this is the voice of re:mote induction.Tuesday, December 16, 2003
count zero - rather than carting the hardback of quicksilver over to germany (or finishing savage girl for that matter...), i decided to go for the long promised re-read of william gibson's count zero. i had read neuromancer again after finishing pattern recognition, and been promising myself count zero since, of course now i'm in the mood to go for mona lisa overdrive and have done with it. but i'll stick with quicksilver, and at least get it cleared before i go back.
count zero is classic. following three threads, alternating three characters until it becomes clear that their stories are all connected to the big picture. starting by blowing turner to bits in chapter one is a memorable move for me - the description of the hound set on him in india, the subsequent rebuilding, and flight from his past, all so vivid. following that i guess we start with the low point of all the character's narratives - bobby pulls a wilson, just about flatlining on his first run into the matrix as a cowboy, marly is a disgraced gallery manager who tried to sell a forgery and has been in hiding since.
it is funny to think how hard, hi-tech and baffling i found the sprawl series when i first read it way back. i think this is my third reading of the cycle, and now it doesn't seem quite as hard, the tech seems to be just about right, and things start to make a lot more sense. given all that it probably explains why pattern recognition is set in a now, rather than percieved future.
need to go for mona lisa overdrive soon. then what? another re-read of snow crash wouldn't go a miss. and i keep promising myself to re-read headlong by simon ings, and to start again from the start with ken macleod, go for star fraction and join the dots out from there. but of course there are so many new things that are waiting to be read at the moment.
count zero is classic. following three threads, alternating three characters until it becomes clear that their stories are all connected to the big picture. starting by blowing turner to bits in chapter one is a memorable move for me - the description of the hound set on him in india, the subsequent rebuilding, and flight from his past, all so vivid. following that i guess we start with the low point of all the character's narratives - bobby pulls a wilson, just about flatlining on his first run into the matrix as a cowboy, marly is a disgraced gallery manager who tried to sell a forgery and has been in hiding since.
it is funny to think how hard, hi-tech and baffling i found the sprawl series when i first read it way back. i think this is my third reading of the cycle, and now it doesn't seem quite as hard, the tech seems to be just about right, and things start to make a lot more sense. given all that it probably explains why pattern recognition is set in a now, rather than percieved future.
need to go for mona lisa overdrive soon. then what? another re-read of snow crash wouldn't go a miss. and i keep promising myself to re-read headlong by simon ings, and to start again from the start with ken macleod, go for star fraction and join the dots out from there. but of course there are so many new things that are waiting to be read at the moment.
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