Mona Lisa Overdrive

The most interesting thing about William Gibson, The Godfather Of Cyberpunk, is how blessedly, bizarrely attached to protecting the innocents and rewarding his heroes he is. Under all the cybersleaze and drugs and corruption beats a strong ethical center - once you accept that his White Knights are cheerfully amoral hitwomen and ruthless criminals/businessmen, and his innocents are low-level junkie hookers and petty thieves.In this novel, the third in his openly-SF SPRAWL Trilogy, the lives of female "Simstim" (a kind of cross between VR Programs and music videos) star Angela with an at first confusing relationship to both Voodoo and the "Matrix" (Gibson's version of the Wild West Internet), the aforementioned junkie hooker Mona who bears some resemblance to Angela (and is later given plastic surgery to resemble her closely), a guy in seeming suspended animation attached to a supercomputer (the "Count"), Yakuza Goddaughter Kumiko sent to England to keep her safe during an apparent turf war that becomes a global conflagration, and Super-Buttkicking Hitwoman/"Businesswoman" Sally Shears (who later turns out to be another identity of "Mona Millions" from the classic NEUROMANCER) all end up intertwining with the lives of various down&outers in The Sprawl. A vast, elaborate blackmail/kidnapping plot, with multiple murders to grease the wheels, is bringing them all together - only those who set the plot in motion never planned for the cogs to meet up and/or turn things around in their own ways!You'll spend at least half the novel utterly confused and gasping for relevance - but in the back half a great deal becomes clearer, even if the ending will leave you somewhat confused by what happened and why, exactly. In that way it's like most of Gibson's work - fascinating and frustrating in equal measure. If you have a taste for what Gibson's cooking, you'll rate this novel higher than I did - if not, you'll wonder WTF I gave it four stars for.

After two confusing books in the series, Mona Lisa Overdrive puts it all together...sort of. Old stories come back to connect into a complicated narrative that at the same time explains all and gives you more questions. Definitely a must read to complete the circle...but it is as crazy and the previous books. Gibson just keeps you half knowing what's happening the whole time, but in this book there's more happening (I think)

