The Sprawl trilogy is William Gibson

William Gibson

William Gibson is an American-Canadian science fiction author.William Gibson may also refer to:-Association football:*Will Gibson , Scottish footballer...

's first set of novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

s, composed of Neuromancer

Neuromancer

Neuromancer is a 1984 novel by William Gibson, a seminal work in the cyberpunk genre and the first winner of the science-fiction "triple crown" — the Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, and the Hugo Award. It was Gibson's debut novel and the beginning of the Sprawl trilogy...

(1984), Count Zero

Count Zero

Count Zero is a science fiction novel written by William Gibson, originally published 1986. It is the second volume of the Sprawl trilogy, which begins with Neuromancer and concludes with Mona Lisa Overdrive, and is a canonical example of the cyberpunk sub-genre.Count Zero was serialized by Isaac...

(1986), and Mona Lisa Overdrive

Mona Lisa Overdrive

Mona Lisa Overdrive is a cyberpunk novel by William Gibson published in 1988 and the final novel of the Sprawl trilogy, following Neuromancer and Count Zero. It takes place eight years after the events of Count Zero and is set, as were its predecessors, in The Sprawl...

(1988).

The novels are all set in the same fictional future, and are 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

New Rose Hotel

"New Rose Hotel" is a short story by William Gibson, first published in 1984 in Omni and later included in his 1986 collection Burning Chrome.-Plot:...

," and "Burning Chrome

Burning Chrome

Burning Chrome is a collection of short stories written by William Gibson. Most of the stories take place in Gibson's Sprawl, an anonymous, shared setting for most of his cyberpunk work...

," and events and characters from the stories appear in or are mentioned at points in the trilogy.

Setting and themes

The novels are set in a near-future world dominated by corporations and ubiquitous technology, after a limited World War III

World War III

World War III denotes a successor to World War II that would be on a global scale, with common speculation that it would be likely nuclear and devastating in nature....

. 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 consequence

Unintended consequence

In the social sciences, unintended consequences are outcomes that are not the outcomes intended by a purposeful action. The concept has long existed but was named and popularised in the 20th century by American sociologist Robert K. Merton...

s 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

Brain-computer interface

A brain–computer interface , sometimes called a direct neural interface or a brain–machine interface , is a direct communication pathway between the brain and an external device...

 ("jacking in"), emerging machine intelligence, and a global information space, which he calls "cyberspace

Cyberspace

Cyberspace is the electronic medium of computer networks, in which online communication takes place.The term "cyberspace" was first used by the cyberpunk science fiction author William Gibson, though the concept was described somewhat earlier, for example in the Vernor Vinge short story "True...

". Some of the novels' action takes place in The Sprawl

The Sprawl

In William Gibson's fiction, the Sprawl is a colloquial name for the Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis , an urban sprawl environment on a massive scale, and a fictional extension of the real Northeast Megalopolis....

, 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

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...

 removing its hardwired limitations to become something else. This "something else" is the sum of all human knowledge, a concept similar to Vernor Vinge

Vernor Vinge

Vernor Steffen Vinge is a retired San Diego State University Professor of Mathematics, computer scientist, and science fiction author. He is best known for his Hugo Award-winning novels and novellas A Fire Upon the Deep , A Deepness in the Sky , Rainbows End , Fast Times at Fairmont High ...

's technological singularity

Technological singularity

Technological singularity refers to the hypothetical future emergence of greater-than-human intelligence through technological means. Since the capabilities of such an intelligence would be difficult for an unaided human mind to comprehend, the occurrence of a technological singularity is seen as...

. In the stories, this is explained by 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

Alpha Centauri

Alpha Centauri is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Centaurus...

. For unexplained reasons, this causes the consciousness

Consciousness

Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...

 to fracture.

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 Gentleman Loser is a bar located in the Sprawl first featured in "Burning Chrome
  Burning Chrome
  Burning Chrome is a collection of short stories written by William Gibson. Most of the stories take place in Gibson's Sprawl, an anonymous, shared setting for most of his cyberpunk work...
  
