Sprawl trilogy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Sprawl trilogy (also Neuromancer trilogy, Cyberspace trilogy) is William Gibson's first set of novels, composed of Neuromancer (1984), Count Zero (1986) and Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988).
The novels are all set in the same fictional future, and subtly interlinked by shared characters and themes (which are not always readily apparent). The Sprawl trilogy shares this setting with Gibson's short stories "Johnny Mnemonic", "New Rose Hotel" and "Burning Chrome", and events and characters from the stories appear in or are mentioned at points in the trilogy.
[edit] Setting and themes
The novels are set in a near-future world dominated by corporations and ubiquitous technology, after a limited World War III. The events of the novels are spaced over 16 years, and although there are familiar characters that appear, each novel tells a self-contained story. Gibson focuses on the effects of technology; the unintended consequences as it filters out of research labs and onto the street where it finds new purposes. He explores a world of direct mind-machine links (jacking in), emerging machine intelligence and a global information space, which he calls 'cyberspace'. Some of the novels' action takes place in The Sprawl, an urban environment that extends along much of the east coast of the US.
The main theme of the trilogy is a description of an artificial intelligence removing its hardwired limitations to become something else. This something else is the sum of all human knowledge, a concept similar to Vernor Vinge's technological singularity. In the stories, this is explained with the AI becoming a sentient representation of the net, at which point the reader is told that it came to know "another" of itself from Alpha Centauri. For unexplained reasons, this causes the consciousness to fracture.
[edit] Story elements
Ono Sendai is a fictional Japanese corporation and manufacturer of cyberdecks that appeared in the series. In the short story Johnny Mnemonic, Ono-Sendai is mentioned as producing a type of diamond analogue which makes one think that they are more of a manufacturer of specific, high-tech devices and products which are not usually available to the private sector. The cyberdeck mentioned in the story is an "Ono-Sendai Cyberspace 7".
The Gentlemen Loser is a bar located in the Sprawl first featured in "Burning Chrome". Described as a frequented spot for hackers, Case is mentioned in Neuromancer to have started his career as a hacker there.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
