Mona Lisa Overdrive is the third book of the Sprawl Trilogy by William Gibson. Of the three I’d have to say that I enjoyed it more than the 2nd book Count Zero but less than the 1st book, Neuromancer. I think that’s pretty typical for trilogies though, even for ones as loosely tied together as the Sprawl trilogy.
I’m really glad that Gibson brought back Molly (albiet usually referred to by a different name) for the third book but Count Zero seemed kind of weak character to me after how involved he was in the 2nd book. I also didn’t much care for the way the book was resolved. Gibson’s writing is quite difficult for me to picture and sometimes even follow what’s going on that the ending had me a little confused. I very much prefer Neal Stephenson’s science fiction and am currently reading the Diamond Age. Gibson’s future, while not a dystopia, is not a very positive friendly place. Stephenson envisions a world just as chaotic virtually without governments but advanced in a more optimistic sense and I prefer that optimism.
William Gibson is interestingly the most active person I follow on twitter and he tweets out some pretty interesting stuff. It’s a marvel of technology for him to be able to communicate to so many readers so easily. @greatdismal
Side note: I think it’s interesting that one of the songs in the Matrix written by Juno Reactor is titled Mona Lisa Overdrive, which I mistakenly thought was a fan created short film for the book.
