Mona Lisa Overdrive

         This book kind of really got me hooked on sci fi. I was really interested in the idea of sort of the integration of man and computers and I am an avid Matrix/Blade Runner fan. I love the dark noir sort of setting of the future, it just seems so mysterious and appealing to me. It was a little hard reading this book and not the two other books before, but for the most part it was pretty easy once I got ahold of the backstory. I think the pacing was a little off though, we kept cutting back to Kumiko who did nothing of interest for the longest time. Half the time I just wanted to skip her chapters and go onto Angie's or Mona's. I think the other characters overshadowed her a little too much. I mean a prostitute on doing crystal methe of the future, a Korsakov-induced Slick Henry, and a Loa-ridden pop star against a boring girl with Yazuka father. I really liked what Gibson did as far as voices, almost immediately I could tell which character I was following throughout these switches because they were so distinct.

         The loa themselves greatly added to the story. This is a very futuristic story, we have all kinds of cybertronics going on: headsets, drugs, and all kinds of double dealing. And all of a sudden we add in something very primitive in comparison, the loa. It kind of ties all this new futurism to something very old school. And loa themselves are almost bordering the dark arts. This is voodoo culture we are talking about. I think the loa were a perfect way of sort of voicing the integration of man with the matrix. They are neither man nor machine, I mean they are the closest anyone gets to religion. The people mentioned talking about “Rapture” don't even get close to this.

This book was very heavy in terms of plot building. It seemed to take a long time for the events to unfold, but I did like how they all tied together. What did confuse me time to time was when characters met one another from other chapters and from the scarce description of what they looked like I really wasn't sure who was who. Also, it seemed like all the characters were escaping from something. Mona was doing all kinds of crystals, Angie wanted to find Bobby and leave her glamorous life, Sally wanted to stop being pressured, and Kumiko wanted to find out what the hell was going on. I'd have to say Mona's character stood out the most to me. Compared to the rest of the characters who seemed to move sort of in a linear movement, she was all over the place doing drugs and getting surgery. I agree with what Angie commented about her, Mona was very akin to a child, even more so than Kumiko. She has blinders on and only sees Angie's glamorous life and nothing else, she has total nostalgia about her best friend who is probably dead, and she's just sort of being pushed through life. And plus, the chapter on her doing drugs during the highly intensive battle was a very nice change of pace.