Customer Reviews

A Good Old-Fashioned Future

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

With one or two exceptions, "A Good Old-Fashioned Future" exhibits the best Sterling short fiction I've read so far...the concluding three, beginning with "Deep Eddy," form a sort of quasi-novel that shows Sterling doing what he does best: providing widescreen views of _believable_ near-futures, peopled by sympathetic characters who find themselves in predicaments of sometimes overpowering weirdness in a world already steeped in the Philosophy of the Ejector Seat.

Arguably the best of the stories here is "Big Jelly," a fevered collaboration with Rudy Rucker, whose motto sums up Sterling's shared vision nicely: "Seek Ye The Gnarl!"

This is a spendid, lingering collection, more coherent and immediately enjoyable than "Crystal Express" or "Globalhead."

Seven nice, fairly low-key stories set in near future worlds on the verge of becoming terribly strange . . . though not necessarily terrible. If there's a common theme here, it's that life will go on -- and may be a bit more fun -- if the corporate, social, and governmental status quo had some holes blown in it.

The best is "Maneki Neko," a genial story set in a Japan where the traditional gift economy has become fantastically enhanced. This one's up for a Hugo.

The weakest story is "The Littlest Jackal," another entry in the Siggy Starlitz sequence. Here the underground opportunist finds himself in the company of mercenaries trying to overthrow the local government and establish an off-shore banking haven. Not bad, but not up to the rest of the collection.

Strangest is a collaboration with Rudy Rucker about a Silicon Valley startup, synthetic jellyfish, and trouble in oil country.

As I discussed in my review of "Distraction," Bruce Sterling is a puzzling writer. At his best -- his non-fiction work, "The Hacker Crackdown" -- he is a fabulous, witty, fascinating writer. But his fiction, particularly his novels (I refer here to "Islands in the Net," "Holy Fire" and "Distraction," plus "Heavy Weather," which I started but never finished), tends to fall short of his aim.

His short stories tend to fare better. They are less ambitious but also tighter, and hence less distracting. "A Good Old-Fashioned Future" represents his latest collection of stories; the earlier works are "Globalhead" and "Crystal Express," which contains one absolute knock-out story called "Swarm."

These stories are less experimental than "Globalhead" and more successful. Most of them are set in the near future and focus on collapsing societies. The last three are set in the same world and form a loose novella; Sterling seems to like this setting.

None of the stories in here drags unacceptably, and some are quite good. It may be that Sterling has settled down to writing clean readable stories, rather than trying to write "outside the box."

This collection contains seven stories, all previously published in magazines between 1993 and 1998. One story, "Big Jelly" was co-authored with Rudy Rucker.

I liked this anthology a lot despite the fact that a couple of the stories were rather weak. Some of the stories seem to have been written by extrapolating current events into the future and these, like "The Littlest Jackal" are the weakest in the collection. Also, in that story, the author mis-places Helsinki north of the Arctic circle and so he has the sun not setting in the summer, that was just sloppy writing. The stories such as "Maneki Neko" (my favourite) and the "Deep Eddy" series, that extrapolate technology are the ones that make the book worth while. In these, Sterling's wry view of the way that technology might change our world is both thought provoking and funny.

The last three stories are all set in the same world and they follow the largely unrelated exploits of a group of people living on the edge of a highly technological society. I felt as though the author was taking some of the people that he met while writing "The Hacker Crackdown" and then dropping them into the middle of the 21st century. These are three great stories.

A Good Old-Fashioned Future, (...), is an anthology of seven stellar stories authored by Austin, Texas novelist and seer Bruce Sterling. These yarns were originally published in magazines -- such as Asimov's, Hayakawa's Science Fiction Magazine, Omni, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, -- that were sold between 1993 and 1998. And with the exception of one tale, they are all interlaced in some form or another, whether by scheme or character.

My favorite story in this collection is "Big Jelly," a collaboration Sterling hatched with his close friend Rudy Rucker of Freeware fame. "Big Jelly," is an anecdotal account of the unintended consequences that result from a second-chance meeting between Tug Mesoglea, a gay San Jose computer programmer, and Revel Pullen, a straight Texas oil billionaire that dabbles in venture capitalism on the side. While not the longest story in AGOFF, "Big Jelly" does seem to have the most going on, conceptually. Also note the glib sense of humor, as in the initials of the story, and the backward names, "gut" and "lever." Lever Pullen... hehe. Coincidentally this is the one story that has little in common with the others. The other stories seem to take place anywhere from 30 and 70 years from now. Based on the quality of this story, I'd love to see a whole novel from this pair. Would that be too much to ask for? After all, Bruce did collaborate once before on The Difference Engine with William Gibson. What do you say Bruce?

