Count Zero
Turner, 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: Maas-Neotek's chief of R&D is defecting. Turner is the one assigned to get him out intact, along with the biochip he's perfected. But this proves to be of supreme interest to certain other parties--some of whom aren't remotely human. Bobby Newmark is entirely human: a rustbelt data-hustler totally unprepared for what comes his way when the defection triggers war in cyberspace. With voodoo on the Net and a price on his head, Newmark thinks he's only trying to get out alive. The second novel of William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy, *Count Zero* is a stylish, streetsmart, frighteningly probable parable of the future and sequel to Neuromancer.
Themes & atmosphere
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What you might want to know about Count Zero
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Years after Neuromancer, three storylines tangle: a wounded mercenary on a corporate extraction job, a young console cowboy named Bobby Newmark, and an art dealer chasing the maker of haunting boxed assemblages.
Yes. Count Zero is the second book in William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy, after Neuromancer and before Mona Lisa Overdrive. Each book has different protagonists, but the world and references reward reading in order.
Yes. The Sprawl trilogy comprises Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive. Gibson moved on to other settings after the trilogy, including the Bridge trilogy and the Blue Ant trilogy.
Count Zero was written by William Gibson, published in 1986 by Ace.
Count Zero is 295 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Count Zero takes most readers 4 to 6 hours to finish.
Count Zero is a standalone novel by William Gibson, not part of a series.
Count Zero is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.