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.

almost perfect

Davis' quirk of jarringly emphasizing the wrong word in a phrase, usually an adjective, mars an otherwise flawless experience.

It’s a lot!

I did enjoy it a lot but found myself having to rewind more than I would like. I credit it to the writing didn’t really lend itself to audiobook format and jumping to different characters so often was a little confusing. Would be great for a tv series though. Narrator does a decent job, not my favorite but decent.

Amazing Narrator

I already loved this book, but this narrator is one of the best I’ve ever heard. Maybe better than RC Bray!

Sequel to Neuromancer, great book, amazing narrat.

This is a great book of the cyberpunk genre and a sequel to Neuromancer. Society as we know it has broken down, hackers (cowboys or cyberspace-deck-jockeys) and private security are being hired to do the bidding of multinational companies. AI, the matrix, advanced biotech... all kinds of cool stuff are going down. These are all forming the background to three interesting stories that converge into the same one.

Davis' narration is amazing. The intensity, the speed, the voices, the accents... it is perfect. It is essentially because of his narration that I listen to more audio books and have joined audible. (I would also recommend Snow Crash and the Windup Girl, also narrated by Davis)

One warning is that Gibson's writing is very dense. Gibson's cyberpunk jargon is in every sentence and concentration is needed in order to understand things. You may still get the overall story, but this kind of writing is quite clever and it is fun to fully understand where the terms are coming from, so I recommend that you listen to this audio book in a setting where you can fully concentrate and you can make use of the rewind and forward buttons sometimes. I do this while walking.

Overall: a great cyberpunk novel from 1986 that feels like it's from 2006 and an amazing narration.

Meh

Just couldn't get into it. I do art on my computer all day and I like to listen to books while I work so this may be my fault. Half of the characters have a real name and a handle and it was really hard to keep them straight because of the monotone delivery of the narrator. Sometimes in a scene it felt like there were twice as many characters in the room because they all sounded the same (or barely different) and each one was had two or three names. For instance Bobby, Count, Zero, Count Zero or just Kid. I realize this was one of the main characters and so he had more names but there were many like this. I'm sure if I had used my full attention I would have been able to keep it straight but if I could use my full attention I would READ books.

This book could have definitely benefitted from a more expressive narrator.

My favorite of William Gibson’s trilogy . . . . . . 😱

Inconsistent at times but remarkable for being written in 1986 . A classic and must read sci-go . . . . 😱
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5 stars is great (I rarely give this rating).
4 stars is good (given only to interesting and well-written books).
3 stars is OK (the usual listen I encounter on Audible).
2 stars is poor (and not worth the credit or the listen).
1 star is awful (and to be diss'ed and shunned and spread as thus through out the Audible Universe)!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 😱

More Cyber, Less Punk

William Gibson is known as one of the pioneers of the cyber-punk world, and his novels and short stories are often considered the archetypes of the genre. Count Zero is the second book of what is known as the Sprawl Trilogy, and takes place sometime after Neuromancer. The cast and crew are only loosely related to that previous book, so fans of the characters of the first should be forewarned that this is not really a continuation of that story, but instead tells a new story in the same world.

There are several points of view that are juggled, bringing together, at the whole, a coherent narrative. There is a mercenary with a violent past who is trying to help a scientist break free of the corporation that employees him so he can defect to a different one, the wannabe hacker who has no idea what the real world is like until he is thrown to the wolves, and the art curator who is struggling to find her way after she ran into problems with some forgeries. As three separate character arcs, there seems to be little to connect them, but as things unfold, the reader gets to see how these tiny strands of fate intertwine into a larger picture.

Gibson manages to write future-tech without it being dated even in an era when the reader has seen some of these things come to pass. He provides just enough detail to allow a reader to understand and visualize a scene and the events without getting bogged down in the details. The characters, while not deep, are interesting and consistent, and the overall progression of the characters is well done. Much like his previous works, though, he does not always explain the "how" of things- the reader is encouraged to accept some things at face value and not spend too much time looking for the man behind the curtain.

Jonathan Davis does an excellent job with the narration. His stylistic choices for voices and tone, in my view, are a good fit for both the story and the characters. There were no obvious auditory blemishes to take a listener out of the story. In particular, one minor character's voice reminds me of the actor Bruce Dern, specifically his performance in "Down Periscope", and I found that to help sell the personality of the character in question.

Fans of Johnny Mnemonic, Neuromancer, or Blade Runner will likely find a great deal of enjoyment in Count Zero, as the tone and feel is similar. For those who have approached cyberpunk through things like Snow Crash, this may feel less familiar, but should still be an interesting experience. For readers who are new to the genre are probably better suited to starting with Neuromancer, as it sets up some of the concepts touched on here.

Overall, Count Zero is an excellent addition to a sci-fi or cyberpunk fans's library. It lacks some of the directness of Neuromancer but gains a sense of the real world that was lacking in that novel. Well worth the full price of admission.

Excellent Cyberpunk

Count Zero has corporate wars, godlike A.I.s, and hacking. It is the second novel in sprawl series and takes place 7 years after the book Neuromancer. This classic novel is a view into the nature of humanity in a dark technological future. Read it. #Cyberpunk #Dystopian #SprawlSeries #Nostalgic #Tagsgiving #Sweepstakes

Best Book.

The cyber was very punk. Loved the science, and the fiction. Good sexual tension between Billy and Lucas.

Great story, but the sound could be better

Narration wise the quality is a little low. Jonathan Davis' voice is at times annoyingly mellow or downright low. This is offset by his very sharp S-sounds, so often when having turned the volume up, one gets an ear piercingly loud barrage of Ssss. Other than that the book is excellent - just don't listen in a crowded or noicy space. ☺️