Join Books.org — it's free

Fiction Subjects, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson — book cover

Mona Lisa Overdrive

by William Gibson
Available on Bookshop Write a review

Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.

Log in to track your reading progress.

Overview

William Gibson, author of the extraordinary multiaward-winning novel Neuromancer, has written his most brilliant and thrilling work to date . . .The Mona Lisa Overdrive.  Enter Gibson's unique world—lyric and mechanical, erotic and violent, sobering and exciting—where multinational corporations and high tech outlaws vie for power, traveling into the computer-generated universe known as cyberspace.  Into this world comes Mona, a young girl with a murky past and an uncertain future whose life is on a collision course with internationally famous Sense/Net star Angie Mitchell.  Since childhood, Angie has been able to tap into cyberspace without a computer.  Now, from inside cyberspace, a kidnapping plot is masterminded by a phantom entity who has plans for Mona, Angie, and all humanity, plans that cannot be controlled . . . or even known.  And behind the intrigue lurks the shadowy Yazuka, the powerful Japanese underworld, whose leaders ruthlessly manipulate people and events to suit their own purposes . . . or so they think.

The award-winning William Gibson goes beyond science fiction to the broader mainstream fiction audience. His unique world features multinational corporations and high-tech outlaws vying for power, traveling the computer-generated universe.

Synopsis

William Gibson, author of the extraordinary multiaward-winning novel Neuromancer, has written his most brilliant and thrilling work to date . . .The Mona Lisa Overdrive.  Enter Gibson's unique world—lyric and mechanical, erotic and violent, sobering and exciting—where multinational corporations and high tech outlaws vie for power, traveling into the computer-generated universe known as cyberspace.  Into this world comes Mona, a young girl with a murky past and an uncertain future whose life is on a collision course with internationally famous Sense/Net star Angie Mitchell.  Since childhood, Angie has been able to tap into cyberspace without a computer.  Now, from inside cyberspace, a kidnapping plot is masterminded by a phantom entity who has plans for Mona, Angie, and all humanity, plans that cannot be controlled . . . or even known.  And behind the intrigue lurks the shadowy Yazuka, the powerful Japanese underworld, whose leaders ruthlessly manipulate people and events to suit their own purposes . . . or so they think.

Publishers Weekly

Gibson burst upon the scene in 1984 with Neuromancer, a revolutionary, innovative novel that not only gathered up just about every award in the SF field, but also virtually invented a new sub-genre, which has come to be called ``cyberpunk.'' He followed it with Count Zero , set in the same neon-lit, over-urbanized, polluted, high-tech future; an even better novel, it was necessarily not as breathtakingly unfamiliar and inventive as the first. This new novel completes the series, following the lives of some of the characters from the previous books (Bobby Newmark, Count Zero himself, is here) as well as many new ones, particularly Angie Mitchell, star of simstims and idol of millions, who is intuitively sensitive to cyberspace and the vodun deities that are its manifestations. Told in a gorgeous, highly compressedalmost poeticstyle that requires the reader's attention and intelligence, this very satisfying novel can stand on its own. Major ad/promo; author tour. (Nov.)

About the Author, William Gibson

William Gibson's feat of imagination, embodied by the seminal "cyberpunk" novel Neuromancer and subsequent sci-fi techno titles, was in presaging the Information Age and coining some of its language even as he remained a technological laggard who eschewed computers.

Reviews

There are no reviews yet. Log in to write one.

Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gibson burst upon the scene in 1984 with Neuromancer, a revolutionary, innovative novel that not only gathered up just about every award in the SF field, but also virtually invented a new sub-genre, which has come to be called ``cyberpunk.'' He followed it with Count Zero , set in the same neon-lit, over-urbanized, polluted, high-tech future; an even better novel, it was necessarily not as breathtakingly unfamiliar and inventive as the first. This new novel completes the series, following the lives of some of the characters from the previous books (Bobby Newmark, Count Zero himself, is here) as well as many new ones, particularly Angie Mitchell, star of simstims and idol of millions, who is intuitively sensitive to cyberspace and the vodun deities that are its manifestations. Told in a gorgeous, highly compressedalmost poeticstyle that requires the reader's attention and intelligence, this very satisfying novel can stand on its own. Major ad/promo; author tour. (Nov.)

Library Journal

Able to enter the vast data network known as ``cyberspace'' at will, Sense/Net celebrity Angie Mitchell becomes the center of a bizarre kidnap/murder scheme in which her only allies are the daughter of a Japanese mobster, a cybernetically enhanced assassin, and a computer ``cowboy'' who lives entirely in the confines of cyberspace. Gibson's dazzling, high-tech prose enhances the drama of this sequel to Count Zero . Recommended for sf collections. JC

Thomas Disch

The new novel has plenty of flash...quick, high-intensity glimpses that linger on the retina of the imagination. -- New York Times Book Review

Book Details

Published
February 1, 1997
Publisher
Random House Publishing Group
Pages
320
Format
Mass Market Paperback
ISBN
9780553281743

More by William Gibson

Similar books