Reflecting on the Trilogy

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Shop now for up to seventy percent at from rebel. com comparable number eight hundred and twenty two , june twenty twenty six . Welcome back, everybody to the Incomparable. I am your host, Jason Snow, and you have Jack back into the Matrix because we are here with our cyberspace decks to complete three episode look back at William Gibson's epic sprawl trilogy , the, I would say ground zero , let's not argue it pretty close to ground zero of the cyberpunk movement . We're going to be talking about Mona Lisa Overdrive this time. We already did a New Romancer. We did count zero. And now Mona Lisa Overdrive completes the trilogy. William Gibson , a man who writes in trilogies. That's what he does. So we've reached the we've reached the end of it now. And let me introduce my panelists who have joined me on this journey. Lisa Schmeiser is here. Hello. Hello. It's not the writs but we'll try to make you comfortable. Yeah, Lisa's going by what should we say? She's going by Janie James now. That's her new name. But we all know it's Lisa Schmiser . It's not three Lisa. Fool me Glenn Fleischer flooded yet. Glenn Fleischman is here too. Hello. Hello. I'm just a guy living in a slot, shooting lasers and collecting cigarettes. That's well, you gotta do what you gotta do. Anthony Johnson has constructed a giant robot, but he says it's a sculpture and it's art project. Hello . Hey hello, Jason. I'm actually wearing four jackets and none of them are the right size. Four jack of a boyfriend in Cleveland . Amazing. Amazing. It's the Cleveland thing. And you know, she just raises fish in her urban dwelling. It's Eric Ensign. Hello . Hi. Yeah, I'm not entirely sure why I'm here and I'm eventually just going to leave having done basically nothing. Yep. Right. Reference acknowledge . Right . We need you here for the Canadian culture that has to be part of this. So we have talked about these other two books. And one of the things we mentioned in our count zero episode is that especially in revisiting them so much later this book came out in nineteen eighty eight . The count zero struck me and I think a lot of you as being kind of a bold move on Gibson's part because what he didn't do is kind of play the hits of Neuromance or he has a big hit book. And he did some other things. And there are links to the world in Neuromancer, but it's not a direct sequel really kind of in any way, and the characters don't really overlap . And so what struck me in reading Mona Lisa Overdrive, which I'm not sure I've read since nineteen eighty two. Oh wow. But if not, it was early nineties, I probably reread it. It's been a long time though. It's been the twenty first century that I haven't read it. What strikes me about it is following what we said about Count Zero . Mona Lisa Overdrive is a sequel to of the previous books. Oh yeah. Shocking . Which is I think it's really interesting, right? Like you finally do get those characters. You do get references to Neuromancer. It does actually connect to that, but also , you know, Bobby Newmark is in it and Angie is in it. The characters from Count Zero. So it's a direct sequel to in a really interesting way. I wonder what was going through his mind and he was like, all right, I gave people this different thing . Maybe now, since I'm going to write one more of these, I'm going to put it all together in some way. I don't know how you all thought about it, but as I was reading, I was like, this is really interesting because I don't I don't remember a lot. It happens sometimes. I think there's actually some earth sea books that are like this or something Leguin where you're sort of like oh characters from these unrelated books are now related but I thought it was kind of fun to have it pay off in book three after making us wait in book two . Did he know that this was going to be his like was this plan? This is the last one that I'm gonna write here or was he considering going on to write more ? Because it didn't feel final to me. He didn't plan a trilogy when he began. Right, but when he was writing this one, I'm not sure if he's ever said whether he knew it would be the last but I think it kind of has to be because of the way it ends because it ends literally with a singularity. You know, you can't see beyond what happens. You could argue that there's a whole different kind of book that could follow it, but is that interesting? This is like, what do you do after Lord Rings? He has any interest in writing Tolkien said he had kids playing as orcs and then he realized that was dumb and gave it up more or less. And I'm like, what do you do after the singularity? Well, everybody is everything is one. What do you not so exciting anymore, right? You've done all the challenge part. Yeah, it's a bit like the ending of Edoru. That ends in this similar sort of like, you can't see beyond that ending or you can, but it would be a very different kind of Tomorrow's party is where yeah . What I just don't think he's got that much interest in rising, yeah Um , yeah, no it's all tomorrow's parties where I'm sorry not a yeah it's the same thing with the Blue Antrilogy where it ends and you find out the Bijond has the spoiler alert for a book that is at least a decade old not older, at this point is. time Whatn in Hesi meeting? But you find out that, oh , thanks to Bobby Chambo, I can now jump seventeen minutes ahead on an information stream. And you're like, whoa, this has just reconfigured the world, but no or we have Icelandic twins and a Russian plane. Like Gibson writes what he writes. Then he's like, I'm just gonna drop this in your lap and leave you to figure it out. Bye. Yeah. Lisa, I have bad news for you. I have bad news. Spook country, he's nearly twenty years old. Oh my gosh It happens. It happens fast. You jumped ahead seventeen years, Lisa, I'm sorry. Yeah. Seventeen years. Well, regardless of whether he knew or not, yeah, I was coming at this completely fresh as I am. I did not do any research ahead . I didn't know what to expect. And having read the first two and having them be so disconnected, I expected this third one to be likewise, you know, perhaps a little bit later and very, very, very loosely connected just happening, in the same world and suddenly hears somebody who's obviously Molly and I was like, whoa, whoa, wait a second. What's happening? It was really fun. It was a delightful experience. And then finding out that, you know, this is this is Angie from the last book . This is sort of following on to her. Like I didn't even remember, I'd forgotten her character's name. So I didn't remember that it was her until context clues gave me I was like, oh wow. Oh , this is that kid who got rescued in the last book. That's exciting. So it was really fun to dive in and discover that. I think even reading it in sequence. I remember reading this book. I've actually every time I forget the plot, I read it again, so I think I've read it four to six times since I first read it and even reading it, I remember the first time it was like, wait, it took me a few pages and I'm like, oh, it's not Angie. Like you don't because I mean, so I think that's not even a fresh, you know, reader or distance. It's just it is what it is. It's like it's not he's trying to make sure you have to pick up the clues for it. Because she's come so far from the end of the second book. I mean, this is now she's a now she's a star, which she was being set up to be. But for me the moment is when they're like, oh, I've got this body. I need to hide it in your factory. He's permanently jacked into the matrix and there's a nurse keeping him alive. They call him the count, and I'm like, well here we go. When the music plays and you're like, oh that's they look at that yeah, that's when in the movie, that's when the Count Zero theme briefly appears in the soundtrack and you're like, the Moochie . We're back, baby. We're back. I do love the one throwaway line about how oh case is completely out of the game now has four kids and you're just that line because it's just so uncharacteristic of case as I saw him yeah. Oh and the only connecting element of course I mean it's not the only connecting element but, the Finn, the Finn, who is like the most only character in all three books . Yeah, and he's just as great and it's like he's such a grumpy, awful , wonderful person. Now he's dead. Yeah, and that's fine too. He's not going to go away just because he's dead. That would be ridiculous. There's even a reference to the Dixie Flatline , which you know, the other dead character that we saw recreated in software. Yeah. Yeah. So can I talk about just briefly the overall thing about this book, which is as you said, it kind of follows on from the other two. But we talked when we talked about Count Zero, we talked about how Gibson was maturing as a writer and you could see him maturing as a writer you know with that book. And I think you see it again with this book. I think he does it throughout the whole trilogy. He is clearly so much more interested in the characters and society that he's created than any kind of plot because for what for what passes for a plot in this book, it largely consists of people just sort of being moved around a chessboard by an AI , which incidentally is a theme that he's returned to in later books and, one he' thats I don't particularly like all that much, but there you go. But what's I find really interesting about this the structure of this book, you've got four parallel timelines here sorry parallel points of view up from three encount Zero, which was up from one in Neuromancer. And all four of our characters are kind of naives , like none of them are in charge of their own storylines. You've got Kamiko who's led around by Petal, Sally Anne Collin, you've got Mona who is led around by Eddie and then Senset and then Molly, you've got Angie