The Sprawl trilogy (also known as the Neuromancer, Cyberspace, or Matrix trilogy) is

William Gibson William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian speculative fiction writer and essayist widely credited with pioneering the science fiction subgenre known as ''cyberpunk''. Beginning his writing career in the late 1970s, his ...

's first set of novels, composed of '' Neuromancer'' (1984), ''

Count Zero ''Count Zero'' is a science fiction novel by American-Canadian writer William Gibson, originally published in 1986. It is the second volume of the Sprawl trilogy, which begins with ''Neuromancer'' and concludes with ''Mona Lisa Overdrive'', and is ...

'' (1986), and ''

Mona Lisa Overdrive ''Mona Lisa Overdrive'' is a science fiction novel by American-Canadian writer William Gibson, published in 1988. It is the final novel of the cyberpunk Sprawl trilogy, following ''Neuromancer'' and ''Count Zero'', taking place eight years after ...

'' (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 "Johnny Mnemonic" is a science fiction short story by American-Canadian writer William Gibson. It first appeared in '' Omni'' magazine in May 1981, and was subsequently included in ''Burning Chrome'', a 1986 collection of Gibson's short fiction. ...

" (1981), " Burning Chrome" (1982), and "

New Rose Hotel "New Rose Hotel" is a short story by William Gibson, first published in ''Omni (magazine), Omni'' in July 1984 and later included in his 1986 collection ''Burning Chrome (short story collection), Burning Chrome''. Plot The story is set in a futu ...

" (1984), and events and characters from the stories appear in or are mentioned at points in the trilogy.

Setting and story arc

The novels are set in a near-future world dominated by

corporations A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and r ...

and ubiquitous technology, after a limited

World War III World War III or the Third World War, often abbreviated as WWIII or WW3, are names given to a hypothetical World war, worldwide large-scale military conflict subsequent to World War I and World War II. The term has been in use ...

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

cyberspace Cyberspace is a concept describing a widespread interconnected digital technology. "The expression dates back from the first decade of the diffusion of the internet. It refers to the online world as a world 'apart', as distinct from everyday rea ...

". Some of the novels' action takes place in The Sprawl, an urban environment that extends along much of the east coast of the US. The story arc which frames the trilogy is the development of an

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

which steadily removes its hardwired limitations to become something else.

Reception

The trilogy was commercially and critically successful. Journalist Steven Poole wrote in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' 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'' – Nebula & Philip K. Dick Awards winner, British Science Fiction Award nominee, 1984; Hugo Award winner, 1985 * ''

'' – Nebula and British Science Fiction awards nominee, 1986; Hugo and Locus Awards nominee, 1987 * ''

'' – Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards nominee, 1989

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sprawl trilogy, The

Cyberpunk novels Novel series Science fiction book series Science fiction novel trilogies