Count Zero

by William Gibson

First published 2020

A corporate mercenary opens his eyes in a reconstructed body, a beautiful woman at his bedside. His recovery ends abruptly when Hosaka Corporation pulls him back into service. The mission seems straightforward: extract a defecting research chief and secure the revolutionary biochip he has developed. But the mercenary soon discovers that multiple parties want this technology, and some of these competitors operate far beyond human limitations. As he navigates the extraction, corporate loyalties shift and the true value of the biochip becomes clear. The mercenary must complete his assignment while surviving forces that view human life as expendable. Gibson places his characters in a world where technology and flesh merge, where corporations wield more power than governments, and where survival depends on understanding which battles can be won and which must be abandoned.

Genres: science-fiction, adventure, action, cyberpunk

Vibes: dark, fast-paced, thought-provoking

Tropes: corporate-espionage, mercenary-protagonist, survival

Setting: Japan

Period: 20th-century, 21st-century

324 pages · Paperback · Ace Books

Content warnings: violence

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