who is led around by the Lower for Heaven's sake , and is conspired against by people whose point of view we never see and then slick Henry is the subject of all these machinations by Gentry and the Count and others and again we never see the point of view of these other people who are actually controlling what happens to . And then and then this is what really gets me. Even when several of those people are directly involved in a big fight at the end, we don't know what's going on but we don't see it because Mona's out of it on drugs. Angie is hallucinating . Henry's just trying to not die . It's like this was a real revelation for me when I sort of late teenager when I read this book and it was a real revelation , 'cause I think it was like the first book I read where there was big action scenes going on, but the author just was not interested in actually writing them for you as a reader. And I found that fascinating . I still do it. I think that's one of the reasons I like this book so much because movies and TV, I get bored with fight scenes. It's usually the same thing in books. There are a few authors who actually man toaged write so that I can understand what's happening and they don't go on too long about it. But I am much more interested in the point of view of the person who just snorted something that you should not snort because it will beat away parts of your throat. And it's just so out of it and feeling great, but she's still witnessing everything that is happening around her. And I'm just like, that is the way that I want to experience adore Mona. I adore her. The first time I read this book , I thought, okay , you have somebody who doesn't even know who her parents were. She's illiterate. She grew up being nominally cared for by somebody who may or may not be her father on a catfish farm . She gets duped being a sex worker by a really incompetent pip named Eddie . But yeah, let's talk about Eddie's pipelines those are pretty foreign. She's true. She's so observant and she's so smart she's so open hearted in a way too, like she has everyone's number . And she's also like screamingly addicted to this really terrible street level drug. And when you have this scene in the book where everybody's got the standoff in the loft and bad stuff's about to happen and Mona just like takes out her drugs and slams them on the table and does. And she's like, Sometimes it's like that. I was like, Oh, oh my god, you're the best here I admire her so much as a character and I also really love how Gibson sets her up as a direct mirror image of Kumiko who spends the entire book not knowing what's going on at all as this very sheltered daughter of a high level Japanese criminal . But so you see you've got this what they're same age, but they've had such different upbringings and Mona is so smart and so good about figuring out survival gambits. And Kumiko is just kind of like what is happening? What is happening ? I was saying all the images like that. Counterpoint to Anthony's point, I think too though, and supporting you, Lisa is that I think one of the things that's lovely about not I mean, every novel doesn't have to have this, but I do get frustrated which characters are doing things and I'm screaming at the written page. No, you know that's an idiotic thing . Don't do that. And in this case, people are being subjected to forces that are vastly greater than them often, huge numbers of people, violence, AIs, rogue AIs, et cetera. But they are smart people and they don't always make the best choice, but they question it. They're not dupes. Even Mona , she's, you know , it's very, very, very smart and she's trying to do the best she can. She's trying to literally survive a number of times and slick Henry Slick Henry, I think is the most sympathetic character, maybe, am I wrong? Like he's he's kind of I don't know, he's kind of a sweet guy and he's in the middle of all he's the pivot point around a bunch of stuff is crushing him and he manages to survive too even though he's not even really part of it. It's a total accident that he's a smart guy too. Like there's so many coars and cuff therapy is so narsh. That I remember as a kid I was, like , this is my worst nightmare being able to only have five minutes at a time almost. It's kind of funny because Mona has that sort of disjointed quality when 'cause she gets as high as a kite several points in the book, but both of them are still both free o,kay, I have been dropped into this situation . And Emona has her old friend Linette where she's like, what would Linette do? And she thinks it through. I think that is one of the things that Gibbson really enj oys doing , especially in this book is you draw some very interesting characters and you put them in weird extreme circumstances. They're interesting interesting. Their background is interesting, how they got where they are is interesting, how they have to navigate it is interesting. And then they're put in somewhat extreme circumstances and they have to deal with it. And the plot happens around them . And I think that's the way to think of it in some ways. If you're a plot driven person, this book's got to be so frustrating because that's not what's good about it. What's good about it is that things happen around slick Henry, like where who he is, where he is, why he's there, what he's doing there, what else is in factory? All of those things are really interesting and hanging out with him is interesting. And the plot happens around him and he has to deal with it, but like, that's not why you' s interesting, right? It's interesting because the characters are interesting and their reactions are interesting. You put them under pressure and they do some interesting things. And it's just it's a very different way to tell the story and I think it reveals Gibson's interest. Gibson cares about these characters and these weird settings and the weird world he's in that he wants to play with. And then to Antony's point, the rest of it is almost mechanical, almost mechan istic, right? Because it's AI's pushing stuff around a game board. Yeah, I feel like the character that I related to most kind of the opposite of Lisa was Kumiko because she had no ide a what was happening around her just being let and I feel like that a lot. Like just tell me what to do. This world is very confusing to me. And I think that's why I made the joke when I was introducing myself because I was hoping that at some point she would do something that mattered because this is the person that I like the most. She does remember one thing that she does is she delivers Colin, the ghost more than a ghost. But like just becoming like being the fairy or the mule for one little thing to reach another place, like there's a point in the book where she actually takes action. She tries to do something and she utterly fails. It is useless. There's no point I mean that is the moment that she hands over the ghost, but it just I found it a little bit soul crushing. Like everybody else did something that affected another person . Like she's trying to help Molly and that Molly doesn't need it. So is there primarily to serve Gibson's fascination with both Japan and London , like two cities that he clearly two places that he clearly loves very much. I also wonder because the whole point of her plot her the whole point of her story arc is you've got somebody whose mother has killed themselves in apparently a very dramatic way and she's dealing with guilt and grief and being punted around and over the course of her arc she develops a tiny bit of agency and does things out of concern for other people. And she fights her way out of the worst and most numbing depths of her grief . And at the last scene where she's connecting with her father, you're like, Oh, she's going to be okay. She's going to be embedded in a crim likeinal organization when she gets older, sure, but like she won't have that big emotional wound. So am I right that Kumiko is the only person who has a living parent? Is everybody else's parent? I mean just really Mona, Angie we don't really know their backgrounds. I mean like possible. But we don't know Barbie's mom is still watching. She's the other. She's the only one who has a parent in New Jersey. Yeah, Bobby's mom survived Count Zero. So yeah, that's right. They find the fine report. Somehow, Marsha's still watching persons persons of importance. Yeah. Bobby's mom, who did not die . Everyone has zero or one parents in the binary system of this book. This is the story of the One , the one who keeps multiple buildings running smoothly day after day, plumbing that flows, HVAC that hums, cleaning supplies that keep surfaces sparkling. That's why she counts on Granger. With easy reordering online and twenty four seven support, Granger helps her keep the product she needs on hand. So shelves stay stocked and buildings stay ready. Call one hundred granger click,rang Ger. com or just stop by . Granger for the ones who get it done . I think about Kumiko. It's true. Kumiko has a very light touch on she's intersects with characters that are going places and she does kind of bring Colin along and Colin is an important bit of software as it turns out which the book is really open with that from the beginning where Colin's like, yeah, I got a bunch of code in here. I don't know what that''ss about. And like it like, okay, well, he's more than what he seems. That's obvious from the jump. But what I like about Kumiko is Antony's right, it's about vibe. It's about Japan and London. It's about being on that airplane . It's about her exploring the world and learning about her father's world because really she was insulated from it, but now her mom is dead. Her father is in the middle of a mob war and he sent her away to protect her, which doesn't really work for her at all, but like that is so we get to see London through her eyes and her father's world through her