William Gibson's "conclusion" to the Sprawl trilogy. Conclusion is in quotes because it's a loose trilogy.Gibson does what he does best in this novel: takes three different story arcs and weaves them together into a wonderful story that comes together neatly in the end.Kumiko is a young teenager who is the daughter of a powerful yakuza. She's sent to England to hide from her father's enemies, with only a "ghost," given to her by her father, to keep her company. The "ghost" is really an AI unit t...

Mona Lisa Overdrive is the third book in Gibson's Sprawl trilogy, and it's the most fully-realized of the three. The plots of Neuromancer and Count Zero followed the same pattern, and Count Zero really only served as a bridge between the first and third books. Mona Lisa Overdrive flips back and forth between four subplots which weave together nicely, both with each other and with the previous two books. The characters start to matter a little more and feel more like real people than 2D plot-pupp...

One of the later books of Gibson that I read. It left me with the fundamental idea of warring corporations and states on the wane that still lives with me now.

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.In Mona Lisa Overdrive, the third and final novel in William Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy, it’s been seven years since Angie Mitchell (from Count Zero) was taken out of Maas Biolabs and now she’s a famous simstim star who’s trying to break her designer drug habit. But a jealous Lady 3Jane plans to kidnap Angie and replace her with a cheap prostitute named Mona Lisa who’s addicted to stimulants and happens to look like Angie.In a dilapidated section of New Jerse...

I love this series, The Sprawl,. I really get immersed in the story. It's likely I'll be reading this trilogy again soon.

Executive Summary: I've owned this book for years, and for some reason never picked it up and read it. Thankfully I participated in a "Secret Santa" book thing of sorts, and someone out there finally got me to read it. Full Review I've always been more of a Snow Crash person than a Neuromancer person. I found it the easier read, and enjoyed the lighter nature/faster pace of the story. It took me quite a few years to circle back and read Count Zero and later Burning Chrome. I enjoyed them all,

This is the last, third volume of the Sprawl trilogy. I read is as a part of Sprawl Challenge reading in December 2019 at Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels group.While the first two books were connected only by the shared universe and minor characters, the third actively borrows from the previous ones. The author’s style became more mainstream, easier accessible, but still quite distinct.There are three main new protagonists: Kumiko, a daughter of Yakuza boss, sent to London, while there is a ga...

I love the way William Gibson writes. If I could imagine and set down the kind of books I want to read, his would be as near to the mark as possible.Gibson is the literary heir to Philip K. Dick’s homey futurism – his is the messenger, the rent-a-cop, the retail appliance repairman in the grimy but tech advanced future – our blue collar, street wise guide to the mesmerizing world building.Gibson’s 1988 conclusion to his groundbreaking Sprawl trilogy was a demonstration of some of his best writin...

“The world hadn’t ever had so many moving parts or so few labels.” ― William Gibson, Mona Lisa Overdrive There is something about Gibson that keeps me coming back. Part of it is how, like PKD, he seems to always have a sense of what is around the next two corners. Not just the objects. No. The textures and smells and ambiguities too. It is like Gibson doesn't just have foresight, he has foresmell and foretaste. Anyway, even with that, this wasn't his best book and not in the strong half of the S...

The best of Gibson’s three ’Sprawl’ novels. Dark laughter, cold beauty, hyperlight.

It’s common to accuse a writer of writing the same thing over again. In many cases this merely means the writer sticks to variations on a theme. Sometimes, though, it feels like each novel is another installment in an iterative process designed to get at a central idea. As I continue to read William Gibson’s novels, I continue to get a better idea of the novel he is trying to write. Mona Lisa Overdrive mixes the legacy of the previous two Sprawl books with a corporate espionage–fuelled plot wort...

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.Gibsonesque State: "Mona Lisa Overdrive" by William GibsonIs there a Monalisa Overdrive future in the works? That's not to say that there aren't plenty of SF predicted futures for the world that involve a sort of Utopian society where experiences are increasingly shared and cooperative than individually ring-fenced and private, but it's very easy to discredit them on the grounds of communist and socialist critique and all the heavy bag...

A much more accessible version of Gibson's cyberpunk stylings, Mona Lisa Overdrive is a pretty straight forward espionage thriller in comparison to what came before, and as such I found it that much more enjoyable.Instead of technical information and a sentient AI point of view or endless discussions about what makes us human, the effects of technology on society and freewill we're treated to the lives of four characters in sequential chapters whose lives are on a fateful collision course plotte...

So my friend John commented that, given the fact that I was "currently reading" Mona Lisa Overdrive and had Count Zero marked as "to read", it seemed like I was reading the trilogy backwards. To which my only response is "Trilo-what-now?"The edition of MLO that I read is the exact same one as the cover scan in the GoodReads database. Yes, I know, it's too small to make out any small details. So you'll have to trust me when I say that there is no indication on either the front cover, back cover,

Ghost in the MachineI'd had this unit on the shelf for a while. I'd used earlier versions to jack into the matrix twice, once only recently, and enjoyed the experience. It was time I did it again.The first two times, the matrix seemed to be all order and accord. I suppose all the chaos was on the outside. Each time I jacked in, I escaped the chaos and found some serenity inside for a while.This time, though, something had changed. The Shape had changed. Or something had changed it. Maybe, even,

And this is where it has taken us. Again, we have a new assortment of characters (the Yakuza boss' daughter; the robot-builder psychologically damaged by his prison time; the girl from the wrong side of the tracks), plus a few who seem oddly familiar, all caught up in seemingly disparate events that eventually begin to overlap. Again, the world is effortlessly cool (although the characters themselves, this time, are very much not; or at least not as effortlessly stylish as Case or Molly or the C...

Somewhat better than the second book, takes the standalone elements of the previous two books and combines them. Originally read in the 80s, I didn't recall these books set so far apart in time. Part heist, part thriller - good characters, great ending!This series defined cyberpunk, and while that concept was mostly a dream while the author pecked out the first novel on a manual typewriter, it was much closer to reality in 1988. The same year this novel came out, an adventure video game was rele...

"Thinking of the other's dreams, of corridors winding in upon themselves, muted tints of ancient carpet...An old man, a head made of jewels, a taut pale face with eyes that were mirrors...And a beach in the wind and dark."William Gibson, Mona Lisa OverdriveThis story pulled me into an emotional involvement with the characters like the first two did not. I felt an admiration for the characters in the first two. Some of those characters came back in this one, fifteen years older, or dead and as AI...

Following the resounding success of my Locus Quest, I faced a dilemma: which reading list to follow it up with? Variety is the spice of life, so I’ve decided to diversify and pursue six different lists simultaneously. This book falls into my FINISHING THE SERIES! list.I loves me a good series! But I'm terrible for starting a new series before finishing my last - so this reading list is all about trying to close out those series I've got on the go...A quick look back:I said in my review of Co

Luckily, Gibson did a better job weaving together the various elements of his four recurring parts than he did in Count Zero. I wasn't sure what the Kumiko part was supposed to accomplish, other than giving us a thread into the yakuza, but then, I wasn't sure what the yakuza had to do with things beyond being a source of money and death - or something like that. Mona was an interesting diversion from much more serious elements in the story.Anyway, many disparate characters bounce around each oth...