My second favorite parable in this group is "Deep Eddy," a forty-seven page recounting of Edward Dertouzas's pleasure trip from the metropolis of Chattanooga, Tennessee, into the dark heart of modern-day Dusseldorf, circa July 2035. "Deep Eddy," a ripe old 22, is a young man of amazing technical prowess, and while deemed a "security risk" upon his arrival on European soil, he's then assigned his own personal Security Guard who will escort him while he conducts his business in country -- and her name, we are led to believe, is simply Sardelle. These two curious specimens are then thrown together in a dangerous set of circumstances, as they attempt to reach the city center during a "Wende" -- a multi-cultural holiday of some type, wherein over a million people rapidly descend upon the city over the course of a few summer days. Ultimately this turns out to be a tale of both efficiency and charm, and is told by Sterling. with a firm grip on a "truly alien sensibility." In the final analysis, "Deep Eddy" and "Sardelle" are destined to part ways, but not until after they spend a couple of years together. I'd really like to see another story featuring Sardelle, perhaps set in the Canary Islands or Ibiza.

And I suppose my third favorite gem from this volume would be "Bicycle Repairman," a chronicle that has garnered many accolades, and that has been reprinted in any number of other places, such as The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 14, Hartwell's Year's Best SF2, and The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. "Bicycle Repairman" is set in the Chattanooga of 2037, and involves one Lyle Schweik, southern high-rise squatter and confederate mail-drop for one Edward Dertouzas, whom is set upon by comely Federal Agent Kitty Casaday, after receiving a mysterious delivery from former acquaintance "Deep Eddy," currently living it up in Spain. Only it turns out Casaday is incompetent, like most government workers, and as a result she is captured by a trap that Lyle had set up in his home. After some light coercion from Lyle's "unique friends," Kitty reveals her ulterior motives -- "spills the beans" so to speak. When you boil it down, this is a truly fascinating short-hop extension of "Deep Eddy," a classic Sterling short that the author decided to riff on a mere three years later. I'd really like to see another story featuring Eddy & Violeta Dertouzas, their two children and their in-laws -- set in a unified Middle East of 2048. Can you humor me Bruce?

For the purpose of this review, and in favor of not boring you, I've decided to summarize only three of these adventures. The other four items in this anthology, Maneki Neko, The Littlest Jackal, Sacred Cow, and Taklamakan are just as good, in terms of quality. The trio of story lines I've decided to outline for you here are simply the ones that I most prefer to tout. *Sterling still pens short stories from time to time, but the realities of being a writer with a family to support generally make it a necessity that he concentrate solely on non-fiction books, such as *Tomorrow Now, or on science fiction novels, such as *Holy Fire. Which is too bad, since he's so truly adept at the art of the short story -- arguably a more elusive gift than the basic ability to complete a manuscript of novel length.

If you seek out A Good Old-Fashioned Future based on my recommendation here, you'll also want to pick up Bruces@ older anthology, Globalhead, from 1992, and gobble up "Dori Bangs," perhaps the most melancholy short story ever set to paper. I highly recommend anything written by Bruce Sterling, and this volume is one of his better efforts. I have seven of his books -- four in hardback, and three in paperback. Zude. Eventually I'll own them all. Keep on writing Bruce, never change what you do, and please -- write faster!

Bruce Sterling rose to prominence in the 1980s as the master visionary and literary theorist of the cyberpunk movement. Although he has not left cyberpunk's sensibility behind, his newer fiction incorporates a wider range of themes, philosophical concepts, and just plain fun which is immediately engaging and entertaining as well as intellectually satisfying.

The best of Sterling's fiction- and "A Good Old-Fashioned Future" definitely belongs in that category- extrapolates current events and trends into the near future, then gives them a baroque twist. Here, Sterling's combination of a mad-cow disease epidemic and the rise of Indian cinema combine to make "Sacred Cow" a darkly humorous exploration of reverse colonialism. Likewise, cultural warfare- whether between differing intellectual movements, government and squatting entrepreneurs, or ethnic minorities against their own state and each other- invests and links the three last stories in the book in a progression that is as intricate as it is involving.

It's not all Bollywood and literary theory, though- Sterling loyalists will be pleased with the return of his irrepressible outlaw Leggy Starlitz. Scheming to free a group of islands from Danish control in order to set up a money-laundry, Starlitz's efforts are as amusing as they are, always, ultimately futile.

All in all, this collection is excellently balanced between the foreboding and the comic, the earnest and the absurd, and it's a must-have both for Sterling fans and those who just want to know how good science fiction can be.

It's nice to know that someone is still writing good tight cyberpunk stories. Overall, it's a format that suits Sterling quite well. I've read his novels, and they don't seem to be quite all there. It's the short stories that he really shines.

All of his interesting sensibilities are there, and he has evolved to new concepts as time goes on and the future we expected changed. The Japanese mega-corp - a staple of early science fiction - is dead. Bruce was ahead of the curve in viewing Russia as an interesting place to do cyberpunk. Certainly as history unfolds, it remains an interesting place.