eyes but the other thing I keep thinking of is like it's just it's it's really kind of a short story about Kumiko that happens to intersect with the novel that's going on around it. the thing is, I like it. It's a really great story. It actually is one of the things I think is the most gibsonian is this innocent girl who has got lots of weird high tech and has like questionable family background and is thrown into this thing and has to navigate it and it's a light touch on the plot, but it's really delightful as flavor for this book. It's maybe my favorite section is Kumiko. You could totally see Gibson writing a sequel if he wanted to. That was just sixty year old Kumiko who's been the head of the Yakuza for, you know, thirty eight years dealing with the, you know, forty seven or sorry the four hundred seventh bio thing when they all come back from Alpha Century and she's the only one available who has blah blah blah. I mean, it's completely new. He'd be more likely to write another short story about her sitting by like a lily pond or something and reflecting on her life than actually. I mean, I've said it before. I've said it before. I'll say it again. Gibson is a literary author who happens to write science fiction. Yeah . And that explains so much about these books. Yeah. Yeah, I thought maybe her just her being completely ineffectual was just like a beautiful metaphor for life but it was de,p ressing to me et it. I thought that she was actually kind of empowered by the end of it because yeah she grows up a lot . She had a story to go to. She had a story to go to we don't see, but she had a story to go to. This shocked benumbed, grieving child is somebody who is like, oh, I need only I can save this assassin Yeah, exactly. It's just this really sweet impulsive teenage thing to do, but it's her taking some agency and trying really hard to do that she hopes will matter in a positive way. Also once we get Sally Sheers, who is Molly Millions as her kind of kind of paired with Kum iko . I just think it's really sweet because you know, we've met Molly in Neuromancer . We know that she's , you know, she's very talented and can kill and but is also like trying to get away from it, but she kind of can't. And like, she's got this tragic story. And she has her connection with Case, which we talked about in that episode is what it was. But but here to have Molly be like now she's got to protect this young girl or is she putting her in danger and all of that? Like it's a great pairing. And so in that way, you know, you could also read this as being, I know it looks like it's Kumiko's thread, but it's really Molly's thread until Molly leaves. And that's fine because I think it's fun to see this different aspect of the character we met in Nuromancer and Molly having to interact with this girl who does not know what's going on and has a lot of questions. I think that's fun. I have a question for all of you. I am really curious about how you all felt about Molly in this book because like I've read the first book just the once and it was all the way back when we did that last podcast. So all I have are sort of my fuzzy ish memories and my memories of Molly from that book are that she was competent and deadly and a little bit wise certainly in comparison to Case. And then here in this book, like you said, Lisa, we find out that Case has gotten out of it and is married with four children, which to me seems like the smart move in this kind of world. And here, Molly is still in it and she just, to me, I was just like, she felt kind of older and sad and way less competent and confused. And I was just like, oh, this is she had a bunch she had a bunch of bad breaks like yeah. The first time I read this book I, remember being like, Oh no, oh no, she didn't I was taken aback by the setbacks and Molly Oh I tried this and it didn't work and then I tried that and it didn't work and um now that, you know, I'm older and I've read the book a few more times, I'm like, wow, this is written by somebody who has witnessed what adult life is like where sometimes you're on the other side and sometimes you're not . Although AIs have been potentially AI's and Jan threee or Jane have potentially been conspiring against her This guy's been hunting her for. I mean, she says like fourteen years since on light run. Yeah. So I wouldn't say she's less competent. I think she's just she has had some bad luck for sure . But also breaks. She's an adrenaline junkie. We can't forget that this is a woman who voluntarily underwent massive cyber surgery in order to enhance her reflexes, make her stronger faster, and frankly, you know, a better assassin . You don't do that unless you're kind of , you know , unless unless that's in your nature. And so yeah, my head can not that I've really given it that much though, but my head can for Molly was always simply that she couldn't get out of the life. She, you know, she says, Oh, I want to get out, I'm tired of it, but really, she's one of these people who actually couldn't live without it. You know, she needs action, she needs the edge. Yeah . It's also a whole theme of identity transference and change. So it's both the maturity, but you have, you know, obviously Mona becomes Angie, you have the Count who has already renamed himself and he's just known by the count until some one figures out his name. You've got Sally Shears instead of Molly Millions. There was another one I'm forgetting too. It feels like everybody had a Oh , there's the bit that I can't find the exact quote in the book here. I should have done it, but it was when a p orphyry, who's the like hair dresser dresser . I love myself . And she 's wonderful . And she said and she says at some point, do you know anything about essentially Haitian Voodoo? And he says, you know, he says , honey, porphyry was not always this color. And you're like, oh my God. I was white white. Yeah. Oh sorry, it was even that specific. And I'm like, Wow, that is something , but you're like, okay, so is his entire body black face? Should we have a discussion about that? Or is that just a thing because this universe and this book is about transformation that it's just a component of this impossible to understand future world . Well, there's that interaction in the helicopter in the chopper when they've got the reporter . It's a scene in the chopper with the reporter, Angie and Pofari, and she asks some very nasty questions and Pofieri jumps in and she's like, I have your original birth certificate . And there are some very interesting notes about genetic anomalies . And so the head cannon I've always had for him that in some way one of the reasons he works my theory, my head can is he works for Senset because they bankrolled all of the biological and genetic re engineering it took to turn him from whatever he was at birth into this gorgeous inhumanely geometrical , fantastic hairdresser . There are two things I love about the way Porphyry is described in this book. One of them is when talking about his describing his facial features or what have you, Gibson describes his depolated skull . What he means is what all he means is his shaved head. But he can't say that because you know that's just not the given story I'm sure it was devilated with some sort of futuristic technology that got rid of the maybe the scissors versus the laser pencil yeah. Well, that's what I was going to say. That's the other thing I love about him is the way that that's written. So I wrote it down, I'll read the quote, using the scissors that were one of his professional trademarks. He refused to use a laser pencil, claimed never to have touched one. And I think that it's a great way to reveal character, but it's also a great example of Gibson , what again, what we've talked about for, not predicting tech per se , but our attitudes and the way society approaches technology. And how and we've seen this happen. You know, this was written thirty odd years ago now, but we've seen it happen. As computers and high technology become more common, what separates the elite is their refusal to use it. And crucially, those who can afford not to use it because of their resources . Exactly. Yes, yeah. I read this wonderful thing on the New Yorker a few decades ago and it was about it said something like it was talking about some new rustic pasta and it said essentially the stuff that people who are rich eat today as the thing that people in poverty were trying to escape from a few decades ago. Oh yeah. Yep. Well, lobster. Yeah, I was gonna say yep, lobster. Become a new status symbol with sard, with very fancy sardine cans eight dollars apiece. And wow there are a lot of folk who are like, look, this was a cheap source of protein. Stop stop gentrifying it. Yeah. Mom's robot mom's robot oil work. So I have one more pour f iery thing, which is I love that his last scene, he somehow ends up in the warehouse with everyone else somehow. And what I really love is he's on the chopper. Yeah. Yes for reasons. And he drifts over to Mona and just starts, you know, running his fingers through her hair. And she, of course, is like, I have no idea what has just happened. And this is not just because I'm high. And he's like, well, you need a haircut. And I And the thing I love about that it begins . Well he's in the middle of grieving his friend because it is evident that he's grieving Angela who has just died on top of Bobby's cybercoffin there and he's been handling the very complicated politics of sensit etc , etc . But his first instinct is to turn towards this really confused family and just be like well you need a haircut. I will take care of you right now. And I just think that's such a beautiful understatement. Like this book has a lot of moments where people are trying to take care of each other in the ways the best way they know how. And I think that's something you wouldn't have seen in neuromancer. I think