to expand the circle, but that means incorporating far more than the story itself requires. In the cases where it over-reached, the plot came across as too weak. Where it failed to expand, there was confusion. It tried hard to fill the void, but sadly, it wasn’t as much of a thrill to follow as in Neuromancer, but well, that was a tough act to follow.
Currently I’m reading Mona Lisa Overdrive. That’s the third story in the general arc. I’m hoping it has the same prose, but with a defter touch. Cheers!