  ". Described as a frequented spot for hackers, Case is mentioned in Neuromancer to have started his career as a hacker there. By Mona Lisa Overdrive it is no longer described as being used as a meeting place for hustlers, and instead becomes a space for "retired" hackers who tell their stories to hackers of a new generation. The bar's name comes from the track "Midnight Cruiser" on the 1972 Steely Dan
  Steely Dan
  Steely Dan is an American rock band; its core members are Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. The band's popularity peaked in the late 1970s, with the release of seven albums blending elements of jazz, rock, funk, R&B, and pop...
  
   album Can't Buy a Thrill
  Can't Buy a Thrill
  Can't Buy a Thrill is the first album by Steely Dan. Originally released in 1972, the album was a huge success. It went gold, and then platinum, peaking at #17 on the charts. In 2003, the album was ranked number 238 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time...
  
  .

Glossary

Cobra : A club

Club (weapon)

A club is among the simplest of all weapons. A club is essentially a short staff, or stick, usually made of wood, and wielded as a weapon since prehistoric times....

-like weapon made of steel with a bronze pyramid at the end. Cobras are made with three telescoping segments of coilspring that can be collapsed into the handle. These coilsprings amplify the user's blows, making the Cobra behave as a very short whip

Whip

A whip is a tool traditionally used by humans to exert control over animals or other people, through pain compliance or fear of pain, although in some activities whips can be used without use of pain, such as an additional pressure aid in dressage...

. See also Telescopic batons.
Cyberspace : A virtual reality where complex data is represented as multi-colored three-dimensional geometric symbols.
Cyberspace Deck : Also called a "deck" for short, it is used to access the virtual representation of the matrix. The deck is connected to a tiara-like device that operates by using electrodes to stimulate the user's brain while drowning out other external stimulation. As Case describes them, decks are basically simplified simstim units.
Derm : An adhesive patch applied to the skin in order to transmit a drug transdermally

Transdermal patch

A transdermal patch is a medicated adhesive patch that is placed on the skin to deliver a specific dose of medication through the skin and into the bloodstream. Often, this promotes healing to an injured area of the body. An advantage of a transdermal drug delivery route over other types of...

. Case uses recreational derms several times throughout Neuromancer. At another point, derms are used to administer an anaesthetic substance.
Fletcher : An advanced, pneumatically-powered, hand-held ballistic weapon which fires bursts of needle-like flechettes as ammunition which can be explosive, toxic or one of several other forms. It is Molly's primary ranged weapon. One of its advantages over conventional firearms is silence which translates to stealth.
Freeside : A cigar or spindle shaped space-habitat situated in the L5

Lagrangian point

The Lagrangian points are the five positions in an orbital configuration where a small object affected only by gravity can theoretically be stationary relative to two larger objects...

 "archipelago," or as Gibson says, "up the gravity well." The Tessier-Ashpool

Tessier-Ashpool

Tessier-Ashpool is a fictional family appearing in William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy novels. The family owns Freeside, a space station shaped like a spindle Bernal sphere constructed in high orbit. The family resides in the Villa Straylight, which occupies one end of the spindle.The family is...

 fortress Villa Straylight is at one end of the spindle.
Hosaka : A microchip manufacturer whose products are in wide use in Gibson's world. Hosaka chips and machines occur in all of the Sprawl novels. Hosaka is also a computer brand name "...next year's most expensive Hosaka computer...." The brand name is frequently used interchangeably to indicate the company and the device, much the way a modern brand such as Dell or Nintendo might be used as a "a Dell" or "a Nintendo" to indicate a particular object manufactured by one of those companies.
ICE

Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics

Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics is a term used in cyberpunk literature to refer to security programs which protect computerized data from being accessed by hackers.-Origin of term:...

 : Acronym for "intrusion countermeasures electronics." In today's terminology it is roughly analogous to a firewall

Firewall (computing)

A firewall is a device or set of devices designed to permit or deny network transmissions based upon a set of rules and is frequently used to protect networks from unauthorized access while permitting legitimate communications to pass....

 or Intrusion Detection System. Black ICE

Black ice

Black ice, sometimes called glare ice or clear ice, refers to a thin coating of glazed ice on a surface.While not truly black, it is virtually transparent, allowing black asphalt/macadam roadways to be seen through it, hence the term "black ice"...