this is Gibson kind of growing as a person and as an author at the same time too. And although let's not forget also that by that point she looks just like Annie Mitchell. Oh yeah oh yeah yeah but yeah that is interesting that in one line the line The line that tells me this character has somebody to look out for them going forward, that line is you need a haircut. That's just a life . Because only your friends will tell you. I actually have a question, and because you bring that up. Since they have the very last chapter that wraps everything up and Angela kind of runs you through what's happened and Robin Lanier has been killed and blah blah blah and they mentioned that everyone just loves the new Angela Mitchell, and I'm like, wait, did SenseNet literally just like swap in one person for another? And they're like, It's Angie. Oh yeah God. Yeah, yeah, that I think that's made quite maybe not explicit, but it's made quite clear that I was like, do they really think audiences are that dominant I guess yes they are. Well yeah I guess I didn't I didn't read it that way because of the because of the reaction of people to how she approaches things as if they were completely new . Just to me that I guess I maybe I should reread that chapter a little closer and see if there's any You know what? I think there's still implication that they haven't said this is a new person. It's more just that the audience is kind of thrilled that she seems to have gained, you know, a new curiosity in life or something. We all know now that there'sine l discourse and theory that it's not the same Angie and all of that. But from the outside world, I think from Senses perspective, it's maybe it's the new Angie, but it's still Angie, but she's new and has a different perspective. And she's a brand at this point, and they're just gonna keep it going. Isn't it convenient? Sort of like a James Bond. It's convenient but also everybody knew that she was in rehab, remember? Right, right. So, you know, that's an easy, that's an easy story to tell her. I've come out of rehab and now I'm feeling different like a new person. Like there's a substantial age difference . I know. Maybe I can't tell if they necessarily sensorium, right? So Gerald is very good. Can I ask ? Do people think I hadn't thought about this in reading the book multiple times? As we talk about this, I'm like, did everybody except like Eddie have a happy ending? Like not everybody but Eddie's ending is very happy for me. Yeah. That's happy . Yeah, I'm happy about alligators. Wheel out the alligator suitcase and you're like and again Roman Laney is being found like Kumico's on top strangled Kumiko's on top, Molly owns a German casino , slick Henry and Cherry have a relationship now . Mauna has what she wants. She has safety and security. One hopes inside of Sense Net. Now that Angie's co star is dead. I don't know if Angie and Bobby wanted to give up their physical bodies and trans stantiate into whatever the singularity is. Maybe it's like a happy ending. I mean, everybody sort of the people that we like in the book, it feels like they all turn out okay, right? I mean, sort of Yeah, I think Gibson is not interested in making everybody feel miserable at the end and there's everything around it. It's still like they're in this place and all of these things, but they are all these, again, these are not our characters are also not like criminals or evildoers, right? Like our characters are just trying to make their way in the world and so he has them kind of make their way. I think it's a great point, Glenn. This is not a story where at the end like terrible things happen, he's trying to put them kind of in a in a direction that makes sense, but it's the direction they wanted to go. And yeah, I mean, I find it really interesting that like one way you can describe this is that we just have it, right? It's like Angie Ang,ie dies. Angie and Bobby die. But like the other way to say it is, yes, Angie and Bobby did upload their consciousness to the grid and they don't need their bodies anymore. And they're going to live forever. And they're going to live forever in the matrix traveling around the galaxy for all we know . With networks like Fox News, CNN, MSN, and more, Sling is the best way to get the news you care about, which is great for everyone . Well , almost everyone . Where's that dang paper boy? I need my news outdated and rolled up like a burrito . Finally , now I can read all about what happened forever ago. Get the most important news delivered reliably at the best price. Sling, let you do that. Visit sling dot com slash news to see your offer. Going back to Mona's thread, I just wanted to like , I really that's that's a right contrast with Kumiko, right? That is it's just so sad . She's a sex worker , she's got her boyfriend pimp is grim , like she's got a whole method of like where you stand in the squat in the in the flop house so that you don't don't have to stand on the fill she takes it as an item of faith that the roaches don't scramble across the paper like yeah and then he, you know, and he's got big plans, but you know that it's all nothing except then it turns out they get in the machinery of the story and then the big plans start to happen. But like and she's, yeah, she's she's addicted to drugs. She has she has a charming moment, I think, where she kind of like runs off and does get, you know, does her own thing and it's like now she's not with the pimp for a little while in the squat and she until she goes back there. And like I really I really like her. She's she is so naive and so exploited , but there's still a person there who's trying , you know, to figure out her life and trying to navigate it but even though it's so sad and I just and so yeah when her when Eddie you know, he',s coming along for the ride until he's not. He went away sorry. He's so he's so oblivious. It's so great. So dumb. And Mona can see how dumb he is. Like this is this she's illiterate, but she's not and she's she's illiterate. She's dying, but she's not dumb. I love her so much because she is so smart and they never beat you about the head with it. But just the way that everything she's ever observed not only gets filed away in her brain, it comes back when it's supposed to. And it's also filed in the context that she has it off the street . So things like remembering what would Lennette do and stuff. And when she realizes that Eddie's dead, it's not because she's like sort of figured it out in some crazy , you know, like big brain way, but it's because oh there's his suitcases Eddie would never go anywhere without those suitc ases and he must be dead. He hates gambling. Like the first thing they tell me was we bought him out. He went to McCann. Oh, that's right. Yeah. And she's like, Eddie hates gambling. And then she's on high alert and then she sees the suitcases and she knows for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And after that, but even when she goes out to get high and have a good time and she goes home with that guy and ends up before she's, you know, abducted reabducted and taken back like she grabs a jacket, she figures out there's a weapon in there and she shouldn't say anything about the weapon. She's managed to get herself a bath and some tea. And she just she is, again, somebody who is like, I'm in a situation . How can I how can I make sure I get out of the situation at least level if not slightly better off than I was going in ? And she just rolls her character and Eddie at the beginning, I was like, they that beginning reminded me a little bit of the beginning of Bobby Newmark in the previous book where I was like, Okay, our title character's the dirt baggy one. But here , it's like Eddie is like Bobby with no smarts whatsoever . And Mona is like, she does have the smarts, she does have the goods. Although I expected that scene with, I think Michael was the name of the guy that she that she slept with and he's right recorded the sim of it. I was that never came back. It never like I expected that to be a thing like a blackmail point or something exactly when she becomes who like works in the naming place where he names brands for a living. And then the brand comes up later and Malaysia that's a dumb brand. Yeah, yeah. Although Censette will find that tape and buy it out, right? Yeah Of course she grabs a jacket on the way out because the one thing Gibson is always interested in jacket is jackets. I know man . So many jackets in this do you see around with joy every time they describe Pofire's like leather coat where it's so long it moves like silk and so many jackets in jackets everywhere. He's obsessed with that coat. Yes, yes . No, I just I really it's to this day , like not just in this trilogy, throughout his if there's one through line throughout all of Gibson's work, it is he is absolutely obsessed with jackets . It's such a strange fetish. don't know this . This book is just such a fun hang in so many ways though because every one of these characters, you're like, okay, even if I'm not talking with you directly, you're fun to listen to or you're fun to watch . There is nobody wouldn I't want to spend time with. Okay, now I want I want to get to the part of the book that is the for me the most cyberpunk and it's not the high rises and it's not the squats and it's not the London, you know, underground secret, I mean literally the London underground, but also the secret places and all that. No , it's factory, a giant warehouse in food where it's it's a place that people don't live because it's poisoned out there . It's in New Jersey somewhere in the wild of New Jersey. It is the wasteland for Max Headroom. This is what this is. And in it, we've got these these two guys , one of whom is not around at the moment, who are pirating power from somewhere from the Fusion Authority. And there's slick Henry and he's an artist who is an excon. We