I've described before how difficult it is for sequels to live up to their progenitors. This is doubly true in the case of Count Zero which must follow a classic of 20th century literature. Though the books have no characters in common, the successor to Neuromancer holds up adequately well. It's only real crime is that it isn't Neuromancer.
While the first novel focused on Case, the hacker, and Molly, his bodyguard, Count Zero's narrative is divvied up between three primary characters, each of whom possess an important fragment of the plot. Bobby, a Console Cowboy like Case, is essentially a lesser version of Neuromancer's antihero, carrying out odd jobs while exposing us to the commercialized sprawl of the future United States. After he is hired to run a piece of code, Bobby has a near-death experience in the Matrix which leads him to conclude that there is something out there in the shared hallucination of this future Internet, something big. Turner, a corporate mercenary who specializes in helping important employees of various companies defect to their competitors, is recuperating in Mexico from a mission that went awry. He's approached to execute one of his most daring jobs yet, fetching from a corporate fortress in the Arizona desert, a top scientist developing a new link between humans the Matrix, one which will change the world forever. Marly, the disgraced and now one-time operator of an art gallery in Paris, is at loose ends when, out of the blue, she is hired by one of the world's richest men to help him find pieces of art which keep appearing on Earth. Though Marly accepts the job and initially performs her task with admirable diligence, she soon realizes that her boss is not all he claims to be. As these three narratives converge, we realize that there are forces at play in the world that have made pawns of our protagonists, forces that are completely beyond their ability to control. They must ride the wave of Fate and hope, in some small way, to affect the outcome in their favor.
Count Zero is, in some ways, a maturer work than Neuromancer. It has a more complex narrative structure which introduces us to secondary characters who are better fleshed out than the gallery of madmen who filled these roles in Neuromancer. But this advantage cannot make up for Count Zero's lack of shock and awe. Neuromancer blew the mind with its world unlike any other, a world somehow both fantastic and incredibly dirty and real. In merely continuing with that same world, Count Zero is unable to claim the same uniqueness. It must simply to continue along a path with which we are already familiar. It is artfully done, but it is not revolutionary. Not that I've set the bar very high or anything... (3/5 Stars)
No comments:
Post a Comment