Count Zero by William Gibson

Count Zero by William Gibson

This is one of my favorite William Gibson novels (behind The Peripheral and neck and neck with Neuromancer). It focuses on Bobby (the Count Zero of the title) a teenager who is set up to fail as a deck cowboy but who doesn’t die because of the interaction of a mysterious woman on the net. Her intervention pulls Bobby into a group who are trying to discover who she is and whether or not she is one of the entities moving around in the net appearing to be voodoo spirits but probably in reality AIs.

 

It's a fast-moving novel which showcases one of Gibson’s favorite structural techniques—moving several (three in this case) storylines independently through the novel until they all link up at the end for the conclusion. It also contains Gibson’s trademark focus on imagery that gives his books their distinctive flavor.

 

This is the first time I’ve reread the novel since it was published. The two scenes that I remembered most, Bobby’s first and last appearance in the book, intrigued and satisfied me just as they did thirty-five-ish years ago. If you enjoyed Neuromancer, you should definitely read this one too.