mentioned who's got the syndrome where he was his he had his short term memory erased so he could only remember for about five minutes and that was a period where Stilly has flashbacks to that in certain circumstances where he has these completely dissociative events . And he's building giant robotic sculptures, which I am going to say I love the fact that in this book, the giant robotic sculptures are Chekov's gun. It is literally Cheovks giant' robot ic sculptures with weapons on their hands so that when they're attached when they're attacked later, he's like, I know what to do and the robots have a remote control. Oh yes, there we go. I just I love all I love all the weird details. I love the fact that yeah Cherry the nurse shows up I like that there's the kid who's kind of like a moron but he's kind of like also hanging like there's associated there's like a little there's like a little support ing cast at Factory . And then that's where they stash Bobby who doesn't do anything because Bobby's jacked into the Matrix the whole time, but Cherry the nurse who's like who is a nurse? And then they're like, she's not quite a nurse. She said, Well, she qualified as a nurse , but then something happened. But don't worry about that. She's qualified as a nurse and she's there. And like, I just this to me is like I love this aspect of cyberpunk because it is, it's it's weird ly industrial and a mess and you just get the sense that there are like wires everywhere in unsafe condition plugged into things they shouldn't be plugged into and this guy is making junk robots like a I love this whole part of the book and it is where the whole thing coalesces at the end. But like I was gonna say the whole reason that we're there is because the AI is sending everybody there pres,umably because it's out of the way, as you say, middle of nowhere, poisonous. Nobody's gonna go there. Right. So the AI is like, right, get everybody to this place where nobody else is gonna go and that's where you can all join up. And of course reckoning without sense nets, hovers and choppers going in like full throated. Right, right because armed assault on the factory that doesn't go well by the way because the giant rubber stuff and the guy gentry who I cannot think of as anybody but Henry Rollins who appeared in what was Yeah, exactly. He's a fan in Giant Memonic, which is wrong, but whatever. But Gentry being the guy who's like he has to type in some sequence every once in a while to fool the fisher authority again, right? And at some point he doesn't, so you get the Deus Ex Machina, or maybe not that the plot device of the power going out at just the wrong moment, right? And Gentry's under and the whole thing, but Gentry's a great again, throw away character who's burning with the shape that only he can see and everyone's like yeah yeah cyber turns out he's right but he's right he's right but he's presented as also a fun character because they're all squatting in the factory Gentry's kind of in charge but he',s only in charge because he's the one who keeps the power flowing. Like that's And I guess he was there first. That's it. Eastern Seaboard Fishing Authority and one of the other only through lines in all three books . Oh yeah. There's a great bit with Slick Henry saying Gentry doesn't quite realize that Slick Henry has ten pounds on him and he remembers Gentry slapping him across the face once and him saying they're with a chromium plated wrench feeling sort of embarrassed about it that he wouldn't respond because Gentry had so much like authority in his he just assumed that he could be in charge of anything. Right. It's good. Yeah, 'cause he's he's got the power. I just love this, I just love this setting. And I love yeah it's just because it is, you get the sense yes, it's a mess, but also it's like this kind of Bohemian artist colony at the end of the world which is they make it work. It's really cool. Sir except for toxic sludge . And it's like I really hope that's like Henry and Cherry just go off and have a really nice life together that's a little bit of forty six too. Like maybe he can make little ruma robots because he's managed to like and he can get her sixth of a system and he can give her a sixth coat. Yeah, exactly . Yeah. Cherry's yet another person who's saved, of course, like even the minor characters she's going to, get killed because her stupid boyfriend who's being has been run off with all the money and left her carrying the bag and then Kid Africa comes and is like, Hey, I've got a gig for you. And she's like, I'm zip tied in a closet. So sure, let me get a look hand at a Africa. What a throw, what a great throwaway really is Africa. It's like he's a cool dude. He's got a car. Like what do you need? What do you want with skulls on the front? Remember what I love is he just kind of lightly sk ims over the surface of the world, touches down when he wants something lifts off. I mean, literally I think it's a hovercraft, right? So yeah. He's got his old novel somewhere else. He's so cool. He doesn't have time for this one.? Yeah I was gonna say he feels to me like he should be in a Gibson short story somewhere . You know, like Molly was in Johnny Mnemonic, for example, you know, where she first appeared, but he's not. He feels like he needs his own short story , but he's appears nowhere else . Yeah, I know. But it's a great it's just a great throwaway character again of like just to add richness to the universe and it's not a character who comes back but he's so he's so interesting and we meet him and then he does his job, which is literally to drop somebody off . But yep, yep. It's funny. But stylishly. It's great. I just love how this novel is again about people who are, if this were a movie or a TV show , all of these characters would be in the background. They would be one episode characters who show up to advance the main characters I want plot. But instead in the book, what you have are all these people who are like, I'm batted about by forces I don't understand. I'm trying really hard to get aged. It's Rosencrantz and Guildstone writ large. So this is what I was going to say this is my theory about this book is who's the main character of this book? You could argue the main character of this book is the artificial intelligence in cyberspace and it can't be a character because it isn't a person and it's kind of diffuse , but it's doing everything in the background . And all we're watching is the ripples on the surface. Like the story is kind of happening somewhere else and we just get to follow these characters who are being, you know, pushed around, blown by the winds, controlled their puppets or however you want to say it by the AI's, which is why the ending is so odd because the ending is very much like in my memory what lives what lives in my memory is the end of the book and the end of the book has nothing to do with the book really it's just there to say why did we do all of this? In the last chapter, it's like, well, now we're in VR basically. We're in the cyberspace and there's a limo and the Finn is there and Angie and Bobby are there and and we get the big reveal which okay , I guess what Gibson wants us to listen to why he doesn't care. He doesn't care, but he's going to tell us she's like, well, remember in Neuromancer and Winter Mute got together and that was a big deal, but then like in Count Zero, they were just a bunch of voodoo gods. And it's like, well, that happened because when they all put together, they realized that there was like another AI at Alpha Centauri and that was kind of traumatic for them. So they've kind of split up, but now they've got their act together and they're going we're all gonna go talk to the alien alien cyberspace at Alpha Centauri . And reading this in nineteen eighty eight, I was like, whoa, that's cool. Probably I can't wait to see what will happen next, which is nothing . And now I read it and I'm like , okay, I mean, it is a cool ending, but also like if you think about the three books and how dramatic it is that when Winter Mute and Neuromancer finally are allowed to merge and then how weird it is that they kind of seem to have exploded in count zero, you get to this point and he's like, yeah, I guess I need to tie that up. And they're like, well, aliens, bye. And that's the end. So this is my question. And it has been my question ever since I first read the book is they're locked inside a cyberspace matrix. So it's basically a contained environment where data moves around at incomprehensible speeds and incomprehensible scales, right? How are they breaking out of that silo to go talk to other intelligences. Where? What medium? No, I mean, Gibson clearly doesn't this is where Gibson's lack of technical knowledge raised its head really, isn't it? I feel like we're all just kind of waving our hands and going and then they would disp.assed Oh, it's the quantum realm. It's probably the quantum realm. But we do get that wonderful endy, final image of them literally riding off into cyberspace together . You know, yeah. I mean, I always interpreted that as we're going to beam all this data to Alpha Centauri. Yeah. And for them, be there in a New York minute. Well, for them, it will essentially be instantaneous because they'll be traveling at the speed of light and received on the other end, even though obviously it will take whatever four years for it to get there. It doesn't matter. You're a digital you're an information construct now. You're just going to be beamed there and that's going to happen. But they've got a DVD player in the back of the limit they can watch movies whatever. You've actually and then you've actually touched on a second question I have. Okay , which is about whether or not time moves substantially differently inside the LF there's a right well because there's a reference to one morning Angela sees a horse. You know, remember they're