Mona Lisa Overdrive

Mona Lisa Overdrive is perhaps the least successful of the Sprawl trilogy. Combining the framework of Count Zero with some of the opaque prose of Neuromancer, this novel feels more disjointed or jarring, although Gibson leaving the most intriguing aspect of the matrix for the final pages aligns so well with some of the religious themes of the novel, especially the paradigm of the matrix and Vodou. Nonetheless, one should be glad Gibson included Japanese characters of importance here, mainly Kumiko, since Japan and Japanese ideas are central to his vision. Furthermore, the reader is treated to more of the Sprawl, London in this unusual setting, and New Jersey and Florida. The bleak conditions and unequal society depicted are quite harrowing, but fit perfectly with the previous two novels in establishing Gibson's world. Moreover, the return of Molly makes this required reading, albeit less victorious than Neuromancer. Nothing is as it seems, and perhaps one will never know the first causes.