Count Zero is a science fiction novel by American-Canadian writer William Gibson, originally published in 1986. It presents a near future whose technologies include a network of supercomputers that created a "matrix" in "cyberspace", an accessible, virtual, three-dimensionally active "inner space", which, for Gibson, was seen as being dominated by violent competition between small numbers of very rich individuals and multinational corporations. The novel is composed of a trio of plot lines that ultimately converge.
Count Zero is the second volume of the Sprawl trilogy, which began with Neuromancer and concludes with Mona Lisa Overdrive. It was serialized in the January through March 1986 monthly issues of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine; the January cover was devoted to the story, with art by Hisaki Yasuda.
While Gibson did not introduce the concept or coin the term "cyberpunk", a subgenre of science fiction (nor particularly associated himself with it), he is considered to have first envisioned and described the concept of "cyberspace". The novel, Count Zero, is nonetheless regarded as an early example of the cyberpunk subgenre.
Contents
Publication history
Volume 2 of the Sprawl trilogy, Count Zero follows Neuromancer (1984), with the series being concluded by Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988). It appeared in serial form in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, in the January, February, and March 1986 issues (the January being the 100th of that magazine), where each part was accompanied by black and white art produced by J. K. Potter. The January cover of the magazine was devoted to the story, with art by Hisaki Yasuda. According to a published letter from Gibson, the magazine version was edited with his permission to contain less swearing and sexual content, in part to allow access to youth audiences in the United States.
It was first published in novel form in 1986.
Title
The title of the book is a pseudonym of the main character Bobby Newmark. The front leaf of the book suggests that it is a programming practice on the Zilog Z80 processor, quoting a guide by Rodnay Zaks: "On receiving an interrupt, decrement the counter to zero." While Zaks's guide is real, the quotation is fictitious. In the context of Z80 programming, "zero count" is a signal that the Z8430 timer circuit generates to interrupt the processor when it completes a countdown (the reverse of Gibson's description).
Plot
Introduction
In Count Zero Gibson presents "a high-tech near-future of linked super-computers... [a matrix that] has given rise to "cyberspace," an "inner" space something like a three-dimensional video display... [in a] world is dominated by multinational corporations... a few fabulously rich individuals, and the cutthroat competition between them." Seven years after the events of Neuromancer, strange things begin to happen in the Matrix, leading to the proliferation of what appear to be voodoo gods (hinted to be the fractured remains of the joined AIs that were Neuromancer and Wintermute). Two powerful multinational corporations, Maas Biolabs and Hosaka, are engaged in a battle for control over a powerful new technology, a biochip, using hackers and the Matrix as well as espionage and violence.
Expansive plot summary
As with later Gibson works, Count Zero has multiple story-lines; in it, a trio of plot lines ultimately converge:
Thread One: In the southwestern US, Turner, a corporate mercenary soldier, has been hired by former partner Conroy to help Christopher Mitchell, a brilliant researcher and bio-hacker, make an illegal career move from Maas' corporate fortress built into a mesa in the Arizona desert to Hosaka, a rival corporation. The attempt is a disaster, and Turner ends up escaping with Angie Mitchell, the scientist's young daughter, instead. Implanted in her brain by her father, she carries the secret plans of the construction of the valuable "biosoft" that has made Maas so influential and powerful. This "biosoft" is what multibillionaire Josef Virek (see thread three) ruthlessly pursues so that he can make an evolutionary jump to something resembling omniscience and immortality. During their flight from both Maas and Hosaka agents, Turner and Angie stay with Rudy, the former's estranged brother, and Sally, his partner and caretaker. Rudy identifies a device implanted in Angie's skull: her father had apparently altered her nervous system to allow her to access the Cyberspace Matrix directly, without a "deck" (a computer with an interface directly into the user's brain), but she is not aware of this. During their stay, Turner has a one-night stand with Sally and then leaves with Angie. In the Sprawl he meets with Bobby's group in a shopping mall besieged by agents of Maas and Conroy.
