MONA LISA OVERDRIVE by William Gibson

Narrated by Jonathan Davis

               Sticky Situation

Again I am in the uncomfortable situation of giving a lackluster review to a book that I had high hopes for. I set out to listen to the Sprawl trilogy realizing that I had not read NEUROMANCER for over twenty years. That first book contained the kernel of many of the Science Fiction elements I enjoy most, namely cyber-tech criminals and hip street lingo. This novel does have those elements. What it did not have was a marked improvement over the original. Given that NEUROMANCER was a first novel, I was expecting more from this.

Jonathan Davis is solid, but solid was not what I was hoping for. I needed an over the top dramatic performance. Maybe that could have saved this novel for me.