The Weaver Reads reviewed Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson
Disappointing End to the Trilogy
3 stars
I can't say that I'm entirely impressed by Mona Lisa Overdrive. There was something that the other books had that this one totally lacks, and I don't think that it's the blitzing pace or cyberspace runs. I think it lacks the sense of wonder w/r/t the enormity of the entire cyberspace project.
Moreover, the new characters don't have nearly as much as swagger as older ones. I know that they represented a specific, historically-bound definition of what "cool" meant. Case was this bitter, angry, but powerful guy. Bobby Newman, aka Count Zero, was hands-down the coolest character in the entire trilogy. Molly Millions and Angie Mitchell are also great! But Mona, Kumiko, and the gang at Factory? Not so much.
The book seems to rely heavily on fan service: there's a lot of throwbacks to the earlier two books in the trilogy, and old characters make comebacks, but there …
I can't say that I'm entirely impressed by Mona Lisa Overdrive. There was something that the other books had that this one totally lacks, and I don't think that it's the blitzing pace or cyberspace runs. I think it lacks the sense of wonder w/r/t the enormity of the entire cyberspace project.
Moreover, the new characters don't have nearly as much as swagger as older ones. I know that they represented a specific, historically-bound definition of what "cool" meant. Case was this bitter, angry, but powerful guy. Bobby Newman, aka Count Zero, was hands-down the coolest character in the entire trilogy. Molly Millions and Angie Mitchell are also great! But Mona, Kumiko, and the gang at Factory? Not so much.
The book seems to rely heavily on fan service: there's a lot of throwbacks to the earlier two books in the trilogy, and old characters make comebacks, but there isn't the fascinating "change" in what happened in cyberspace (with the Voodoo AIs and everything in Count Zero, for example).
My version has a fascinating, brief essay by Gibson about how he wrote the book knowing nothing about computing, and that they're really reflective not of digital technology but what it means to live in an industrial (and post-industrial) world, where humans and technics rapidly merge. Cyberpunk, as a genre, is reflective of our cyborg reality. The concluding essay gave me a greater appreciation of the whole trilogy, and I'm really glad it was included.
