Mona Lisa Overdrive (Sprawl Trilogy Book 3)

Gibson ends his Sprawl Trilogy with the best book of the three. Neatly tying all of the diverse threads together but in the end leaving one thing for us all to figure out. A great read, that still holds up 20 years later.

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.

Great, great trilogy. The finale is more sedate than the first two, but enjoyable for the intrigue of watching the threads come together.

Loved the original cyberpunk trilogy. Very imaginative.

William Gibson's "Mona Lisa Overdrive" is a decent ending to the Sprawl Trilogy he started with Neuromancer . Gibson makes a good attempt at keeping these books separate enough that a reader might be able to read them independently (there's a lot of in-book time between the events in each book, knowledge of returning characters isn't necessary to understand what's going on, and the summaries of previous events are detailed enough to let readers know where things are coming from). But, though it's possible to read the books out of order, I wouldn't recommend it. You'd still miss a lot. In general, "Mona Lisa Overdrive" reads pretty much like the previous two books: a well-written, interesting story with well-done characters and worlds. Even though I rate this book at a Very Good 4 stars out of 5, I'd also say that it's not quite as good as the previous book (which was similarly not quite as good as the original). Probably the biggest issue is that this book's pacing is just a bit off. First, he's running four sets of intertwined plot lines here. So, it takes a while to get things together and rolling. Also, he throws in a bit more of the artsy prose that successful authors seem to want to write instead of meat-and-potatoes stories. For instance, he's got one chapter dedicated to extolling the virtues of the production techniques used in a documentary a character is watching. But, those are fairly minor issues. Overall, it's a very good continuation (and conclusion) of the series. The books in Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy are: 1. Neuromancer 2. Count Zero 3. Mona Lisa Overdrive

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.

The ending of Mona Lisa Overdrive is an artful act of Perfect Symmetry bringing the books of The Sprawl Trilogy, (Neuromancer, Count Zero & Mona Lisa Overdrive) full circle to an untying of the individual knots & a possibility that is radically brilliant. Maybe somewhere on humanity’s terra firma there’s an entity, AI or other, that’s already made contact with a ghost in some other else’s machines.

This is one of my favorite movies and is a film I enjoy no matter how many times I see it. I had the standard DVD and was happy to see it was available on Blu Ray. The movie is wonderful from start to finish with outstanding performances by Bob Hoskins, Cathy Tyson and of course the great Robbie Coltrane. The supporting cast is first rate and the direction by Neil Jordan is, as one would expect, terrific. Some of the themes are reminicent of those in Jordan's "The Crying Game". However, this is a much better film that realistically portrays the slimy, dirty and explotive world of illegal prostitution from the Call Girl to the sexually abused young girl. The film revolves around the relationship between a prostitute (Ms Tyson) and her driver(Hoskins) a relationship that goes from distain and animosity to an interesting kind of friendship, understanding and love. I cannot recommend this film highly enough. The Blu Ray version is another matter. While mostly OK the darker scenes, which are many, leave much to be desired. The dark colors are extremely grainy and at times fuzy and distracting. I would recommend the Standard DVD over this Blu Ray version.