Burning Chrome

Burning Chrome is collection of William Gibson’s short stories. It is sometimes referred as part zero of Sprawl trilogy. Some stories happen in Sprawl universe but not every story. I probably should have started from this one but I didn’t know its connection to Neuromancer and Sprawl trilogy when I started Neuromancer. After Sprawl trilogy some stories felt familiar. I am not sure if other stories has similar connections as Johnny Mnemonic.

I like Johnny Mnemonic movie. It was big reason why I got Burning Chrome. Movie has core parts from short story but it adds quite a lot to short story. Happy ending being one or should I say happier and more uplifting ending. Short story’s ending isn’t exactly sad. More open ended. I thought Keanu Reeves was bit too much over the top in the movie but it was from the short story.

I liked Flash Gordon reference of second story. Started to wonder how much of other author’s characters you can us in your own story. Maybe just using the name on character which has similar aims without making it big deal doesn’t cross lines.

I enjoyed Burning Chrome more than Sprawl trilogy. Having short tight stories made it easier to follow and stories didn’t extra to make them longer. Mona Lisa Overdrive had too much waiting. Neuromancer had additional scenes to make it longer. Additional scenes broke the flow. Mona Lisa Overdrive took time to get into flow and then jumped into other scene. I have almost forgotten Count Zero already.

This collection is good start if you want to check William Gibson’s work. Last story Burning Chrome gets quite close to Neuromancer. Neuromancer is much more of everything. You get light version of it plus some extra in this book.

Count Zero

Count Zero is sequel to Neuromancer. I listened it as audiobook. This had better narrator than Neuromancer. It was shocking how much narrator having breaks for dramatic effect helped. Neuromancer’s narrator trusted constant flow of words would be enough. But the narrator wasn’t only problem. I have hard time following William Gibson’s text. Book has three stories going on same time. It jumps between them. One chapter started by talking about him and her without telling which story this was. Like I was supposed to guess which it was and remember which one had only man and woman. Previous chapter ended with different man and woman talking by themselves.

That is my problem wit Gibson’s writing. It takes me a while before I get what is going on. This makes his books feel like interesting but disconnected scenes. At least these two I have listened. First should have been easier with one main story. In it problem was to understand where and with who main character was. With three different stories this becomes harder. I wish there was annotated edition of these books which add small section explaining who these characters are, where they are and what happened before each chapter or each change of scene. That would make these easier to read and listen. Based on reviews I am not only one having hard time with these. Some have understood you should praise these books but not everyone.

Again. I don’t hate this or Neuromancer. I just wish these would be easier to follow and easier to combine scenes into one continuous story. Those scenes work and have interesting ideas. Whole thing just needs something to connect it together. Visuals would show who are in the scene and where the scene happens. As far as I know there are no visual versions of these. There is old Neuromancer comic which was cancelled before it finished. Closest thing to visual version is Johnny Mnemonic movie which didn’t do that well. I liked it but it wasn’t popular enough to get more movies.

Neuromancer

It was time to check Neuromancer. It has inspired lot of entertainment I like. There are lot of movies, games and comics inspired by Neuromancer. It is core part of cyberpunk genre. As such it feels familiar even first time. How ever it might not have been good idea to binge it right after 2001: A Space Odyssey. I listened audiobook. I am not sure if it was the text or performance but whole thing felt so continuous flow that it was hard to get what was important. Usually important moments have some sort of build up. Neuromancer is more of constant flow of words.

I had problem to follow different scenes. It felt like book had dream logic flow between scenes. I was understanding what was going on. Then narrator started to describe something and it felt like different scene with different characters. That happened several times. It could be the performance. In 2001: A Space Odyssey everything was clear. Neuromancer was harder to follow. Next book in Sprawl trilogy has different narrator. After it I know if it was the text or the narrator. In 2001 book explained what happened in the movie. This needs movie or comic book to tell what happened.

I went to Wikipedia to check what it says about the plot. Didn’t want to say anything stupid about the story. Even that was hard to follow. And I had just listened the book and was supposed to know the story. And Wikipedia left out couple scenes I wanted to know about. I guess I wasn’t only one having hard time following the story if even Wikipedia writers can’t summarize plot onto easily readable form.

All this may sound like I didn’t like the book. I can see why this is genre defining work. While listening I wanted to know where this is going. It keeps the speed up and throws something at you all the time. It is like any J.J. Abrams’ work where main goal is to keep the thing going on fast and afterwards you are left wondering what actually happened. Pack up you bags kids. Hurry up. We are leaving in half hour to Istanbul to new interesting adventure. No time to internalize what just happened. Unlike J.J. Abrams William Gibson has something to say. It is not style and form over substance.