I set out to read the Sprawl trilogy from a writer's perspective to try to glean Gibson's magic--plumb his style. Here's what I found in Mona Lisa Overdrive.Like the previous novels Gibson is minimalist, disjointed, and noir. Lots and LOTS of people like that. Ultimately, I couldn't get into it. Problems I had with MLO.Sally Shears/Molly Millions: Really an awesome character but totally underachieving her potential here. She was a bad ass assassin in Neuromancer but here she hardly ever even twitches her cat claw razors. One of the most powerful physical characteristics and it's left on the table! Why??? She could have been slashing through a couple of henchmen on a revenge sub-plot but that never happened. No. Here she's pretty much a bad ass but reasonably well behaved babysitter for most of the book with a kidnapping near the end with a VERY disjointed and confusing conclusion. So much potential wasted!Slick: Had trouble giving a damn about Slick. His robots like "The Judge" may be pretty cool but they serve as little more than window dressing--not a whole lot of substance contributing to the story.Gentry: Got confused with Slick sometimes. Gentry owns the factory. Slick is an ex-con with a court ordered 5 minute memory span who works in the factory. . .and that's about it..Kumiko: Why is she in this story! She's a bystander and sucks up a third of the book. I don't get it. What is her purpose here?Count Zero: Comatose throughout most of the book. Strangely key but superficial involvement at the end. Why, why, why?Angie: Interesting. Central to the plot but kept at arms length throughout most of the book until near the end. Rich celebrity from Count Zero working in a popular but banal reality internet show.Mona: Most interesting. Teen prostitute we feel for her the most. Improves her lot in life by assuming Angie's role in the show. Mmmm. . .okay. Good for her. I'm happy.The book contains marginally interesting players but barely developed--skin deep characterizations but strangely powerful motivations. Sure wish I knew what motivated them to do what they do (Mona being the exception. We root for her to get the hell out of her situation.) The plot is unclear where it's going and then ends up in a spectacular achievement (SPOILER ALERT! We can upload our psyche--our soul--to the internet. Pretty mind blowing!) BUT accomplishes the climax in the most shockingly nonchalant manner. It's like a book building up to alien first contact and ending it with, "And then he shook hands with the first alien. The End." What? Wait! Where's the excitement? The abilities? The MAGIC of uploading yourself to the internet? It's just there and. . .close the book.And speaking of "first contact" there were supposed to be voodoo gods in this book! Hinted at in Count Zero they barely take the stage here. Big disappointment! If you're looking for internet voodoo gods read Queen of Angels by Greg Bear. That's some REAL internet voodoo! Bear picks up what Gibson leaves on the table.I think Gibson has. . .SOMEthing. I'm not sure what it is. He certainly has consistency. The characters are who they are without jumping the rails to do something completely OUT of character. But then again, we don't have a whole lot of input or back story on them so they could do whatever the hell they want and who are we, the readers, to challenge? And MLO is a noir book in line with the previous two. I like noir. I LOVE the movie Blade Runner! Gibson was deeply concerned that Neuromancer would be too close to the recently released movie that people would think the book was a knock off of Blade Runner. No chance of that. Two very different noir stories. I liked Blade Runner much more but that's just me.So I suppose Gibson's followers don't mind or even enjoy massive anticipation, even tease, with little or no payoff. His minimalist style works for millions of fans but I like my unexplored territory of science fiction with a healthy dose of description, world building, and. . .well, color. Gibson doesn't paint a picture with words. He writes a gritty black and white story. Sgt. Friday would say, "Just the facts, ma'am." And that's kinda what you get. Maybe you like that kind of book. For me, I'll move on and won't look back.

Prophetic Gibson fare, full of future visions many of which have come into reality in the time since these books were written. These books have shaped the technological ecosystem of today. Some words he coined for these books have become permanent elements of popular culture... "cyberspace", "the matrix". If you want to understand how we got here these seminal works are part of the essential reading list.

Using crude, reductive analogies, If Neuromancer was a roller coaster and Count Zero was a corporate espionage thriller, then Mona Lisa Overdrive is landing a helicopter filled with corporate spies on a roller coaster track. I enjoyed it all and the resolution of some of my fav science fiction narrative to date.

This novel is part of a trilogy and is a more of the moment story than many current novels. Despite being science fiction and located within the network it gives a real imaginative insight into the future and current failings of the connected world. Completely absorbing and compelling. Makes The Matrix feel like a kids comic.

I can't quite put my finger on why but from the first page I found that I had to force myself to keep reading. I think for me the use of the n word was the point when I lost interest and gave up soon after that. I read the first two books in the series and enjoyed them but sadly I won't be finishing this one.

I'm a fan of Gibson, so I'm being kinder here than perhaps I should be, but this was overall a good novel. I think you'd have to be a fan of Gibson's universe to enjoy it so much, but also a word of advice: You should read the books in order (I didn't know that this was the third installment) and the overall narrative will be more enjoyable.Not comparable to Neuromancer I'm afraid, but you can only make a breakthrough like that once! This book (along with Count Zero) gives a little more of the Neuromancer universe, plus Gibson's fast moving style, which is always a pleasure.

Essential reading for any sci-fi fan looking to up their game. The Neuromancer trilogy can be a handful to wrap your head around at times, but the luxury of reading a novel that doesn't hold your hand so much cannot be understated.

I read this quite a long time after reading the first two books in the trilogy and I enjoyed it a lot. Nothing could quite match the futuristic shock of Neuromancer but the author carried the story of his rather pessimistic cyber-future on in a entertaining way. Interesting characters and language, and plot threads knitted together in a satisfying way. Good book, but you should definitely read the other two first, otherwise you'll be missing a lot of references.