Misplaced Pages

#636363

27-429: The novels are all set in the same fictional future. The Sprawl trilogy shares this setting with Gibson's short stories " Johnny Mnemonic " (1981), " Burning Chrome " (1982), and " New Rose Hotel " (1984). The novels are set in a near-future world dominated by corporations and ubiquitous computing . The events of the novels are spaced over 16 years, and although there are familiar characters that appear, each novel tells

54-597: A gun moll . William Gibson has stated that he derived inspiration for the character from the image of Chrissie Hynde on the cover of the first Pretenders album. Molly's metabolism, sensory input, and reflexes are artificially heightened by means of electronic implants and other advanced medical procedures. She has razor-sharp retractable blades underneath her fingernails, each double-edged and four centimeters in length. Appearing at first glance to be wearing mirrored sunglasses, Molly has in fact had her eye sockets sealed with vision-enhancing mirrored lenses, installed by

81-431: A monomolecular wire hidden in a prosthetic thumb. Johnny fires his shotgun at the assassin but misses due to the man's enhanced reflexes. Molly is delighted to be facing another professional. Johnny decides that the only way to save himself from the same fate as Ralfi is to get the data out of his head, which can be done only by using a SQUID to retrieve the password. Molly takes him to an amusement park to meet Jones,

108-456: A sawed-off shotgun in his bag, but Lewis incapacitates him with a neural disruption device hidden under the table. Ralfi reveals that the data was stolen from the yakuza , who are very interested in ensuring it is not revealed, and that he had not been aware of the theft when he hired Johnny. Johnny is rescued by Molly , a "razorgirl" who has undergone extensive body modifications, most notably razor-sharp blades under her fingernails. She joins

135-554: A cybernetically enhanced dolphin retired from Navy service. Jones' previous assignment was to locate and hack into enemy mines using the SQUID and other sensors implanted in his skull. Since he is now addicted to heroin, the result of the Navy's efforts to keep its dolphins loyal, Molly trades him a batch in exchange for finding the password. Johnny then has Molly read it out so he can enter his retrieval trance, with recorders capturing all

162-470: 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 ". Some of the novels' action takes place in The Sprawl, officially

189-420: Is Turner. Turner is an ex-military mercenary. After becoming the victim of a bombing attack, Turner is hired by an old colleague to assist the dangerous extraction of a tech developer. The second is of Bobby Newmark, a teenager living in the slums with his mother. After an attempt at an illegal cyberspace run, Bobby is forced into hiding when it becomes apparent his experiment has put a target on his back. The third

216-670: 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. It takes place in the world of Gibson's cyberpunk novels, predating them by some years, and introduces the character Molly Millions , who plays a prominent role in the Sprawl trilogy of novels. The short story served as

243-601: Is a recurring character in stories and novels written by William Gibson , particularly his Sprawl trilogy . She first appeared in " Johnny Mnemonic ", to which she makes an oblique reference in Neuromancer (where she is mostly referred to as "Molly" with no last name given). She later appeared in Mona Lisa Overdrive under the name "Sally Shears". In all three stories, Molly is a physically tough (but not instantly imposing) bodyguard/mercenary cyborg . She

270-425: Is always regarded throughout the book as a loyal, morally strong character, opposed to the progressing decay of human relations in the world Gibson depicts. An exception to her cold, somewhat cynical approach to life was her relationship with Johnny (of " Johnny Mnemonic "), for whom she still mourned at the time of Neuromancer . This is part of the personal history she relates to its protagonist, Case, in addition to

297-471: Is of Marly Krushkova, a disgraced art museum curator who, after being caught in a major fraud scam, is hired by the immensely wealthy Josef Virek to find the artist behind a series of enigmatic artworks. Finally , Mona Lisa Overdrive follows four narrative plot threads in a pattern similar to that of Count Zero. The first is of Kumiko, teenage daughter to a Yakuza boss, whose father sends her to London to keep her safe during an anticipated gang war. The second

SECTION 10

#1732791405637

324-481: Is of artist Slick Henry, who spends his time making robots from scrap metal. Slick is suddenly thrust into the intrigue of the novel when someone calls in a debt by asking him to watch over a cyberspace cowboy locked in a run. The third thread follows prostitute Mona and her relationship with her abusive boyfriend/pimp. The final plot thread follows Angie Mitchell, a "simstim" (virtual sensory movies) actress in rehabilitation who can access cyberspace mentally. The trilogy

351-476: Is referred to as a "razorgirl" or "street samurai" throughout his stories and also as "Steppin' Razor" by the residents of Zion, a Rastafarian enclave aboard a space station. A useful contact for dealing with gangs and black market elements, she tends to show little remorse for the opponents she ruthlessly dispatches in the course of her objectives. In fact she shows few deep emotions towards anyone outside of hatred, suspicion or amused contempt. Nevertheless, Molly

378-661: The "Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis" - an urban environment extending along most of the East Coast of the United States (as a fictional extrapolation of the real-life Northeast megalopolis ). The story arc which frames the trilogy follows a wide cast of characters in a persistent, ongoing narrative - the major commonality between the three being The Sprawl itself. It focuses on the self-contained stories of each character, and highlights their narrative links through suggestion, references, and imagery. Neuromancer tells

