Bruce Sterling, one of the founding fathers of the cyberpunk genre, now presents a novel of vivid imagination and invention that proves his talent for creating brilliant speculative fiction is sharper than ever. Forty years from now, Earth's climate has been drastically changed by the greenhouse effect. Tornadoes of almost unimaginable force roam the open spaces of Texas. And on their trail are the Storm Troupers: a ragtag band of computer experts and atmospheric scientists who live to hack heavy weather -- to document it and spread the information as far as the digital networks will stretch, using virtual reality to explore the eye of the storm. Although it's incredibly addictive, this is no game. The Troupers' computer models suggest that soon an "F-6" will strike -- a tornado of an intensity that exceeds any existing scale; a storm so devastating that it may never stop. And they're going to be there when all hell breaks loose.
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Why hack computers when you can hack nature? Sterling's Storm Troupe lives in a post-greenhouse world ravaged by monster storms and finds itself hacking the ultimate storm: the F-6 tornado. No one in the Troupe, not even it's brilliant, driven leader, guesses the real nature of the F-6 or the shadowy forces unleashed in its twisting fury. Not until it is too late...
From Publishers Weekly
Cyberpunk prophet Sterling, whose last book was a nonfiction exploration of computer hackers and the law (The Hacker Crackdown), returns to SF with a near-future thriller. In 2031, the world suffers from "heavy weather"-tornadoes and typhoons caused by a runaway greenhouse effect. While most people wisely try to avoid the storms, one group of counterculture techno-enthusiasts calling themselves the Storm Troupe chases them through the badlands of Texas and Oklahoma. Led by the visionary scientist Jerry Mulcahey, the Troupe studies the storms with an array of high-tech equipment, trying to document what Mulcahey believes is coming soon-a superstorm, the "F-6," a tornado far more powerful than any ever seen and which might even prove unstoppable, a perpetual violent disturbance ravaging the landscape. When Mulcahey's lover, Juanita ("Jane") Unger, drags her brother Alex (who suffers from some strange disease as well as an irritating anomie) from an illegal Mexican clinic back to the Troupe's camp, tensions are ignited among the Troupers. But those plot threads are abruptly dropped when the F-6 hits, and the Troupe pulls together to fight the elements. Some similarities between this book and Sterling's previous fiction are evident: the Troupe uses the word "hack" as computer users do, saying they "hack" heavy weather, and they've got a similar case of technophilia, but it lacks the scope and the big, innovative ideas that gave novels like Islands in the Net their power. This one has some sharp moments and intriguing characters, but it never offers that exciting sense of vision. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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.
Sterling is one of the few current cyberpunk/scifi writers who seems to work with real characters rather than new ideas. Despite an occasionally messy plot point, this book delivers some of the most interesting speculative fiction around. The German-Mexican brother sister pair-- Jane and Alex-- are full and complex people and rather than simply acting out some kind of mythic archetype they move in this futurescape the way you'd expect real people to move. The sense of scene is also rich and full, with the cultural details full of verisimilitude. Perhaps not my favorite Sterling, but still a great read.
Bruce Sterling took the familar sub-genre of Cyberpunk and carried it to new terrain, literally. The story takes place primarily in West Texas and up Tornado Alley, with a smattering of Mexico for the really dark side of living. Most of Cyberpunk takes place on the West Coast or Asia. The setting changes the whole ambience of the book. Instead of the slick, fast, all mirror feel of typical cyberpunk fare, we have a more paced and linguistically clever piece of writing.
Sterling does go a little overboard with the F-6; the anticipation is built up so much that when he finally describes it, the disappointment is palpable. Words simply fail to capture the idea of such a colossal event.
However, this book is about people, and how they are dealing with a world in climatic catastrophe. Consequently, the characters are rich and the dialogue is textured. The characters are not ginger-bread people, each is noticeably different from one another. Many very clever lines from this book and some astute insights as to the nature of modern American thought.
Heavy Weather is not a bad book, but it is not one of my favorite novels. While the plot can be slow at times and is a little predictable, the concept is interesting and the book is very easy to read. If you have a short attention span, I suggest that you do not read this book. The story has a very large lull in the middle. Another downfall is that the F6 tornado is extremely over-hyped. Sterling could have done much more with it, but didn't. The plot and characters are developed well, however, and the story itself is refreshingly different.
Heavy Weather is much like one of Sterling's other works, Holy Fire. The writing styles of both books are very similar. Both books deal with medical technology. The theme of whether or not medicine can be too high tech seems to run through both books. Some characters even seem like they could fit in with the characters in Holy Fire. In both books, Sterling focuses on the people in his story, rather than the technology itself. He writes more about how technology affects people.
The main characters, Jane and Alex, are two siblings that were never very close to each other. Fulfilling her role as the big sister, Jane saves Alex from a life of black market medical treatments, and takes him to experience her lifestyle. Jane lives with the Storm Troupe, a group of people that hack weather. The Troupe chases tornadoes gathering all the information they can get, in hopes that they will figure out the secrets behind one of Mother Nature's mysteries. Their mission is centered on a hypothesized F6 sized tornado, their Holy Grail.
One attraction to this book is how different it is from other cyberpunk novels. I started reading this book expecting another classic cyberpunk storyline, but found a book that could have easily not been cyberpunk at all. The book seemed more along the lines of a natural-disaster-punk novel. The movie Twister, which came out two years after Heavy Weather, shares many similarities with it. Both show the group of outsiders who are only interested in solving the mystery of the tornado. Both show the main characters chasing the big tornado, which ends up making their relationship with each other better. There is even an appearance in both the book and the movie, by the cow that gets caught in the tornado.