, an infamous hazard for hackers in the novel, can be lethal to any hacker lacking the proper expertise (and software) to defeat it. The term is ubiquitously shortened to "ice," with accompanying wordplay e.g. "cracking the ice," "bypassing ICE," "icebreaker," or "dense ice," a sophisticated ICE.
Microsofts : Not to be confused with the present-day software company

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

, in Neuromancer a "microsoft" is a chip used in conjunction with a cybernetic wetware

Wetware

Wetware may refer to:* Wetware , brain* Wetware , biological tools and parts* Wetware , a 1988 Rudy Rucker biopunk novel* Wetware , a 2000 album by The Cassandra Complex...

 implant located behind the ear. When plugged in, microsofts grant the user new abilities as long as the microsoft is plugged in. For example, a French language microsoft might be used to temporarily allow the user to speak French. The term refers to a small, portable piece of embedded software, hence "micro" and "soft."
Octagon : A type of Brazilian dexedrine (an amphetamine

Amphetamine

Amphetamine or amfetamine is a psychostimulant drug of the phenethylamine class which produces increased wakefulness and focus in association with decreased fatigue and appetite.Brand names of medications that contain, or metabolize into, amphetamine include Adderall, Dexedrine, Dextrostat,...

, specifically dextroamphetamine

Dextroamphetamine

Dextroamphetamine is a psychostimulant drug which is known to produce increased wakefulness and focus as well as decreased fatigue and decreased appetite....

) in the form of an octagonal pill.
Ono-Sendai Cyberspace 7 : The best deck available.

Simstim : A portmanteau of simulated stimuli, simstim is a technology whereby a person's brain and nervous system is stimulated to simulate the full sensory experience of another person. Simstim is usually used as a form of entertainment, whereby recordings of simstim stars in soap operas are transmitted in effect replacing television. However, simstim also has other uses; Case is connected to Molly via simstim during the Panther Modern's attack on Sense/Net. In this way, simstim was used as a sophisticated method of communication although the signal was one-way.

Reception

The trilogy was commercially and critically successful. Journalist Steven Poole

Steven Poole

-Biography:Poole studied English at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and has subsequently written for publications including The Independent, The Guardian, The Times Literary Supplement, The Sunday Times, and the New Statesman...

 wrote in The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

that "Neuromancer and the two novels which followed, Count Zero (1986) and the gorgeously titled Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988), made up a fertile holy trinity, a sort of Chrome Koran (the name of one of Gibson's future rock bands) of ideas inviting endless reworkings."

All three books were nominated for major science fiction awards, including:

• Neuromancer
  Neuromancer
  Neuromancer is a 1984 novel by William Gibson, a seminal work in the cyberpunk genre and the first winner of the science-fiction "triple crown" — the Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, and the Hugo Award. It was Gibson's debut novel and the beginning of the Sprawl trilogy...
  
   - Nebula & Philip K. Dick Awards winner, British Science Fiction Award nominee, 1984; Hugo Award winner, 1985
• Count Zero
  Count Zero
  Count Zero is a science fiction novel written by William Gibson, originally published 1986. It is the second volume of the Sprawl trilogy, which begins with Neuromancer and concludes with Mona Lisa Overdrive, and is a canonical example of the cyberpunk sub-genre.Count Zero was serialized by Isaac...
  
   - Nebula and British Science Fiction awards nominee, 1986; Hugo and Locus Awards nominee, 1987
• Mona Lisa Overdrive
  Mona Lisa Overdrive
  Mona Lisa Overdrive is a cyberpunk novel by William Gibson published in 1988 and the final novel of the Sprawl trilogy, following Neuromancer and Count Zero. It takes place eight years after the events of Count Zero and is set, as were its predecessors, in The Sprawl...
  
  - Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards nominee, 1989