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Mona Lisa Overdrive
Struggling for control of the virtual and real world
Having completed another futuristic William Gibson novel, Mona Lisa Overdrive, I recalled how several characters in the book were electronic circuits that contained the knowledge of individuals who had died as well as individuals who were created from scratch. It dawned on me that it is becoming increasingly possible to capture the skills of humans in electronics circuits. That being said would it not then be possible given sufficient memory and compute power to capture the entire life experience of humans sometime in the future.
One memorable character in Gibson’s novel is Clive, a hologram that pops out of a handheld computer. From the narrative, the handheld device seems to be about the size of a palm pilot. Gibson’s device Clive, manufactured by the fictitious firm of Maas-Neotek, comes not only with information but with an attitude as well.
Clive can be seen and heard only by Kimiko—the adolescent daughter of a Japanese Yakuza overlord—whom he advised on all subjects. Clive is a know-it-all futuristic Fodor’s Travel Guide, but with boundless access to information. For example, when Kimiko asks him about the very upscale Victorian residence in the Notting Hill of London, in which she is a guest, he answers as follows:
"‘Well’ he said, surveying the bed and tub, ‘by the décor, it could be a brothel. I can access historical data on most of the buildings in London, but there’s nothing notable about this one. Build in 1848. Solid example of the prevalent Victorian style. The neighborhood’s expensive without being fashionable, popular with lawyers of a certain sort.’…"
In another part of the novel, Kimiko describes her father kneeling in the middle of four cubes, each containing a hologram of a deceased ancestor. The Yakuza consults these artificial spirits who share their lifetime of knowledge and experience with him.
The concept of cyberspace is a prevailing theme throughout Gibson’s novels. "A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators in every nation…" describes Gibson in Neuromancer, his first novel. "A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system…"
Virtual reality and its computer-generated world allow us a peak into Gibson’s vision. Soon video games will bring these artificial worlds to every consumer, allowing players to struggle against computer-generated obstacles.
In Mona Lisa Overdrive, the cyberspace is a vast repository of information, Individuals, no longer physically alive, inhabit this cyberspace, living out lives among the vast storehouses of information. He who has access to and controls this wealth of information has immense power.
It is the struggle to control this power that forms the core of Gibson’s books. In this struggle, the human heroes confront both virtual and real villains. The result is a roller coaster ride that keeps the reader guessing right up to the end.
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