extinct in this in this version of the world, but she sees a horse and on it are the Finn and Colin and Cumiko. And I was like, wait, Kumiko is completely out of the story at this point. So did this happen back during the fight when Angela was out of her mind? She would like zip there. Are we looking at like a non linear narrative? Why is Kumiko there? I've never been able to figure out and in my brain the only explanation is yeah, time is kind of recursive and looping and Angel's not experiencing things linearly like huh? Oh I just read it as non linear . re Iad just as it non linear storytelling and that what was happening to Kumiko earlier, we're finally seeing it from Angie's perspective at that point. But it could be either. It could be confused by that. It could be Jeremy Beremy. That's always by See I was assuming that she's just been recreated by the AI in cyberspace in the same way that three James pretended to be her mother. So he just really likes her and I can pour it. But you could be right. Maybe she is seeing into the past. Yeah, I don't know. I just realized we were talking about the ending of this that the sad version of this book is Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut Book? Has anyone read that? It's such a many times and I remember none of it, but I know I liked it. There's a character, I mean, again, spoiler for what a fifty year old book. There's a character who 's been what like captured by Chronosynclastic and Fundibulum and he sort of blips through planets in time or not time, but like he appears in sort of random places based on some kind of gravity pattern or whatever the explanation is. But in the end it turns out there's a whole sequence of things and like a Martian invasion and wars and the chronosynclastic and fundabuleum and everything is just so that he can deliver a tiny piece of metal that says hi or has to pick up someone has to pick up a piece of metal and give it to him to do a thing because somebody from some other galaxy wants to say hello. So they've manipulated the entire culture and nature and billions of people's lives just to send a message high . Yeah. But Glenn, by the way, you said thirty years thirty seven is how many years you missed it by at sixty seven years old. sixty seven years old . Well that's that we're all just living our lives and we're ponds like something bigger and something bigger is going on that we don't really understand , but like as a writer , that could be fun in a way. I mean, that's a very Douglas Adams kind of thing too, right? It's like I get that same vibe from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Gibson's doing it here. And it's very much like, yeah, but we can't the things we can understand, like all of us live our lives in a complex system full of lots of things that we can't perceive or really understand because it's too comproversable. Yeah. And so what you do is you look what can we hold on to is these people and how they interact with each other and how they interact in the ways that they can with the world. And boy, yeah, this book is absolutely like that because you know, what can we do? I like the LF you mentioned, like that is like a virtual reality it's like a small cyberspace that then they connect to the big cyberspace. And that's really interesting because I don't know how does time pass in there? I don't know. It may be that Bobby has lived for who knows how long in his various vacation properties in a virtual world. So also I like the reference to the Al you know I'm a Borjes fan and it's the great thing in the Borjes story in which the Alif appears it is such a casual ridiculous thing. It's like I think it's like the ex husband of somebody or the guy who married the woman that the main character, the narrator loved, like calls him because he's a writer and he goes. He's like, I've discovered this thing. You have to see it lie down here and the guy lies down and sees everything in all of time all at once everywhere. And then he gets up and he can't give the guy the pleasure of confirming it to him because he hates him so much. And I'm like, it's a great. So there's something about like the Alf in this story being, yes, it's everything everywhere. It's a construct, but nobody really wants to say it. So that's kind of what oh I've already forgotten his name. The guy runs the warehouse entry. That's he's obsessed by this thing , and everyone's like, yeah, yeah, it's not really your business . You're serving a part you have a role here, I guess, that we've set you up for, but the OLIF is something that, you know, it's only certain people are going to be able to experience. My favorite thing about the OLIF is that Bobby has been in here for a while. Like we know from the earlier in the book that he and Angie split at some point. And you know, she's a little bummed about that. And but the place that he has chosen to recreate in the Alif, you mentioned a vacation property earlier . It is specifically a mansion with gliders tethered behind the house, which is a stim that Angie had recorded earlier. She's thinking about remembering taking these glid ers and she's doing this Robin because he is supposed to be her fake boyfriend . But clearly, Bobby was along at all of these places because he's the one that Angie was in love with. And the place that he chose to recreate to live in is a place where he had spent time with Angie previously like that's just hit my heart. I thought that was awesome. Yeah. And Glenn, I was going to say Gibson has mentioned Borz as an influence before now, so I'm sure that's not a coincidence. I think he actually said that it's absolutely that's the reference. I didn't run . I just love it. It's like I have a point in time. It's got very doctor who like where I can see everything everywhere all at once and the other person's like , I'm not going to give you the satisfaction. Sorry, unless you don't do this . We've talked we talked about the characters and stuff and his lack of interest in the plot, but one of the things that Gibson does do is interested in is the world build ing . And he does a lot of that in this book and you know sort of continues to build the world or the sprawl outside of the cities, what have you in places like factory . But there are so many little asides that build the world so efficiently with this sort of hyper dense prose that he writes. I picked out a couple of examples in an early angi chapter that I think are just absolutely brilliant examples of that craft. One of them is when she finds Count Zero's deck, she finds Bobby's old deck and the text says it was an onosundi hardly more than a toy , which both gets across that we are now years in the future because I think it might be before that's explicitly stated in the text, but also the March technology. Because in previous books we were told that an ono sendai deck was hot stuff . You know, that was that was what all the deckers wanted . All the cowboy, what are they called console jockeys in this? And then the second one is when she's doing some STIM and the quote is she settled the trods across her temples one of the world's characteristic human gestures which just says so much about the ubiquity of the matrix of jacking in, of Sim STIM. Again, they're just like , not that they're throwaway, but they're so efficiently delivered and they tell you so much about the world without being didactic about it, without explicitly telling you. I love it. Well, that's I was thinking about that in the context of all of our gestures that we now have for like using our phones. Tap Tap and swipe or something. Yeah. And it's like people just do that now. People get out their phones that.' Ands just a thing that and Gibson, like this is the, this is the stuff. This is why yes, he is a literary author writing science fiction, but like his one of his powers this observation about culture intersects with and interacts with technology and the drive and the advancement of technology . He's a great cultural anthropologist. Yeah. I mean, that's his whole thing, I think. Yeah, I think so. He's a literary cultural anthropologist . And you see it in. I mean those examples are great examples of that. The idea that when you get a new technology, there ends up being obviously it changes us and it changes our body language if it if it is going to, if it's that popular it will change our body language and it's not it's not VR troes but it is like our smartphones and our wireless headphones and things like that. We absolutely have that now. And it is the , you know, change in commodification of products and adoption of , you know, certain kinds of products as a cultural signifier and you know, and yes, also jackets. Jackets are also part of that jacket because it's fashion 'cause it's fashion it's fashion and culture and that's all part of it fashion into cyberspace. Yeah, oh jacket into cyberspace. That'll be that'll be a retrospective. That'll be like a retrospective novel or no, like a scholarly work about Gibson will be jacked into cyberspace. There it goes. A museum exhibit, something like that. Oh my God in hindsight , now having I mean, for Erica, it's just sight. This is my sight But we're all looking back at the trilogy. Some of us looking way back or having revisited it and maybe having our opinion changed, Erica just has walked through them. I'm wondering how you view the trilogy now having read all three because what I always used to say in the nineties was everybody talks about Neuromancer and it's great, but he gets better as he goes, and Mona Lisa Overdrive is the best book of the three . And I'm not sure I would say that now only because that's lived in my head for thirty years, twenty years . And I really enjoy all the details and I do think he's a he can see him being a better writer , but I've appreciated I think I appreciated count zero more than I expected this time and maybe maybe it's just