Count Zero

Set in the Sprawl, the world of Gibson's Neuromancer, but easier to read. Neuromancer set the stage for this book but it was dark and complicated and for an introduction to cyberpunk it was difficult to grasp. Count Zero has dark moments but it is not as opaque as its predecessor.

Count Zero is a young man who wants to be a cyber hacker, a Cowboy. He's given some software to explore that turns out to have a secret danger. Once he's been exposed to the power behind the code there is no escape from the people who now pursue him.

The story has three prongs: the young hacker, an art dealer on the trail of a mysterious sculptor, and a mercenary employed to abduct a scientist from a rival company. Inevitably they come together in an explosive climax, having left a lot of dead bodies in their respective wakes.

Where Neuromancer threaded the reader through a dark underworld, Count Zero has everything out in the open - 4 1/2 exploding helicopters from me.