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William Gibson

Mona Lisa Overdrive Mass Market Paperback – December 1, 1989

by William Gibson (Author)

4.5 4,217 ratings

Book 3 of 3: Sprawl Trilogy

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William Gibson, author of the extraordinary multiaward-winning novel Neuromancer, has written his most brilliant and thrilling work to date . . .The Mona Lisa Overdrive.

Enter Gibson's unique world—lyric and mechanical, sensual and violent, sobering and exciting—where multinational corporations and high tech outlaws vie for power, traveling into the computer-generated universe known as cyberspace. Into this world comes Mona, a young girl with a murky past and an uncertain future whose life is on a collision course with internationally famous Sense/Net star Angie Mitchell. Since childhood, Angie has been able to tap into cyberspace without a computer. Now, from inside cyberspace, a kidnapping plot is masterminded by a phantom entity who has plans for Mona, Angie, and all humanity, plans that cannot be controlled . . . or even known. And behind the intrigue lurks the shadowy Yazuka, the powerful Japanese underworld, whose leaders ruthlessly manipulate people and events to suit their own purposes . . . or so they think.

Book 3 of 3

Sprawl Trilogy
Print length

320 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Spectra
Publication date

December 1, 1989
Dimensions

4.16 x 0.86 x 6.88 inches
ISBN-10

0553281747
ISBN-13

978-0553281743
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He’d grown up in white Jersey stringtowns where nobody knew shit about anything and hated anybody who did.
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But did it wake, Kumiko wondered, when the alley was empty? Did its laser vision scan the silent fall of midnight snow?
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The world hadn’t ever had so many moving parts or so few labels.
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Into the cyber-hip world of William Gibson comes Mona, a young girl with a murky past and an uncertain future whose life is on a collision course with internationally famous Sense/Net star Angie Mitchell. Since childhood, Angie has been able to tap into cyberspace without a computer. Now, from inside cyberspace, a kidnapping plot is masterminded by a phantom entity who has plans for Mona, Angie, and all humanity, plans that cannot be controlled...or even known. And behind the intrigue lurks the shadowy Yakuza, the powerful Japanese underworld, whose leaders ruthlessly manipulate people and events to suit their own purposes.

An over-the-top thrill ride sequel to Neuromancer and Count Zero.

Review

Brilliant, gritty, densely textured. -- Kirkus Reviews

Gibson's most obsorbing story to date. -- People

From the Publisher

William Gibson, author of the extraordinary multiaward-winning novel Neuromancer, has written his most brilliant and thrilling work to date . . .The Mona Lisa Overdrive. Enter Gibson's unique world--lyric and mechanical, erotic and violent, sobering and exciting--where multinational corporations and high tech outlaws vie for power, traveling into the computer-generated universe known as cyberspace. Into this world comes Mona, a young girl with a murky past and an uncertain future whose life is on a collision course with internationally famous Sense/Net star Angie Mitchell. Since childhood, Angie has been able to tap into cyberspace without a computer. Now, from inside cyberspace, a kidnapping plot is masterminded by a phantom entity who has plans for Mona, Angie, and all humanity, plans that cannot be controlled . . . or even known. And behind the intrigue lurks the shadowy Yazuka, the powerful Japanese underworld, whose leaders ruthlessly manipulate people and events to suit their own purposes . . . or so they think.

About the Author

William Gibson’s first novel, Neuromancer, won the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the Philip K. Dick Award. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Count Zero, Burning Chrome, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Virtual Light, Idoru, All Tomorrow’s Parties, Pattern Recognition, Spook Country, Zero History, Distrust That Particular Flavor, and The Peripheral. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, with his wife.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

1
THE SMOKE

The ghost was her father’s parting gift, presented by a black-clad secretary in a departure lounge at Narita.

For the first two hours of the flight to London it lay forgotten in her purse, a smooth dark oblong, one side impressed with the ubiquitous Maas-Neotek logo, the other gently curved to fit the user’s palm.

She sat up very straight in her seat in the first-class cabin, her features composed in a small cold mask modeled after her dead mother’s most characteristic expression. The surrounding seats were empty; her father had purchased the space. She refused the meal the nervous steward offered. The vacant seats frightened him, evidence of her father’s wealth and power. The man hesitated, then bowed and withdrew. Very briefly, she allowed the mask her mother’s smile.
Ghosts, she thought later, somewhere over Germany, staring at the upholstery of the seat beside her. How well her father treated his ghosts.

