Count Zero
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| Cover of the April 1987 paperback edition of Count Zero. | |
| Author | William F. Gibson |
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| Cover Artist | Richard Berry |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Ace Books |
| Released | 1986 |
| Media Type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 246 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-441-11773-2 (paperback edition) |
Count Zero is a science fiction novel written by William Ford Gibson, originally published in 1986. It is the middle volume of The Sprawl trilogy which includes Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive, and is a prime example of the cyberpunk sub-genre.
Contents |
[edit] Plot introduction
Eight years after the events of Neuromancer, strange things begin to happen in The Matrix, leading to the proliferation of what appear to be voodoo gods.
Two powerful multinational corporations are engaged in a battle for control (extending into space) over a powerful new technology (a biochip) using hackers and the Matrix as well as espionage and violence.
[edit] Explanation of the novel's title
The title of the book, other than being the pseudonym of the main character Bobby Newmark, is also a word-play on the computer programming term count zero. In a loop, a counter typically reaches a zero value, thereby exiting the loop.
[edit] Plot summary
As per Gibson's style in this series, there are three main storylines which eventually intertwine: Turner, a mercenary 'corporate extractor,' sets out to 'shift' top researcher Mitchell to the Hosaka Corporation but becomes guardian to his daughter on a cross-country trip instead; Marly, a small gallery owner until she became caught with a hoax and newly infamous as a result, who is engaged by ultra-rich, reclusive (cf. Howard Hughes) industrialist and art patron Josef Virek to find the unknown creator of his futuristic Joseph Cornell-style boxes; and Bobby (aka Count Zero), a neophyte hacker who flatlines while hacking a corporate computer with a strange piece of software (later stolen from him) and is revived by a mysterious cyber-presence.
[edit] Quotation
"He'd used decks in school, toys that shuttled you through the infinite reaches of the space that wasn't space, mankind's unthinkably complex consensual hallucination, the matrix cyberspace, where the great corporate hotcores burned like neon novas, data so dense you suffered sensory overload if you tried to apprehend more than the merest outline." (Excerpt from William Gibson's Count Zero)