Thread Two: In Barrytown, New Jersey a young amateur computer hacker, Bobby Newmark, self-named "Count Zero", is given a piece of black market software by some criminal associates "to test". When he plugs himself into the matrix and runs the program, it almost kills him. The only thing that saves his life is a sudden image of a girl made of light who interferes and unhooks him from the software just before he flatlines. After fleeing his house (which is immediately thereafter destroyed) he meets Lucas, Beauvoir, and Jackie, a group fascinated by and dedicated to the recent appearance of voodoo deities in Cyberspace, who take him into their protection as they are collectively targeted by various corporate agents. It is eventually revealed that Bobby's mysterious savior is Angie (see Thread One); the two only meet physically at the very end of the book.
Thread Three: Marly Krushkova, the former owner of a Paris art gallery whose reputation was destroyed when she was tricked into trying to sell a forgery, is recruited by ultra-rich, reclusive art patron Josef Virek to find the unknown creator of a series of futuristic collage boxes styled after the work of Joseph Cornell. Unbeknownst to her, the reason behind Virek's interest in these boxes is related to indications of biosoft construction in the design of one, which he suspects may be contained in the others.
Characters
Bobby Newmark. At the beginning of the novel, Bobby is a small-time "cowboy" (hacker) who wants to be a big name in cyberspace. He is given what he naïvely trusts is an "ICE breaker" (hacking software), unaware that he is in fact being used to test some unknown software to see what it does. He is directed to use the software to infiltrate a black ICE database which nearly ends up killing him. The acronym ICE is shorthand for "Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics". The most formidable of these data defense networks are powerful enough to trace back and kill any hacker making an attempt to defeat them. This is legally sanctioned or is, at least, not illegal. But at the last moment Bobby is rescued, while in Cyberspace and dying, by an image of a girl, Angela Mitchell, who is somehow able to enter cyberspace without using a "deck" (computer).
Bobby realizes his target must now know where he lives, so he flees. Shortly after leaving his apartment, he is brutally mugged for his deck and left for dead, only to be rescued and given medical attention by the owners of the software Bobby tried out, a small group who are very interested in what happened to him in Cyberspace. Bobby and Angela (who are roughly the same age) meet at the end of the book. Bobby makes a minor appearance in the third Sprawl novel, Mona Lisa Overdrive.
Turner. Turner (the only name by which he is known in the novel) is a mercenary who is employed by various corporations to help vital employees of competing corporations "defect" to Turner's employers. The novel begins with an account of a job in New Delhi in which Turner was nearly killed by a Slamhound, a type of mobile bomb. After three months of reconstructive surgery in Singapore, Turner takes a vacation in Mexico, where he meets and becomes sexually involved with a woman named Allison. While on the beach with Allison, Turner sees a familiar yacht close to shore and a powerboat from the yacht approaching the beach, bearing the logo of the Hosaka Corporation. Turner tells Allison to leave while he waits for the raft's passenger to come ashore. He already knows that the passenger is Conroy, another mercenary with whom Turner has worked in the past. Conroy recruits Turner for another "extraction" job; this time, Conroy and Turner are to help a man named Christopher Mitchell leave Maas Biolabs for Hosaka. Mitchell carries with him the expertise to design and manufacture "biochips", a technology superior to the nearly ubiquitous silicon microprocessors of the era. Maas Biolabs holds the patents and secrets to biochip technology and will use every means it can to prevent Mitchell's escape. Conroy also reveals that Allison is a "field psychologist" working for Hosaka to monitor Turner and help his recovery.
Impact and reception
In this and his earlier Neuromancer work, Gibson—while not creating, naming, or (per Jack Womack) much wishing to be associated with the term—nevertheless became associated with the cyberpunk moniker subgenre of science fiction; more importantly, he is considered to have first envisioned and described the concept of "cyberspace".
Dave Langford reviewed Count Zero for White Dwarf #76, and stated that "This may not have the impact of Neuromancer's first window on Gibson's future, but it's a far better novel." Count Zero was nominated for the Nebula and British Science Fiction Awards in 1986, as well as the Hugo and Locus awards in 1987.