that , but I don't you know, Motolis over drive, again, the characters are fun. I do think that there's an aspect of it finishing a trilogy in a way where the author kind of doesn't really care about the big revelations of the trilogy that, you know, I know I'm no longer like, oh to be there in a New York minute aliens at Alpha Centauri, this is going to be great. Now I'm just like, yeah, but that's just the end and it doesn't really matter because it's not about that. Really ? So I find myself being less like, oh, this is the best of the three and more like it's good , but I'm actually warmer toward count zero than I was in my memory , which surprises me, but that's where I am. As everybody else, I would love to hear your thoughts about this as a trilogy, having accomplished the very difficult job of having read them all again for this podcast. You know, I was I think my experience of reading Mona Lisa Overdrive was the most fun that I had of the three. And part of that is because it's award reading season and it's a bit of a slog swit.ch Soing over to something that I found fun and frenetic as models overdrive was like an extra boost of adrenaline and fun . But I think overall , my favorite book is Count Zero because it also had that fun propulsive feeling and I had already trained my brain on what this world was like in the first book . So and the fact that there is plot that is also driving and I liked the characters in Count Zero as well. So I feel like it has all of the flavors mushed together in one. And I think the characters are more well developed here in Mon a Lisa Overdrive, but taking the world that is created in Nuromancer and the characters that are, you know, the stylist that character style is sort of perfected in Mon a Lisa Overdrive and putting a really interesting plot, which also sort of happened in Nuromancer. They all come together in the middle of the sandwich . And for me, I mean, bread's nice, but it's the middle of the sandwich that I really love. So for me, it's it's definitely count zero. I think so we've said, yeah, Gibson writes in trilogies, but anybody who has read Gibson for a while , it's plain to see that he doesn't plan those trilogies You know, like he 's his interests take him . They're loose trilogies. They're they're shared settings more than they are like big stories driven by. That's what I'm saying. Like he doesn't he doesn't sit there with the first book and think oh, okay and this is how books two and three are gonna go, which is how many authors do plan their trilogies. It's clearly not. And so where they end is just it's kind of just another book with as you say this shared setting and maybe some shared characters. So Mona Lisa Overdrive was never my favorite book of the sprawl trilogy. It's still not my favorite book. I'm afraid my favorite book is Neuromancer, which I know he's the least sophisticated of them, but it's so energetic and propulsive that I just absolutely love it. What I will say though is I am full of admiration for Mona Lisa Overdrive as an author and as a piece of literature for all the reasons that we've just talked about, right? But even before I was a writer, you know, when I first read it, I knew that I was seeing Gibbson grow more and more sophisticated and I could tell that this was the most sophisticated and the best written of the three books. It's just that the whole like, oh actually the plot's happening over there and we're looking at these characters here. It is it's very well written and I still enjoy reading it. You know, it's one of those things where even the worst Gibson is still way better than the best of many other people . But nevertheless in the context of the sprawl trilogy, it's not really what I was looking for . And so yeah, it's say I still enjoy reading it, but if I want to read one book of this trilogy over and over again, I always return to Neuromancer. Yeah, I agree actually. I think I'm with everybody on Count Zero , I just it has a really driving plot. There's all kinds of stuff happening, but it all seems to be leading to again to one point, right? But there's just there's something like a little more maybe it's because more of it takes place in the sprawl and this book takes place in kind of more spread out places with fewer people and less except for those scenes with London. Yeah, I mean I know London, right? But there's not that many people they interact with in London is what it feels like. Yeah. Anyway, I think count zero holds together I think better as a story and it feels like there are different stakes, maybe bigger stakes and it's also more obscure at the same time. So there's just there's just like more to sort of have in your head and figure and this one we kind of already know all the players. We don't necessarily know the AI is manipulating things until it starts to become clear, but it feels like we're watching somebody go through favorite motions and it's enjoyable . It really' goods st orytelling, really enjoy the characters, but it doesn't have that, I mean, you'd say that at the outset, Jason, it doesn't have that the plot in the same way. And so for fans of character, maybe this novel fans of plot maybe count zero. Well, this is my favorite of the three . I love Mona Lisa Overdrive. It's the one that I do return to , and I was thinking about why because it's not the plot, obviously . Yeah I think I just really love the world building and I love imagining or getting a sense of the dizzying contrasts between the different worlds everybody lives in and through. Because you've got two narrative threads where it's people scraping by on the fringes and in extreme poverty and then two extremely privileged threads and watching watching that clash is always a lot of fun. I found that I liked count zero a whole lot more on reading it with you guys this time and yeah same. As somebody who has now had life experience around teenage boys Yeah . You know, I what I really love is Gibson is phenomenally sympathetic to teenage protagonists and just writes Bobby in such a hilarious way. Like I didn't pick up on that when I first read that as a teenager myself and now as somebody who's watching their kids deal with teenage boys, I'm like, oh my god See, those of us who were teenage boys, we knew that the first time I heard that's it. I really feel like Neuromancer didn't have to be a trilogy. I think it's very much a standalone book and one of the reasons that this trilogy , I think gets compelling is because it branches off in such weird new directions like we didn't have , well, there's book one and then book two is Revenge of three Jane, and book three is Molly Returns. It's not like that at all. It's just this weird branching gentle expansion of the existing premise. And I think that's what I like the most about it is because again, Gibson has almost no interest in narrative and all the interest in world building. I just really like that you're taking this tour through an increasingly complex world and every once in a while there are east eggs where like hey it's that guy or hey it's that thing. I really love that. Like that's what I like to sink into. To be clear and, I think I said this in the count zero episode. Although as I say, Euromancer is my favorite of the trilogy, if Gibbson had just written Neuromancer two and Neuromancer III , it would have been terrible. Yeah, you know, like he would not be the author that we think of would Jane . Right. He would not have become case he would not have become the sort of he would not have become the figure in literature that he has . You know, I'm sure they would have been fine books, but he would not be the Gibson that we know and love. So I'm very glad he didn't do that. I didn't want him to have done that. It just yeah, it is still my favorite of these particular three. Lisa Shirley would be four genee and then five gen and then you know seven gene fast confirmers Just imagine a case nothing. One of the genes brings me back in again. Didn't you say there were nine of each . Yeah. So those we have it now it's forget that it's eighty one Janes now that's how they do that. Yeah, it is. When I said I said very specifically count zero is the one that has risen the most in my estimation. Our conversation about it really b rought home a lot of reasons. So people should if you haven't listened to that episode why you're listening to this one, but go ahead. That's a good one that I think really made me appreciate that more. I think the one that I would revisit singularly is probably neurom ancer because that's where it all started and that's got all the things you expect to see in terms of cyberspace, deck, jockeying and all of that kind of stuff . But they're all they're all good and fun and the world is really interesting and the characters are great. I wanted to read a little clip from the New York Times review of this book because please, please. I actually agree with you. It's not a super it's not like a universally positive review. It's a little bit critical, but in ways that I think I agree with. So this is just the end of it. He says the four main characters in Mona Lisa Overdrive are innocents and Nafes who move through the novel with all the autonom y of passengers in a ride at Disneyland , not wrong. Only in retrospect, however, is Mona Lisa overdrive a disappointment. Zing by Zing, its forty five chapters provide a sufficiency of non nutritive fun fun . And which I mean , again, I like it better than that, but like it's not wrong in that if you're reading it to like see what happens, nothing happens . But this is the last part. As with neuromancer, the plot is strictly from nineteen forty six but knowingly slow, like a Brian DePalma film Noir. Indeed, the book , this is so great because again, this is nineteen eighty eight, the book virtually begs to be filmed. There is a climactic duel between police helicopter s and customized robots, a