The Sprawl trilogy (also known as the Neuromancer, Cyberspace, or Matrix trilogy) is William Gibson's first set of novels, composed of Neuromancer (1984), Count Zero (1986), and Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988). Other recurring characters include Rei Toei, an AI pop star, and Shinya Yamazaki, an existential sociologist.Ĭritical reception and influence Ĭanadian Poet Douglas Barbour said of the trilogy that it 'has all the stylistic verve of his earlier work, but it asks some tougher questions, explores character more deeply, and savagely interrogates our star-obsessed society.' Virtual Light, the first novel in the series, was nominated for both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1994.Three cyberpunk novels (1984–1988) by William Gibson Sprawl trilogy Author Researcher Colin Laney, who has a mysterious ability to identify patterns in vast tracts of information, appears in Idoru and All Tomorrow's Parties.

Former police officer Berry Rydell and bicycle courier Chevette Washington occupy central roles in the first and third novels. The novels of the Bridge trilogy loosely share a common cast of characters. The walled city shares a number of features with the bridge itself, including an emphasis on self-governance and efficiency in user-construction. Ĭharacters in each novel interact in a cyberspace construct of Kowloon Walled City, which is initially described as an inverted kill file. The 'bridge' may also be interpreted as a metaphor for the nascent technologies bridging contemporaneous life and the highly advanced future depicted in the Sprawl trilogy, where cyberspace and nanotechnology are fully developed and commonplace. The bridge becomes a pivotal location in Virtual Light and All Tomorrow's Parties.

The trilogy derives its name from the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, because in the trilogy it was abandoned in an earthquake and has become a massive shantytown and site of improvised shelter. The books deal with the race to control the beginnings of cyberspace technology and are set on the United States' West coast in a post- earthquake California (divided into the separate states of NoCal and SoCal), as well as a post- earthquake Tokyo, Japan, that had been rebuilt using nanotechnology. The first book of the Bridge trilogy is set in an imaginary 2006, with the subsequent books set a few years later.

Neuromancer trilogy