The Artificial Kid [Import] [Paperback]

Bruce Sterling (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd (1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140073353
• ISBN-13: 978-0140073355
• Shipping Weight: 5.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious, Delightful Early Bruce Sterling Novel, September 15, 2007

By 

John Kwok (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Artificial Kid (Context (San Francisco).) (Paperback)

With "The Artifical Kid", a young Bruce Sterling demonstrated his excellence in writing comedic novels, to which he would return much later, in full force, in novels like "Holy Fire" and "The Zenith Angle", among others. While his second novel isn't nearly as polished as his later classic "Schisimatrix", it does explore in embroyonic form, some of the same issues of identity and what it means to be human, that he did quite remarkably well in his mid 1980s work. I couldn't help but laugh as I worked my way through the pages of Sterling's early novel, observing that it's nearly as funny as some of Harlan Ellison's best satirical short fiction. For anyone who wishes to understand Sterling's development as a leading member of the cyberpunk literary movement, then this early novel of his is required reading.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Artifical Kid really did change my life..., October 23, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Artificial Kid (Context (San Francisco).) (Paperback)

I found this book in the library, of all places, back when I was in junior high school in 1982. Crouched between all that hoary Silverberg and Simak that I didn't want to read, it said "Psssst!". I haven't been the same since. The Kid jumped out and smacked me across the forehead with his lush, tweaked-out postpunk setting and sweeping, interconnected plot. A little bit of old-world pangalacticism, a little futuristic DIY chopsocky, a bunch of toungues in cheeks, and loads of high-tech wetware polymers and lurching biomasses, from before wetware polymers and lurching biomasses were cool. And all the while, Sterling's trademark core of optimism shines through.

It's taken the world about ten years to catch up to this baby, and it's about damn time. If you don't know Bruce Sterling, this is a fine place to start. Now, where's my Smuff?

John Zero ([e-mail]), Dallas, Texas

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars fun and clever, May 24, 1999

By 

Sean Burke (Ketchikan, Alaska, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Artificial Kid (Context (San Francisco).) (Paperback)

This is such a strange, imaginative, interesting novel -- it's sad that it was out of print for ages, and then Wired Books brought it back, only to let it fall back out of print! Anyone who likes Bruce Sterling's other stuff should go to abebooks.com and try to find a used copy of this!