There were ghosts beyond the window, too, ghosts in the stratosphere of Europe’s winter, partial images that began to form if she let her eyes drift out of focus. Her mother in Ueno Park, face fragile in September sunlight. “The cranes, Kumi! Look at the cranes!” And Kumiko looked across Shinobazu Pond and saw nothing, no cranes at all, only a few hopping black dots that surely were crows. The water was smooth as silk, the color of lead, and pale holograms flickered indistinctly above a distant line of archery stalls. But Kumiko would see the cranes later, many times, in dreams; they were origami, angular things folded from sheets of neon, bright stiff birds sailing the moonscape of her mother’s madness.…

Remembering her father, the black robe open across a tattooed storm of dragons, slumped behind the vast ebony field of his desk, his eyes flat and bright, like the eyes of a painted doll. “Your mother is dead. Do you understand?” And all around her the planes of shadow in his study, the angular darkness. His hand coming forward, into the lamp’s circle of light, unsteadily, to point at her, the robe’s cuff sliding back to reveal a golden Rolex and more dragons, their manes swirling into waves, pricked out strong and dark around his wrist, pointing. Pointing at her. “Do you understand?” She hadn’t answered, but had run instead, down to a secret place she knew, the warren of the smallest of the cleaning machines. They ticked around her all night, scanning her every few minutes with pink bursts of laser light, until her father came to find her, and, smelling of whiskey and Dunhill cigarettes, carried her to her room on the apartment’s third floor.

Remembering the weeks that followed, numb days spent most often in the black-suited company of one secretary or another, cautious men with automatic smiles and tightly furled umbrellas. One of these, the youngest and least cautious, had treated her, on a crowded Ginza sidewalk, in the shadow of the Hattori clock, to an impromptu kendo demonstration, weaving expertly between startled shop girls and wide-eyed tourists, the black umbrella blurring harmlessly through the art’s formal, ancient arcs. And Kumiko had smiled then, her own smile, breaking the funeral mask, and for this her guilt was driven instantly, more deeply and still more sharply, into that place in her heart where she knew her shame and her unworthiness. But most often the secretaries took her shopping, through one vast Ginza department store after another, and in and out of dozens of Shinjuku boutiques recommended by a blue plastic Michelin guide that spoke a stuffy tourist’s Japanese. She purchased only very ugly things, ugly and very expensive things, and the secretaries marched stolidly beside her, the glossy bags in their hard hands. Each afternoon, returning to her father’s apartment, the bags were deposited neatly in her bedroom, where they remained, unopened and untouched, until the maids removed them.

And in the seventh week, on the eve of her thirteenth birthday, it was arranged that Kumiko would go to London.

“You will be a guest in the house of my kobun,” her father said.

“But I do not wish to go,” she said, and showed him her mother’s smile.

“You must,” he said, and turned away. “There are difficulties,” he said to the shadowed study. “You will be in no danger, in London.”

“And when shall I return?”

The ghost woke to Kumiko’s touch as they began their descent into Heathrow. The fifty-first generation of Maas-Neotek biochips conjured up an indistinct figure on the seat beside her, a boy out of some faded hunting print, legs crossed casually in tan breeches and riding boots. “Hullo,” the ghost said.

Kumiko blinked, opened her hand. The boy flickered and was gone. She looked down at the smooth little unit in her palm and slowly closed her fingers.

“ ’Lo again,” he said. “Name’s Colin. Yours?”

She stared. His eyes were bright green smoke, his high forehead pale and smooth under an unruly dark forelock. She could see the seats across the aisle through the glint of his teeth. “If it’s a bit too spectral for you,” he said, with a grin, “we can up the rez.…” And he was there for an instant, uncomfortably sharp and real, the nap on the lapels of his dark coat vibrating with hallucinatory clarity. “Runs the battery down, though,” he said, and faded to his prior state. “Didn’t get your name.” The grin again.

“You aren’t real,” she said sternly.

He shrugged. “Needn’t speak out loud, miss. Fellow passengers might think you a bit odd, if you take my meaning Subvocal’s the way. I pick it all up through the skin.…” He uncrossed his legs and stretched, hands clasped behind his head. “Seatbelt, miss. I needn’t buckle up myself, of course, being, as you’ve pointed out, unreal.”

