Cyberpunk - Zeno Agency Ltd.

New Covers & Details: William Gibson’s NEUROMANCER Series

Posted on Friday, July 15th, 2016

This August, Gollancz will be re-issuing William Gibson‘s classic, critically-acclaimed Neuromancer Series: NEUROMANCER, COUNT ZERO and MONA LISA OVERDRIVE!

Gibson’s 1984 debut, NEUROMANCER, widely considered to be one of the great SF novels that revolutionised science fiction, won the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick Awards. The cover is above, and here is the synopsis…

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel…

The Matrix is a world within the world, a global consensus — hallucination, the representation of every byte of data in cyberspace…

Case had been the sharpest data-thief in the business, until vengeful former employees crippled his nervous system. But now a new and very mysterious employer recruits him for a last-chance run. The target: an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence orbiting Earth in service of the sinister Tessier-Ashpool business clan. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case embarks on an adventure that ups the ante on an entire genre of fiction.

More than three decades later, Gibson’s text is as stylish as ever, his noir narrative still glitters like chrome in the shadows and his depictions of the rise and abuse of corporate power look more prescient every day. Part thriller, part warning, Neuromancer is a timeless classic of modern SF and one of the 20th century’s most potent and compelling visions of the future.

Here’s the synopsis for the second novel, COUNT ZERO, which was nominated for the Hugo and Nebula Awards…

Turner, corporate mercenary, wakes in a reconstructed body, a beautiful woman by his side. Then Hosaka Corporation reactivates him for a mission more dangerous than the one he’s recovering from: Maas-Neotek’s chief of R&D is defecting. Turner is the one assigned to get him out intact, along with the biochip he’s perfected. But this proves to be of supreme interest to certain other parties — some of whom aren’t remotely human.

Bobby Newmark is entirely human: a rustbelt data-hustler totally unprepared for what comes his way when the defection triggers war in cyberspace. With voodoo on the Net and a price on his head, Newmark thinks he’s only trying to get out alive. Until he meets the angel.

A stylish, streetsmart, frighteningly probable parable of the future.

And, the third volume, MONA LISA OVERDRIVE…

Enter Gibson’s unique world — lyric and mechanical, erotic and violent, sobering and exciting — where multinational corporations and high tech outlaws vie for power, traveling into the computer-generated universe known as cyberspace.

Into this world comes Mona, a young girl with a murky past and an uncertain future whose life is on a collision course with internationally famous Sense/Net star Angie Mitchell. Since childhood, Angie has been able to tap into cyberspace without a computer. Now, from inside cyberspace, a kidnapping plot is masterminded by a phantom entity who has plans for Mona, Angie, and all humanity, plans that cannot be controlled… or even known. And behind the intrigue lurks the shadowy Yazuka, the powerful Japanese underworld, whose leaders ruthlessly manipulate people and events to suit their own purposes… or so they think.

In the near future, Gollancz are due to publish a hardcover special edition of NEUROMANCER and also Gibson’s BURNING CHROME anthology. We’ll share the new covers for these as soon as they are available.

William Gibson’s most recent new novel, THE PERIPHERAL, is published in the UK by Penguin Books.

Zeno represents William Gibson in the UK and Commonwealth, on behalf of Martha Millard at Sterling Lord Literistic.

Gollancz Acquires William Gibson’s NEUROMANCER in New Four-Book Deal

Posted on Friday, November 20th, 2015

Gollancz has acquired William Gibson’s Sprawl series, for publication in the UK and Commonwealth. The series includes NEUROMANCER, COUNT ZERO, MONA LISA OVERDRIVE, and the short fiction collection BURNING CHROME.

Chairman of Gollancz Malcom Edwards acquired the rights to the four book deal from John Berlyne at the Zeno Agency, on behalf of Martha Millard at Sterling Lord Literistic. Edwards was also Gibson’s first editor in the UK.

‘I’m delighted to see NEUROMANCER and its two sequels, plus BURNING CHROME, return to Victor Gollancz, my first UK publisher, and still more so under the excellent auspices of Malcolm Edwards, their original acquiring editor,’ said Gibson.

Malcolm Edwards said: ‘Acquiring NEUROMANCER and Gibson’s other early works was one of the high points of my years at Gollancz in the 1980s, and I’m delighted to bring them back where they belong. They remain absolutely key titles in any account of late 20th century SF.’

NEUROMANCER, Gibson’s acclaimed debut, launched the cyberpunk generation. It was the first novel to win the holy trinity of science fiction – the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick Award – and has gone on to sell more than six million copies worldwide. The novel was also included in Time magazine’s list of 100 best English-language novels written since 1923, and was featured in David Pringle’s seminal Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels. The second and third novels in the Sprawl Trilogy, were also nominated for Hugo and Nebula Awards. BURNING CHROME collects ten of Gibson’s best short stories, including ‘Johnny Mnemonic’ (adapted into the film starring Keanu Reeves) and title story, both of which were nominated for the Nebula Award; the collection also includes the Hugo and Nebula-nominated stories ‘Dogfight’ and ‘The Winter Market’.

The series is due to be published as new Gollancz paperbacks on July 14th, 2016. A new hardback edition of NEUROMANCER is also due to be published on September 8th, 2016, as part of the SF Masterworks series. (We will, of course, share covers and any more details as they become available.) In case you haven’t read it, here’s the synopsis for NEUROMANCER…

The novel that launched the cyberpunk generation, heralded the coming of the internet, and won the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K Dick awards.

The Matrix: a world within a world, a graphic representation of the databanks of every computer in the human system; a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate users in the Sprawl alone. And by Case, computer cowboy, until his nervous system is grievously maimed by a client he double-crossed. Japanese experts in nerve splicing and microbionics have left him broke and close to dead.

But at last Case has found a cure. He’s going back into the system. Not for the bliss of cyberspace but to steal again, this time from the big boys, the almighty megacorps. In return, should he survive, he will stay cured.

And, finally, just a small selection of reviews these fantastic books have received…

‘Set for brainstun…one of the most unusual and involving narratives to be read in many an artificially induced blue moon!’ – The Times

‘A masterpiece that moves faster than the speed of thought and is chilling in its implications.’ – New York Times

‘Brilliant… a delight to read. No one can ever hope to out-Gibson Gibson… A true original.’ – Sunday Times

‘Gibson can spin a gripping yarn. He builds up a great head of steam within the first few pages and doesn’t relax until the end.’ – Times Literary Supplement.