405-420: The "Killing Floor," a sprung-floor arena wired to synthesizers and amplifiers. Molly dances around the assassin, causing discordant noise to blare from the sound system, and tricks him into slicing off his own hand with his thumb wire. Overwhelmed by the noise and the strange environment, he jumps through a hole in the floor and falls to his death. The story closes nearly a year later, with Johnny now living among

432-626: The Lo Teks. He and Molly have gone into business for themselves, using Jones' SQUID to retrieve traces of all the data he has ever carried and blackmailing former clients with it. In Gibson's 1984 novel Neuromancer , the first of the Sprawl trilogy, Molly relates the rest of Johnny's story to the protagonist, Case. Molly claims that after achieving success, Johnny was murdered by a vat-grown yakuza ninja. Molly Millions Molly Millions (also known as Sally Shears , Rose Kolodny , and others)

459-544: The basis for the 1995 film Johnny Mnemonic , whose plot uses the same basic premise but otherwise differs considerably. A novelization of Gibson's screenplay written by Terry Bisson was published in 1995. In 1996 a film tie-in edition of Gibson's original short story was published as a standalone book. Johnny is a data trafficker who has undergone cybernetic surgery to have a data storage system implanted in his head. The system allows him to store digital data too sensitive to risk transmission on computer networks. To keep

486-413: The cargo secure, the data is locked by a password known only to the intended recipient. Johnny enters a trance-like state while the data is being transferred or the password is being set, making him unaware of the contents and unable to retrieve them. He makes a modest living in the Sprawl by physically transporting sensitive information for corporations, underworld crime rings or wealthy individuals. As

513-445: The data. They upload a snippet to a yakuza communications satellite and threaten to release the rest unless Johnny is left alone. To deal with the yakuza assassin who is still following them, Molly leads Johnny to the Lo Teks, a group of anti-technology outcasts who live in a suspended hideout near the top of the geodesic domes covering the Sprawl. At Molly's request, the Lo Teks allow the assassin to climb up so she can face him on

540-677: The modified nervous system but used a single razor attached to the tip of a flexible spring rod as a weapon. In the 2003 BBC Radio adaptation of Neuromancer , Molly was played by the English actress Nicola Walker . Sasha Grey took on the role in Case , a six-hour dramatic contemporary adaptation of the novel staged in New York City in November 2009. The character has been described as one of Gibson's most complex characters. Molly

567-422: The name from the hotel's registry, but it is sometimes speculated to be her original name. The later trilogy books speculate that she is "SINless", having been an unrecorded birth and never having been issued a "Single Identity Number". This would give her the advantage of being more difficult to track in the cyberspace environment. Critic Larry McCaffery asserts that the name "Molly" is a reference to her status as

SECTION 20

#1732791405637

594-537: The revelation that she worked as a "meat puppet" (a prostitute ) in a "puppet parlor" (a brothel where people lend out their bodies while maintained in a blanked-out state) to pay for her considerable cybernetic enhancements. Another pseudonym , used when she rents a hotel room in Neuromancer , is "Rose Kolodny", the name by which the Turing Police refer to her. The Turing Police may have simply gotten

621-483: The skilled black-market surgeons of Chiba City . To accommodate the inset lenses her tear ducts have been re-routed to her mouth; on the very rare occasions she cries, she either spits out or swallows the tears. She never lets others touch the lenses as it would leave messy fingerprints requiring extra cleaning. The 1995 film version of Johnny Mnemonic replaced Molly with a character named Jane who did not have modifications to her eyes or to her fingers. Jane did share

648-414: The story of Case, a cyberspace "cowboy" (hacker) that gets picked up for a job with an unknown benefactor. The book is the only one in the trilogy that follows a single cohesive plot, with the sequels both featuring multi-strand narrative structures that culminate in the end. Count Zero consists of three major protagonists, and chapters alternate from one character's story to the next. The first of these

675-530: The story opens, Johnny has arranged to meet with his most recent customer, Ralfi Face, at the Drome bar. Ralfi is overdue to retrieve the hundreds of megabytes of data he has stored in Johnny's head. To add to his troubles, Johnny has learned that Ralfi has placed a contract on him , although the reasons are unclear. Johnny finds Ralfi at his usual table, accompanied by his bodyguard Lewis. Johnny threatens them with

702-420: The three men at their table, looking for a job. When Lewis tries to attack her, she cuts his wrist tendons and takes the incapacitating control device from him. Ralfi offers to pay her off, but she deactivates the device and frees Johnny, who immediately offers a higher bid to hire her as a bodyguard. Johnny and Molly take Ralfi as they exit the bar, but a yakuza assassin waiting outside cuts Ralfi to pieces with

729-557: Was commercially and critically successful. Steven Poole , writing in The Guardian , described " Neuromancer and the two novels which followed, Count Zero (1986) and the gorgeously titled Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988)" as making 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: Johnny Mnemonic " Johnny Mnemonic "

#636363