Reviews and Comments

I took the novel's first two parts as interesting feminist sci-fi. Appreciated how well it set up contrasts in how societies deal with sex, gender, relationships, as well as their inability to address their blindnesses and collapse.

In the third part, however, the society is described to have faults that, to me, felt made only to emphasized Mark's superiority as an individual. They are not as considered, do not seem to follow from certain events of premises as well as in the previous parts. Instead, the novel turned to something more like like Ayn Rand's: full of straw men acting too stupidly and stubbornly, there to only to illustrate the superiority of one with an individual will and self-sufficiency. How disappointing.

"In a moment savagely and perfectly incapable of interpretation, they were all the things the fly up out of life... you might have more or less of a sense that the things you saw were describable as 'real.' In fact, that wasn't a distinction you needed to make until you crossed inside."

About 2/3 of the way through Mona Lisa Overdrive and I'm quite taken with it; though it builds upon Count Zero and Neuromancer and repeats a lot of its structure and themes, it feels like Gibson is working through his ideas more thoroughly, more thoughtfully? Doesn't mean it's any more subtle, and he again feels like adding some very bare explainer pages in as catch-up for people—who aren't paying attention?

Not subtle, but still interesting: the bare parallels between world-famous simstim star and poor, underage prostitute; Slick's relationship to Gentry who allows him to live in Factory; the vampire imagery.

There's a lot of Running Dog that moves because of desire and acquisitiveness, but its last third is more about showing this all to be a weird, self-referential way of holding yourself up against the inevitability of death? Consumerism and sex and conspiracy all ways to make a second self that is humble and domesticated and liked by others, that can inhabit the same body shooting downward into oblivion (and sometimes taking as many others as it can along with it).

Dunno if I liked it, but it was interesting. DeLillo's novels now more, uh, samey? consonant? with one another to me.

Finally found time together to put this one to bed.