Kumiko frowned and tossed the unit into the ghost’s lap. He vanished. She fastened her seatbelt, glanced at the thing, hesitated, then picked it up again.

“First time in London, then?” he asked, swirling in from the periphery of her vision. She nodded in spite of herself. “You don’t mind flying? Doesn’t frighten you?”

She shook her head, feeling ridiculous.

“Never mind,” the ghost said. “I’ll look out for you. Heathrow in three minutes. Someone meeting you off the plane?”

“My father’s business associate,” she said in Japanese.

The ghost grinned. “Then you’ll be in good hands, I’m sure.” He winked. “Wouldn’t think I’m a linguist to look at me, would you?”

Kumiko closed her eyes and the ghost began to whisper to her, something about the archaeology of Heathrow, about the Neolithic and the Iron ages, pottery and tools.…”

“Miss Yanaka? Kumiko Yanaka?” The Englishman towered above her, his gaijin bulk draped in elephantine folds of dark wool. Small dark eyes regarded her blandly through steel-rimmed glasses. His nose seemed to have been crushed nearly flat and never reset. His hair, what there was of it, had been shaved back to a gray stubble, and his black knit gloves were frayed and fingerless.

“My name, you see,” he said, as though this would immediately reassure her, “is Petal.”

Petal called the city Smoke.

Kumiko shivered on chill red leather; through the ancient Jaguar’s window she watched the snow spinning down to melt on the road Petal called M4. The late afternoon sky was colorless. He drove silently, efficiently, his lips pursed as though he were about to whistle. The traffic, to Tokyo eyes, was absurdly light. They accelerated past an unmanned Eurotrans freight vehicle, its blunt prow studded with sensors and banks of headlights. In spite of the Jaguar’s speed, Kumiko felt as if somehow she were standing still; London’s particles began to accrete around her. Walls of wet brick, arches of concrete, black-painted ironwork standing up in spears.

As she watched, the city began to define itself. Off the M4, while the Jaguar waited at intersections, she could glimpse faces through the snow, flushed gaijin faces above dark clothing, chins tucked down into scarves, women’s bootheels ticking through silver puddles. The rows of shops and houses reminded her of the gorgeously detailed accessories she’d seen displayed around a toy locomotive in the Osaka gallery of a dealer in European antiques.

This was nothing like Tokyo, where the past, all that remained of it, was nurtured with a nervous care. History there had become a quantity, a rare thing, parceled out by government and preserved by law and corporate funding. Here it seemed the very fabric of things, as if the city were a single growth of stone and brick, uncounted strata of message and meaning, age upon age, generated over the centuries to the dictates of some now-all-but-unreadable DNA of commerce and empire.

“Regret Swain couldn’t come out to meet you himself,” the man called Petal said. Kumiko had less trouble with his accent than with his manner of structuring sentences; she initially mistook the apology for a command. She considered accessing the ghost, then rejected the idea.

“Swain,” she ventured. “Mr. Swain is my host?”

Petal’s eyes found her in the mirror. “Roger Swain. Your father didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “Mr. Kanaka’s conscious of security in these matters, it stands to reason.… Man of his stature, et cetera …” He sighed loudly. “Sorry about the heater. Garage was supposed to have that taken care of.…”

“Are you one of Mr. Swain’s secretaries?” Addressing the stubbled rolls of flesh above the collar of the thick dark coat.

“His secretary?” He seemed to consider the matter. “No,” he ventured finally, “I’m not that.” He swung them through a roundabout, past gleaming metallic awnings and the evening surge of pedestrians. “Have you eaten, then? Did they feed you on the flight?”

“I wasn’t hungry.” Conscious of her mother’s mask.

“Well, Swain’ll have something for you. Eats a lot of Jap food, Swain.” He made a strange little ticking sound with his tongue. He glanced back at her.

She looked past him, seeing the kiss of snowflakes, the obliterating sweep of the wipers.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Spectra; Reissue edition (December 1, 1989)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Mass Market Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0553281747
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0553281743
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.16 x 0.86 x 6.88 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #438,453 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,535 in Cyberpunk Science Fiction (Books)
- #3,272 in Dystopian Fiction (Books)
- #10,694 in Science Fiction Adventures

Customer Reviews:
4.5 4,217 ratings

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William Gibson

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William Gibson is the award-winning author of Neuromancer, Mona Lisa Overdrive, The Difference Engine, with Bruce Sterling, Virtual Light, Idoru, All Tomorrow's Parties and Pattern Recognition. William Gibson lives in Vancouver, Canada. His latest novel, published by Penguin, is Spook Country (2007).

