Cyberpunk

 

Dark, cold, apocalyptic tones

    The first manifestation of the postmodern quality of Count Zero is its bleak, cold, apocalyptic tone. Ridley Scott's Blade Runner concludes with a memorable line: "I have seen things that you humans cannot imagine. On Orion's flank, the attacking starship burns, and next to the Tanhauser gate, I see C rays gleaming in the darkness. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain." This line seems to predict the general, revealed the human society that magnificent and bleak "future". William Gibson was deeply influenced by Blade Runner, and his future world is dark and strange. Count Zero, for example, is an overgrown, dirty, rain-drenched, gothic junkyard. There are some descriptions in the book, "The table is peppered with candle tears and wine stains. Grotesque imprints intermingled in a dark mass, and the dark burn of hundreds of cigarette butts "; "Crooked aisles extending from the area in front of the coffee kiosk, kerosene lamps hissing white flames... Toshiba monitor robot whines through corridors, dragging scarred plastic carts." The writer's style is a perfect mix of dark rhapsody and retro, with a sentimental touch of new Wave poetic realism. The flood of material, the decrepit, damp buildings, the eerie lights, the foggy streets, the listless, zombie-like crowds make for a gloomy, desperate, and wondrous doomsday. The urban forests created by the cool colors drawn by the author show us the grotesque wasteland in the post-modern era, reflecting his anxious reflection and deep questioning on the excessive development of material and the future technological world.

   

    Fragmentation

    The third manifestation of postmodernism in Count Zero is the fragmented narrative feature in the work. There are two dimensions, one is the constant switching of reality and virtual, the other is the constant switching of narrative perspective. "Cyberspace implies a computer-generated dimension, where we move information around and we look for ways around it," says philosopher Michael Heym. In Cyberpunk literature, most stories take place on the Internet, in digital space. The line between reality and virtual reality is so blurry that it often uses a direct connection between the brain and a computer, hence the name "digital science fiction." Count Zero is a perfect example of "digital sci-fi." It's fast-paced, information-dense, and often as quick as a movie shot. It's also full of slang, headless phrases, and constantly changing reality and fantasy as it goes. For example, after that Mary meets Varek in "The Matrix", "the night is like wings, sweeping the Barcelona sky like a flash of a huge, quick press of a door, dark and The Quire Park both disappear, and she finds herself back on the leather stool". Turner "slips into the shallow sea of dreams, the images spin, and fragments from the Mitchell archive blend into his own life. He and Mitchell drove the bus through a cascade of glass and into the lobby of the Hotel in Marrakech.” This kind of transformation of reality and dream is very visual sense, wonderful. In addition, the transformation is reflected in the change of narrative perspective, such as the following description, which uses the ingenious structure of third-person - omniscient - second-person - third-person："Bones, gold circuit boards, dead ribbons, white clay balls. Mary shook her head. How can one simply arrange all these bits and pieces, all this garbage, in such a way as to grab your heart and dive into your soul like a fishhook? But then she nodded.” The fully mature, freely switching narrative perspective reveals the protagonist's limited perspective, complex emotions, and the author's critical attitude. These two fragmentary narrative features combine to construct a kaleidoscopic cyberpunk world.