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Distraction [Mass Market Paperback]

Bruce Sterling
3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (65 customer reviews)

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Book Description

October 5, 1999
It's November 2044, an election year, and the state of the Union is a farce. The government is broke, the cities are privately owned, and the military is shaking down citizens in the streets. Washington has become a circus and no one knows that better than Oscar Valparaiso. A political spin doctor, Oscar has always made things look good. Now he wants to make a difference.

But Oscar has a skeleton in his closet. His only ally: Dr. Greta Penninger, a gifted neurologist at the bleeding edge of the neural revolution. Together they're out to spread a very dangerous idea whose time has come. And so have their enemies: every technofanatic, government goon, and laptop assassin in America. Oscar and Greta might not survive to change the world, but they'll put a new spin on it.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It's the year 2044, and America has gone to hell. A disenfranchised U.S. Air Force base has turned to highway robbery in order to pay the bills. Vast chunks of the population live nomadic lives fueled by cheap transportation and even cheaper computer power. Warfare has shifted from the battlefield to the global networks, and China holds the information edge over all comers. Global warming is raising sea level, which in turn is drowning coastal cities. And the U.S. government has become nearly meaningless. This is the world that Oscar Valparaiso would have been born into, if he'd actually been born instead of being grown in vitro by black market baby dealers. Oscar's bizarre genetic history (even he's not sure how much of him is actually human) hasn't prevented him from running one of the most successful senatorial races in history, getting his man elected by a whopping majority. But Oscar has put himself out of a job, since he'd only be a liability to his boss in Washington due to his problematic background. Instead, Oscar finds himself shuffled off to the Collaboratory, a Big Science pork barrel project that's run half by corruption and half by scientific breakthroughs. At first it seems to be a lose-lose proposition for Oscar, but soon he has his "krewe" whipped into shape and ready to take control of events. Now if only he can straighten out his love life and solve a worldwide crisis that no one else knows exists. --Craig E. Engler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

It's 2044 A.D. and America has gone to the dogs. The federal government is broke and, with 16 political parties fighting for power, things aren't likely to improve soon. The Air Force, short on funding, is setting up roadblocks to shake down citizens and disguising its tactics as a bake sale. The governor of Louisiana, Green Huey, is engaging in illegal genetic research and has set up his own private biker army. The newly elected president of the U.S., Leonard Two Feathers, is considering a declaration of war against the Netherlands, a country that finds itself half under water due to global warming. Trying desperately to hold things together is Oscar Valparaiso, political consultant and spin doctor extraordinaire, who has just engineered the election of a new liberal senator for the state of Massachusetts, only to discover that his boss suffers from severe bipolar disorder. Looking for a new challenge, Oscar takes a job with the U.S. Senate Science Committee. His first assignment is to investigate the scandal-ridden Collaboratory, a gigantic, spaceshiplike federal lab in East Texas. Oscar, himself the result of an illegal Colombian cloning experiment, immediately falls head over heels for a gawky but brilliant young Nobel laureate, with whom he sets out to save both the lab and the nation from Green Huey. In his latest novel (after Holy Fire), Sterling once again proves himself the reigning master of near-future political SF. This is a powerful and, at times, very funny novel that should add significantly to Sterling's already considerable reputation.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Mass Market Paperback: 544 pages
  • Publisher: Spectra (October 5, 1999)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0553576399
  • ISBN-13: 978-0553576399
  • Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1.2 x 7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (65 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #604,208 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bruce Sterling, author, journalist, editor, and critic,
was born in 1954. Best known for his ten science fiction
novels, he also writes short stories, book reviews,
design criticism, opinion columns, and introductions
for books ranging from Ernst Juenger to Jules Verne.
His nonfiction works include THE HACKER CRACKDOWN:
LAW AND DISORDER ON THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER (1992),
TOMORROW NOW: ENVISIONING THE NEXT FIFTY YEARS (2003),
and SHAPING THINGS (2005).

He is a contributing editor of WIRED magazine
and writes a weblog. During 2005,
he was the "Visionary in Residence" at Art Center
College of Design in Pasadena. In 2008 he
was the Guest Curator for the Share Festival
of Digital Art and Culture in Torino, Italy,
and the Visionary in Residence at the Sandberg
Instituut in Amsterdam. In 2011 he returned to
Art Center as "Visionary in Residence" to run
a special project on Augmented Reality.

He has appeared in ABC's Nightline, BBC's The Late Show,
CBC's Morningside, on MTV and TechTV, and in Time,
Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times,
Fortune, Nature, I.D., Metropolis, Technology Review,
Der Spiegel, La Stampa, La Repubblica, and many other venues.

Customer Reviews

The characters are wonderfully drawn. frumiousb  |  5 reviewers made a similar statement
The main problem with "Distraction" is that the main characters have little or no personality. T. Jewell  |  14 reviewers made a similar statement
Too much is missing, to much is simply wrong. Michael Stur  |  6 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
35 of 37 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Pleasant escapist fare January 3, 2000
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Bruce Sterling eats Neal Stephenson's lunch with Distraction, a near-future techno-political thriller that's strongly reminiscent of Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and Interface (which Stephenson and his uncle wrote under the pen name Stephen Bury). I don't mind this because I loved those other books, though it's strange to see Sterling borrowing rather than being borrowed from.

Sterling's technological and political speculations are interesting and plausible, and his plot moves right along, propelled by informal but evocative language and a lot of humor. The best part of the book, though, is its protagonist, Oscar Valparasio, who combines the genius and audacity of Lois Bujold's character Miles Vorkosigan with a personal reserve and opacity that makes us even more interested in finding out what he's really like. Sterling actually manages to keep Oscar mysterious even though we're seeing through his eyes throughout the book.