juicy double role for the leading lady, lots of martial arts hugger mugger performed by a leather clad wonder woman. Everything except a title song for Madonna or Cydney Law for it's nineteen eighty eight to sing good luck as the credits roll. And what I wanted to say about this is it's not wrong like about what's strong and what's weak about this book. And what I find fascinating is this whole review which was written by Thomas Dish, the science fiction novelist , this whole review is assuming that all of these books are going to be made into movies. And of course, what happened is none of them none of them were made into movies . Instead, we got a lot of like we got there was there was the there was Johnny Nemonic. There were a bunch of knockoff movies. There was really the matrix , which got it right, but also made it impossible to make these movies. And only now are we about to get an Apple TV series of Neuromancer. So we'll see how that goes, but what I couldn't stop thinking while reading Modolisa Overdrive and really count zero two is this would I think work as an eight episode whatever prestige TV series because you've got al,though even then, the executive producers might need to do a little extra work on the back We need to see and we need a fifth character who's actually driving things. Yeah. A little bit, just enough of a thread to follow through , but I actually think that today's modern TV series that are given the time to show you this world and let you dwell with the characters and not be driven as much by the overarching plot would be a way that you could make this work on the screen. So I'm hopeful for the Neuromancer series, but I was thinking about it reading this book as well that like you can't make a movie of this, I don't think because all you'll be left with before the Madonna song rolls over the credits is like they spent all their money on the helicopters and the robots and stuff and it's like, well that's not I mean that's fun but that's not what the book is about and if you got to spend time with these four characters and their assorted supporting casts , I think you would have a much more interesting TV shower movie. It would be a Transformers movie Michael Bay would direct it. Yes This is why. I love Monoley's overdrive though is it's no thoughts just vibes. I mean what it opens up with Angela going to a Malibu beach house and he describes how the salt spray has worn the iron railings on the deck to wrist thin and she has dehydrated swiss soup and she's wearing thick white socks. You're like you're like, I'm just gonna I'm just going to vibe in this world for a while with you know, with the, ocean going and some surveillance robots. Actually another thing out of this review which is which is it's really smart. It's a really smart review is he says that something that what Lisa said about Malibu, like the Malibu scenes are really creepy because Malibu is basically deserted . And what the Times review says is decoded the implications tell us that this is a world made nearly uninhabitable by industrial waste under constant surveillance in which almost all monetary transactions are controlled by computer, well that's today. A world in which visual illusion is as cheap as canned sound is today . He excels at piling up such implications to make a self consistent gritty, textured future junk heap of a world. And it's like that is the malibu p thing was really what brought that home to me and also thinking about like the Palisade fires and things like that, but like Malibu, Florida, New Jersey, the New Jersey wasteland, like everywhere you turn and even London , which I think is another antony, remember we were talking about how Count Zero kind of like and Lisa too, I remember we were all like this is kind of like proto pattern recognition . The London in this book is proto agency peripheral depopulation where there's nobody there's nobody there. And he never talks about why any of these things has happened but it's very clear from the implications that there's this world draculas which were a symptom of social unrest . Yeah. I'm sure what happened there was Gibson came to London, saw some goths of mine I'm gonna make them. I suppose you were your friends? Yeah, never know . And well, he's fascinating about the Malibu thing again because it comes up in the in the Edoro trilogy too, where Shavet spends some time at a beach house in Malibu. And the only reason that's poss ible is an industrial accident has closed down that portion of the Pacific Sea board. So the real so everyone's squatting in these abandoned houses on the coast hence the bridge and you get and you get the that's also how you get the you're talking about a luxurious location, but now he gets to play the game where it's fallen into disarray and has become kind of something completely different. I just that's one of the things that's great about this whole thing is that is that it's all there in the background, but it's not like he never all he does is show you the grounded, yeah. Yeah. I got to say there's one thing he predicted accurately about the future is battery life, of course because, Colin says, you know, oh should I jack myself up so I'm more less transparent? He's like , it would run the battery down too fast. You still can't do tiny batteries that last forever. Support also has a limit for the power goes perfect. Also, I just want to mention Jason, you say you mentioned agency, which is still Gibson's last published novel , you know, some years on. That's a great example actually of a book where there's almost no story and what story there is entirely driven by an AI. Like the whole book is basically a character being moved around by an AI. It's ironic for a book that's called agency. I Now have wondered if that's deliberately ironic because she does nothing. She's just doing everything at the whim of an AI and I find the book quite disappointing as a result of that. Yeah that's why I prefer the peripheral to that but it does continue this theme that Gibson keeps rehears ing to. Yeah, oh yeah and the peripheral is you talk about Gibson's books being adapted. The agency was adapted for a one season and then cancelled Amazon series and this is pretty good good. It's a series, yeah. Yeah, a pretty good Wild Palms Gipps original though, right? Yeah, not based on something that he but he wrote it, he wrote that. Yeah, I really liked it. Wild Palms? Yes. I remember times. It had what's your face nurse ratchet in Gibson Gibson cameos in it, but he didn't write it. Oh, really? Bruce Wright wrote it. Oh , oh, I remember his appearance. That's funny. Yeah. No, he wrote a couple of episodes with Tom Maddox. He did. But yeah, the gibs were very good actually. So I think maybe they weren't that great. The Gibson adaptation is really like Johnny Memonic and the peripheral. I think that I love the peripheral. I do like it. I love Johnny Monic more than most. I honestly think it's kind of unjustly maligned . You know, it is in hindsight it is better and a better adaptation. It's just that it mucks with the short story so much for not really good reasons that on release, it was a disappointment, obviously, but I think actually it's not that bad. You can listen to our rocket surgery episode. Oh , listen , really. I tell you what, the day I was rereading Neuromancer and realized that Molly was telling us what happened to Johnny and it wasn't happily ever after like the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. And I was like, oh my gosh, he went there It's like such a great short story and then you're like, oh no one no one stays happy for long. They just have to keep moving case case case retirement case turner in the in count zero right presumably lives happily ever after out on the farm . I would love to find out . No, that they have that mention where he's on the farm and he raises the child. And I would just live like a throwaway line somewhere where you find out there's a farmer who moves like something else ?be May . Maybe in his third and final peripheral trilogy book , he will reveal that there's a whole stub where the sprawl happened. And tell us everything that happened in there and then and then you'll get that would become gray ashley. That would be kind of hilarious, right? Like he's if he's going to play with parallel universes, he could do he could do anything he wants . All right , this has been a great conversation. I don't know where we're going to go next. Maybe we'll read some more classic William Gibson novels at some point. That would be kind of fun . I don't know even whether Erica will go along for the ride again or not. Erica like this go for you You know, I these aren't books that would have drawn me without the lure of talking about them with you , but it is so fun dive into these , I mean, they're old. They're old books now. I hate saying that, but it is true basically . And seeing them with fresh today eyes and being able to talk to people who read them back when is just such a delight. And I really did enjoy the experience of reading those books. Like, I'm not saying that I wouldn't ever read them. I just wouldn't have been drawn to them without you guys. So yeah, if you want to continue the William Gibson book club, I will sign up. All right , nice. Let me thank my panelists for going on this trilogy journey with me . I got very excited . the way By, I thought that we would we would not finish by the time the Neuromancer TV show came out, but it's still not even an air data. So who knows what's going on with that. So maybe we'll revisit that when that comes out almost certainly u.nt Butil then , Lisa Schmeiser, thank you so much. I love talking William Gibson with you. I know you love talking about him. I do, and thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I really enjoyed this. Anthony Johnston, everything I said about Lisa is also true for you. You too are those