Notes In The Margin

In college I took a overview of Science Fiction with Richard Sherry. We read, among other things, Neuromancer by William Gibson.

It made no sense to me at all.

I read it again, years later, after working with the Internet for a few years, and it made much more sense.

A few weeks ago I started reading Mona Lisa Overdrive, and realized about half way into it that it was the same people as in Neuromancer, and that Count Zero came between them.

I finished Count Zero yesterday, and am now picking up where I left off in Mona Lisa Overdrive.

Overdrive is one of those science fiction stories that folks tell you you're supposed to read, along with Foundation, and Snow Crash, and Hitchhiker's Guide, but for whatever reason I never did, even though I started the trilogy 20 years ago.

I don't know how anybody could understand the story, however, without having read Neuromancer, but many of the people I've talked to who have read Overdrive, haven't read the first two. I think I might go back and read Neuromancer again, to clarify a few points.

What I enjoy the most about Gibson - and, indeed, much of the science fiction written around the same time - is seeing what he got right and what he got wrong about technology, and what he predicts is still to come as we run out of resources, but continue to push the envelope with technology.