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5

4,217 global ratings

5 star		61%
4 star		27%
3 star		9%
2 star		1%
1 star		1%

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Victory

Reading the Sprawl trilogy from a writer's perspective

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 8, 2019

Verified Purchase

I set out to read the Sprawl trilogy from a writer's perspective to try to glean Gibson's magic--plumb his style. Here's what I found in Mona Lisa Overdrive.

Like the previous novels Gibson is minimalist, disjointed, and noir. Lots and LOTS of people like that. Ultimately, I couldn't get into it. Problems I had with MLO.

Sally Shears/Molly Millions: Really an awesome character but totally underachieving her potential here. She was a bad ass assassin in Neuromancer but here she hardly ever even twitches her cat claw razors. One of the most powerful physical characteristics and it's left on the table! Why??? She could have been slashing through a couple of henchmen on a revenge sub-plot but that never happened. No. Here she's pretty much a bad ass but reasonably well behaved babysitter for most of the book with a kidnapping near the end with a VERY disjointed and confusing conclusion. So much potential wasted!

Slick: Had trouble giving a damn about Slick. His robots like "The Judge" may be pretty cool but they serve as little more than window dressing--not a whole lot of substance contributing to the story.

Gentry: Got confused with Slick sometimes. Gentry owns the factory. Slick is an ex-con with a court ordered 5 minute memory span who works in the factory. . .and that's about it..

Kumiko: Why is she in this story! She's a bystander and sucks up a third of the book. I don't get it. What is her purpose here?

Count Zero: Comatose throughout most of the book. Strangely key but superficial involvement at the end. Why, why, why?

Angie: Interesting. Central to the plot but kept at arms length throughout most of the book until near the end. Rich celebrity from Count Zero working in a popular but banal reality internet show.

Mona: Most interesting. Teen prostitute we feel for her the most. Improves her lot in life by assuming Angie's role in the show. Mmmm. . .okay. Good for her. I'm happy.

The book contains marginally interesting players but barely developed--skin deep characterizations but strangely powerful motivations. Sure wish I knew what motivated them to do what they do (Mona being the exception. We root for her to get the hell out of her situation.) The plot is unclear where it's going and then ends up in a spectacular achievement (SPOILER ALERT! We can upload our psyche--our soul--to the internet. Pretty mind blowing!) BUT accomplishes the climax in the most shockingly nonchalant manner. It's like a book building up to alien first contact and ending it with, "And then he shook hands with the first alien. The End." What? Wait! Where's the excitement? The abilities? The MAGIC of uploading yourself to the internet? It's just there and. . .close the book.

And speaking of "first contact" there were supposed to be voodoo gods in this book! Hinted at in Count Zero they barely take the stage here. Big disappointment! If you're looking for internet voodoo gods read Queen of Angels by Greg Bear. That's some REAL internet voodoo! Bear picks up what Gibson leaves on the table.

I think Gibson has. . .SOMEthing. I'm not sure what it is. He certainly has consistency. The characters are who they are without jumping the rails to do something completely OUT of character. But then again, we don't have a whole lot of input or back story on them so they could do whatever the hell they want and who are we, the readers, to challenge? And MLO is a noir book in line with the previous two. I like noir. I LOVE the movie Blade Runner! Gibson was deeply concerned that Neuromancer would be too close to the recently released movie that people would think the book was a knock off of Blade Runner. No chance of that. Two very different noir stories. I liked Blade Runner much more but that's just me.

So I suppose Gibson's followers don't mind or even enjoy massive anticipation, even tease, with little or no payoff. His minimalist style works for millions of fans but I like my unexplored territory of science fiction with a healthy dose of description, world building, and. . .well, color. Gibson doesn't paint a picture with words. He writes a gritty black and white story. Sgt. Friday would say, "Just the facts, ma'am." And that's kinda what you get. Maybe you like that kind of book. For me, I'll move on and won't look back.

17 people found this helpful

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Kal

Not a strong finish

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 14, 2023

Verified Purchase

This book was inline with the other two in the trilogy right up to the end where it begins making sharp leaps to wrap up the series in ways that lean further into the fantastical rather than the plausibility the series is known for.