Distraction is mostly about the ride -- like another of my favorite Sterling books, Heavy Weather, it has little pretension to epic scope or deep literary meaning -- but it has enough depth to make it a worthwhile read. My chief complaint is that it drowns in cynicism towards the end, leaving us with a downbeat and overlong ending and nothing much in the way of climax. A classic character like Oscar deserved a better sendoff.

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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Confirming once again the whole genre of Sci-fFi September 1, 2003
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I've recently felt compelled to re-read 'Distraction', and I've been really enjoying myself. The character of Oscar Valparaiso has snuck up on me and won me over; my copy is all marked up in pink and purple highliner. There are so many great and clever lines.

The people who don't like the plot are probably looking for a conventional Triumph of the Individual Against All Odds adventure. "Distraction" is that rarity in speculative fiction, character-driven Sci-Fi. For an S-F novel to be character-driven, the character(s) must be recognizable and well-observed, but also modified by some speculative concept. The ability to observe well a person who cannot yet exist requires an intuitive vision that, if successful, confirms the whole genre of Sci-fi as a literary artform. I think Bruce Sterling pulls it off.

The whole delightfully wierd rambling plot, about feuding anarchistic nomad bands and the power-grappling over a national
biological laboratory by 16 political parties and neurological Gumbo a la Bayou, are loaded with flip ideas and throw-away shaggy-dog genius, but are ultimately a... well, a distraction. The real story is about Oscar himself, whose plight as the ultimate outsider seems like it must be a sublimation of something the author knows about personally. I'm sorry to say that I worry that Oscar's in-vitro birth as a genetic experiment in a black-market off-shore Columbian Mafia baby-selling operation may be occurring in real life right now. How the scary dark unavoidable abuses of our unprecedented technology impact on human souls is the real subject of this book.

Oscar's dark alter-ego, Green Huey, says to him,"I finally got you all figured out... You're always gonna have your nose pressed up against the glass, watchin' other folks drink the champagne. Nothing you do will last. You'll be a sideshow and a shadow, and you'll stay one till you die. But, son, if you got a big head start on the coming revolution, .... you can goddamn have Massachusetts." But Oscar consistantly chooses quietly perserving his own dignity over exploiting his tremendos gifts, which would only re-enforce his alienation. 'Distraction' is for anyone who's ever found their nose pressed up against the glass in this present bewildering Cyber-Age.

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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Gloriously Cynical August 6, 1999
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
I have read one or two of Bruce Sterling's short stories butonly picked this novel up on the strength of it's Hugo nomination. Iam glad I did! This is gloriously cynical satire. Sterling examines the twists and turns of a very plausible future US political landscape. Worryingly plausible!!

Other reviews here have alluded to the main characters of this novel being two-dimensional. I disagree - Sterling's protagonist is engaging and witty, brilliant and suave and wonderfully flawed to boot. I found great pleasure being in his company for the duration of the book.

Much of the book is cleverly and compellingly written in dialogue form - allowing the author to warm to his subject through his characters instead of off-loading his political philophies as wordy exposition. Sterling handles this expertly, drawing the reader in and entertaining them thoroughly in the process.

Worth the bother? Definitely!

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars America's Future
A poignant and satirical extrapolation of what America might end up as. Again as with Sterling ..better texture than plot. Really enjoyed it although a bit silly most of the time. Read more
Published 8 months ago by GRINGO
5.0 out of 5 stars Just wow
I just finished reading this book and I am still trying to get over it. Shades of The Economist and Miles Vorkosigan. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Daniel M. Bensen
2.0 out of 5 stars Walker Percy's Distraction
I read Sterling's" Distraction" and though it was very clever until I read Walker Percy's "Love in the Ruins" published in 1971. Read more
Published 20 months ago by vero
5.0 out of 5 stars Bruce Sterling's best
I'm not Bruce Sterling's biggest fan, but I am a fan, despite his glaring limitations as a writer. Let's get them out of the way up-front: Bruce Sterling cannot write convincing... Read more
Published on June 27, 2009 by J. Bradley Hicks
2.0 out of 5 stars So many good ideas, so little plot
Distraction shows why fiction was really mostly a warm-up for Sterling's current career as non-fiction writer and design futurist agitator. Read more
Published on April 29, 2009 by Andrew Otwell
3.0 out of 5 stars Vintage Sterling
Distraction by Bruce Sterling will make you think until your dendrites grind while scaring the @#$% out of you, but you'll be laughing so hard you won't notice. Read more
Published on May 7, 2008 by Sylvia Wadlington
4.0 out of 5 stars Masterful writing undermined by gross implausibilities.
Rating: "B": masterful writing and funny/clever satire, undermined
by gross implausibilities and clunky auctorial manipulations. Read more
Published on May 18, 2006 by Peter D. Tillman
3.0 out of 5 stars It's okay
The story here is decent but not exactly what it's pitched as. To read the description would lead you to believe that you're going to read a book about two people trying to change... Read more
Published on January 14, 2004 by Ward Mesick
5.0 out of 5 stars A work of precision intensity and intelligence
Bruce Sterling addresses every major topic of our time. It is a transformational futurists view of the social impact that biotechnology, nanotech, and a global network may have. Read more
Published on October 16, 2003 by Erik Aronesty
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Near Future Sci-Fi
Sterling does it again with this book, prescient and witty. It tells the tale of two people stuck in a civil war of sorts between the old world and the new. Read more
Published on October 2, 2003
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