Count Zero

By: William Gibson

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis

Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

A corporate mercenary wakes in a reconstructed body, a beautiful woman by his side. Then Hosaka Corporation reactivates him, for a mission more dangerous than the one he's recovering from: to get a defecting chief of R&D-and the biochip he's perfected-out intact. But this proves to be of supreme interest to certain other parties-some of whom aren't remotely human.

©1986 William Gibson (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

The equilibrium between style and substance

When I was younger I would have told you that neuromancer was the best book of the trilogy due to pure chic tenacity. When I am an old bitter contrarian I assume I will sing only the praises of the abstract “de-evolution” of man or whatever is going on in book three.

But for now and upon a second listen, Count zero is the cyber cat’s digitally approximated meow.

Much Better than Expected

I’ve enjoyed several of Gibson’s books before but Count Zero really took me for a ride. The story was fast and airtight. Excellent job on the narration.

Exceptional visionary storytelling

Character development common thread but not bare. A glimpse into worlds to come.. an extension of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness..complete w an homage

Did not enjoy the narration

This all blended together - hard to differentiate the characters and the pace of the narration wad not enjoyable.

great

loved the narration. guy did a good job of distinguishing the characters, and he did a convincing Australian accent too

almost there

Gibson couldda equaled Necromancer had he left out the Marla character. I'll relisten to try to catch his groove, but the trip wasn't nearly as good as the set up.

Utterly ahead of its time.

When I listen to the trilogy, it feels cutting edge in the present. When in fact, Gibson defines cyberspace—a concept we take for granted. He defined the present.

Less impressive than Neuromancer but it ended well

Neuromancer, predecessor to this book, is one of the best books ever written. Modern movies like The Matrix owe there imagination to that book. This book is in the series and certainly The Matrix of some quantity of credit to this book as well. The Matrix character Morpheus is almost a direct lift from this. However it took about 35% of the book for me to really get into it. I just wasn't sure I liked any characters. It picked up when the characters became more intriguing and more relatable. By 70% I was hooked and I really liked where story it ended. He wrapped it up quite nicely and made me ready to read the next one.

Missing Chapter 17

It's a cyber punk classic but chapter 17 is just a copy of chapter 1.

fantastic narration

this had to be challenging to narrate, with its very diverse cast. but somehow here it seems effortless. the narrator brings each character to life and gives them personality. The only gripe I have is that sometimes the audio levels in some of the female parts is a little low. however, as someone who has done a fair bit of voice over work, I can tell you that the audio level issue is an issue with the audio engineering, not the narrators performance. In any case it's not enough to lower my score.