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Josh

The lowest point of the Sprawl Trilogy

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 20, 2021

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It has been fifteen years since the corporate dynasty of Tessier-Ashpool has been infiltrated. Bobby Newmark, who became known as Count Zero eight years ago and sought out the mysteries of supernatural entities in the matrix now lies comatose and has been transferred to a virtual reality completely outside of the matrix. Taking care of him is an artist named Slick Henry who is a misfit and builder of killer robots living in a poisoned wasteland.
Meanwhile, a teen prostitute named Mona runs afoul of a plot to abduct a famous simstim star that looks remarkably like her, and a daughter of a powerful Yakuza crime lord is whisked away from the danger of the underworld and protected by none other than Molly Millions. Meanwhile, mysterious happenings are going on once again within the matrix….

“Mona Lisa Overdrive” is the third and final installment in William Gibson’s cyberpunk “Sprawl Trilogy.” Like in the book before it, it consists of three plot threads that eventually interconnect. The pacing of the novel is absorbing, as are the characters, who are all varied and bring different and interesting personalities to the table.
There is some action throughout, but, like the two volumes before it, it is not high-octane. What this book lacks in action, it makes up for in intrigue and espionage. The reappearance of Molly Millions from the first book, “Neuromancer” is a warm, welcome, and even exciting sight, but it soon proves disappointing as she is not so fierce and feral as she is in the first book.
Cyberspace is not the big focus in this work like it is in the two installments before it. There are some scenes and sequences in cyberspace, but it isn’t as alien, menacing, and wild and adventurous as it is in the preceding novels. Instead, this last installment focuses mainly on warfare in the underworld, drugs, and the peril and price of fame, and while some of that is enjoyable and even riveting, it just didn’t hold the pull of the first two books.
I’d go so far as to say that this is the Sprawl Trilogy’s ultimate low point, and it really is a shame, because it all could have ended with a bang. Definitely not what I expected, and not in a good way either.
I give “Mona Lisa Overdrive” by William Gibson a 3 out of 5.

4 people found this helpful

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P. GILL

It may be a classic but it is so on the button for today

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 23, 2018

Verified Purchase

This novel is part of a trilogy and is a more of the moment story than many current novels. Despite being science fiction and located within the network it gives a real imaginative insight into the future and current failings of the connected world. Completely absorbing and compelling. Makes The Matrix feel like a kids comic.

2 people found this helpful

Kerry Garratt

One of the handful of books that I can't finish

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 16, 2023

Verified Purchase

I can't quite put my finger on why but from the first page I found that I had to force myself to keep reading. I think for me the use of the n word was the point when I lost interest and gave up soon after that. I read the first two books in the series and enjoyed them but sadly I won't be finishing this one.

A buyer

Good

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 8, 2012

Verified Purchase

I'm a fan of Gibson, so I'm being kinder here than perhaps I should be, but this was overall a good novel. I think you'd have to be a fan of Gibson's universe to enjoy it so much, but also a word of advice: You should read the books in order (I didn't know that this was the third installment) and the overall narrative will be more enjoyable.

Not comparable to Neuromancer I'm afraid, but you can only make a breakthrough like that once! This book (along with Count Zero) gives a little more of the Neuromancer universe, plus Gibson's fast moving style, which is always a pleasure.

One person found this helpful

Martin Ward

A Captivating, Stringently Written Series

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 16, 2021

Verified Purchase

Essential reading for any sci-fi fan looking to up their game. The Neuromancer trilogy can be a handful to wrap your head around at times, but the luxury of reading a novel that doesn't hold your hand so much cannot be understated.

2 people found this helpful

Ellipsis

Excellent continuation of the series

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 9, 2015

Verified Purchase

I read this quite a long time after reading the first two books in the trilogy and I enjoyed it a lot. Nothing could quite match the futuristic shock of Neuromancer but the author carried the story of his rather pessimistic cyber-future on in a entertaining way. Interesting characters and language, and plot threads knitted together in a satisfying way. Good book, but you should definitely read the other two first, otherwise you'll be missing a lot of references.

2 people found this helpful

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Mona Lisa Overdrive Mass Market Paperback – December 1, 1989

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Buy new:

$7.99

FREE delivery: Sunday, May 28 on orders over $25.00 shipped by Amazon.

Ships from: Amazon.com

Sold by: Amazon.com

Buy used:

$6.68