Lastly, the evolution of the writing is good. It maintains the cyberpunk view of the world, undergoing some few modifications for the Internet as it came out, not envisioned, as well as the toys that make cyberpunk fun. Bio Drills that eat sugar, not eating and living on implanted fat for days. The whole Urban spider concept is a fun one that needs to be explored more.

Overall, a must read for the old-school cyberpunk fan. Heck, it's a must read in general.

Sterling is probably the best writer working in the SF field today, and easily the best to emerge during the '90s.

His short fiction is wonderful, and the "Deep Eddy" sequence of stories reprinted here are particularly strong.

One point though: the story "Taklamakon" listed in the promotional material and Amazon synopsis as original to the book is suspiciously similar to the Hugo-nominated novella "Takalamakan" published in Asimov's last year.

Regardless of that, you have to own this one.

This collection definitely has a mid-90s internet boom feel to it. Bruce Sterling is a futurist so his writing style is embedded with loaded terminology, peripheral technologies, acronyms, gadgets and slang. Sterling takes an idea, runs full throttle with it, dragging along an arm full of other odd concepts and usually ends up swerving all over the place when he SHOULD be slowing it down and enjoying the scenery a bit. It's all a bit rush-rush with these stories. Maybe one or two rush-rush, get-things-done, wham-bam sort of stories in the collection would be interesting, but I guess you really have to be into this sort of thing to actually enjoy it.

His prose isn't very creative. He writes stories around ideas, not stories around words or people. Sterling likes to throw in paragraphs of technical explanation, either in narrative form or in (eek!) the middle of dialogue. It's like he took footnote information from a journal and pasted it into the story. It makes the story flow very herky-jerky.

It's all a bit too geeky for me, as if Sterling is merely writing for himself, as if he's just playing with the ideas in his head for his own amusement and putting it on paper. If zaniness is what you're craving then Adam Johnson, is his collection Emporium (2002), did much of the same thing but it was much better honed than what Sterling here has produced. If futurist ideas is what you're after, then Gibson's Burning Chrome (1986) would be a better purchase.

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Maneki Neko (1998) - 5/5 - International ring of a social network of gift-giving/tax evasion catches the eye of an American assistant federal prosecutor. When Tsuyoshi, a digital video converter by trade, finds himself involved in the prosecutor's arrival, it's discovered that the gifts aren't the only thing the network shares. 19 pages

Big Jelly (1994) - 2/5 - An artificial squid scientist sends a sample to an oil tycoon who joins forces with him to create an exotic range of transparent squid for commercial retail. Unfortunately, the helium that the squids ingest is causing a problem or two. 48 pages

The Littlest Jackal (1996) - 2/5 - A Finnish island separatist group hires an old terrorist to head a scheme revolving around the exploitation of a senile cartoonist and her intellectual rights in order to sue the producers of merchandisers in Japan. The cash will then be laundered through digital currency exchange on the to-be fledgling island nation. 54 pages

Sacred Cow (1993) - 3/5 - Bollywood mega-producer filming movies #127-130 is in England where 90% of the population had perished from Mod Cow disease decades ago. 19 pages

Deep Eddy (1993) - 3/5 - An American travels to Germany to deliver a book to the Culture Critic and is assigned a pretty female bodyguard with a savvy mind for security. With the city in anticipation of a destructive orgy, security and anonymity are essential for the delivery of the package. 47 pages

Bicycle Repairman (1996) - 3/5 - Sexually uninterested bicycle repair guy living off the grid becomes the center of attention of a female government agent after receiving a fairly innocuous-looking cable box in the mail from his ex-roommate Deep Eddy. 41 pages

Taklamakan (1998) - 4/5 - NAFTA Black Ops Pete and Katrinko should abandon their mission after their contact in the remote Asian Sphere desert dies in a crash. With punctual curiosity, the two investigate the huge domes finding that the ones they break into are just the usual nuclear waste dumps; except dome #13 which is home to two corpses and a deep, deep well which is, itself, home to as many mysteries as a 100-megaton nuked out subterranean bubble can hold. 51 pages

This book contains seven science fiction stories by Bruce Sterling. Each is written in the high-tech, intense-action, near-future style one expects of a Bruce Sterling story. These stories are well-served appetizers for readers not quite ready to commit to the full meal of Schismatrix or Black Swan.

All of these stories are good. Three are particularly so--

"Maneki Neko" takes us into a future high-tech, high-touch Japan. We all use personal networks to get things done. As they become smarter about how they do this, who is using who? Does it matter?

"Bicycle Repairman" has become a cyberpunk classic. More than anything it is a portrait of a low-key, high-tech social outcast. Well, there is more than one, actually.

In "Taklamakan" we accompany two deniable government operatives on a high-tech, behind-the-lines, undercover insertion into... something that has gone awry.

Did I mention that everything is high-tech? These are good stories and representative of Sterling's larger body of fiction. Take a deep breath and give them a try.