Johnny Mnemonic - Terry Bisson

 

    1995; 246 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Cyberpunk; Dystopian Science Fiction; Urban Thriller.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    Hey, did you ever have trouble getting rid of some unwanted memory that was stuck in your head?  Well, Johnny Mnemonic has that same problem.

 

    Okay, not quite.  Actually, he has a data storage chip stuck in his brain.  When it comes to transferring top secret information, Johnny Mnemonic is much more reliable than computers.  Plug a connecting cable into Johnny’s head, upload the file, protect it with a couple of passwords, unplug when finished, and tell him where to deliver it.  Not even Johnny himself can access the chip.  It’s foolproof.

 

    Okay, not quite.  Someone wants to hijack Johnny’s latest mission.  They may not have the passwords, but a good hacker can overcome that.  What they need is the data storage chip.  And that can be extracted from Johnny’s brain.

 

    In a most blood-curdling fashion.

 

What’s To Like...

    Johnny Mnemonic was originally a short story by William Gibson that appeared in Omni Magazine in 1981.  It was expanded into an hour-and-a-half movie in 1995 (starring Keanu Reeves), and Terry Bisson did a 246-page novelization of the movie in 1995 as well.  This review is of Bisson’s novel.

 

    The main story thread follows Johnny as he desperately tries to avoid falling into the hands of a crack team of Yakuza assassins tasked with acquiring the data chip, with or without Johnny’s presence around it.  The book opens in Beijing, China, but most of the story takes place in Newark, New Jersey.

 

    The action starts immediately.  Johnny’s clients are in the middle of uploading the secret files and passwords into Johnny’s skull when the Yakuza thugs strike.  Johnny barely escapes, and after that, it’s just one thrill after another.  He meets a bunch of interesting characters along the way, not all of which have his best interests in mind.

 

    I liked the dystopian world setting.  The rich are extremely rich and decadent.  The poor are extremely poor and extremely cautious and cunning.  The street preacher is devout and deadly.  And the dolphin is a computer whiz, but also a heroin junkie.  There are some neato futuristic gadgets such as vidphones and stun clubs, and an innovative way to prolong one’s existence.

 

    Things build to a suitably tense and exciting climax.  Help comes unexpectedly from a family member.  And the junkie dolphin.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 5.0*/5, based on 1 rating and 0 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.79*/5, based on 12,336 ratings and 206 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    Yomamma and Pretty didn’t like each other all that much.  They had been man and woman once, though nobody except themselves could remember which had been the man and which the woman.  Now they were both women—Ralfi’s amazon gladiator muscle.  Yomamma was black and Pretty was white, but they both had augmented jade-green eyes and, except for the tone of their skin, they could have been built out of the same kit: steroid-spectacular biceps, V-2 rocket breasts, hips like sugar-cured hams and thighs twisted with muscle like bridge cables.  There hadn’t been enough meat left over for brains.  (pg. 50)

 

    “I should have known better!” he said.

    “Known better than what?”

    “Known better than to try to help.  All my life I’ve been careful to stay in my own corner, looking out for number one.  No complications.  Now suddenly, according to Spider, I’m responsible for the entire f**king world, plus everybody and his mother is trying to kill me, which is totally unnecessary since my head is going to blow up first!”  (pg. 168)

 

“So farce, oh good,” as the Americans liked to say. (pg. 30)

    The profanity level was relatively light in Johnny Mnemonic.  I counted just 11 instances in the first 20% of the book, although three of those were f-bombs.  There’s lots of violence and killing, although I’d rate it PG, not R.  I didn’t notice any typos.

 

    If I had to quibble about anything, it would be that there’s not a lot of depth to the tale.  Johnny runs; Yakuza dudes chase; all turns out well in the end.  But I think this is inherent when penning a novelization of an action-intrigue movie.  And as our real world tries to cope with Artificial Intelligence impacting our lives, perhaps Johnny Mnemonic has a timely message about that.  There are also some interesting religious insights offered via the Street Preacher dude.

 

    The movie version of Johnny Mnemonic generally received poor ratings and I suspect this constrained Terry Bisson’s literary efforts.  Nonetheless, I’ll be on the lookout for the DVD of this.

 

    7 Stars.  One last thing.  The paperback version of Johnny Mnemonic at Amazon is limited to one source.  When I checked at the time of writing this review (Sept. 23), the price for a used copy was $1,329.50.  Yesterday, it was $1,446.56.  I got my paperback copy, albeit of a different edition, for $4.00.