Zeitgeist (Bantam Spectra Book) (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"Like Tom Clancy on PCP." That's how Bruce Sterling describes his fin-de-siècle head trip, Zeitgeist, a typically Sterling spectacle packed with verbal flash and digerati wit, along with the expected rail-gun-steady stream of well-thought-out ideas and references. His self-appraisal, as it turns out, is right on. This is a guy widely considered "another, hipper Alvin Toppler" (in the words of cyberpunk godfather John Shirley), an effortlessly intelligent master of both style and substance.

Fans will recognize Zeitgeist's antihero protagonist Leggy Starlitz from Sterling stories "Hollywood Kremlin," "Are You for 86?" and "The Littlest Jackal." The well-connected, world-class fixer is part mystic, part sleaze--sort of Uncle Enzo meets Templeton "Faceman" Peck--and his latest hustle is plying the Third World with merchandise from his all-fake, all-girl band, G-7. (Its seven talentless, Wonderbra-wearing members are known simply as the American One, the French One, the German One, etc.)

Starlitz makes use of a shady, flamboyantly weird network of state officials, bodyguards, photographers, and other assorted players to push the merchandise--action figures, lip gloss, shoes, you name it--on what one of G-7's savvier members calls the "Moslem hillbillies." But things get surreal as G-7 girls start dying, characters start explicitly referring to their purpose in the narrative, and one of Leggy's associates conspires to break G-7's most sacred rule: that the whole enterprise must end by Y2K. --Paul Hughes

From Publishers Weekly

Rife with profound ruminations on the "master narrative" of life, Sterling's newest evokes vestiges of his collaboration with William Gibson (1991's The Difference Engine) as he journeys back to 1999 to detail the escapades of Leggy Starlitz and his latest marketing triumphDthe G-7 girls. Using his international girl band to move products such as G-7 lip gloss, candies and sparkly pantyhose, Starlitz embarks on a glamorous Third World tour that skids to an abrupt halt in Turkish Cyprus. Although the dialogue riffs along energetically while Starlitz and Turkish millionaire mobster Mehmet Ozbey discuss the future of G-7, politics and life's "deepest truths," fans of Sterling's fast-paced thrillers will find little suspense or intrigue in this experimental piece. Starlitz passively steps aside, allowing Ozbey to use the band as a front for his illicit negotiations, and dutifully assumes the role of father when his lesbian ex-wife suddenly appears with his telekinetic daughter in tow. Abandoning Cyprus to conjure up his "Javanese Navajo" father (who dematerialized as a result of being too close to an atomic bomb test in the '50s), Starlitz travels to New Mexico and stages mock-Christmas festivities. When the G-7 girls begin to die, however, Starlitz returns to Cyprus to engage in another aimless battle of wits with Ozbey. Although this tragicomedy resonates with Sterling's striking prose and strong characterizations, these do little to salvage a tale that reads more like a disjointed dream than a cohesive narrative. Nevertheless, Sterling's strong following will certainly buoy the sales of this leaden sinker. (Nov. 7)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Spectra; 1St Edition edition (October 31, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553104934
• ISBN-13: 978-0553104936
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,015,806 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Feeling slow-witted about this one -- or is it the book?, April 9, 2001

By	Kim Unertl "kimz0519" (Nashville, TN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

First, if this is the first time you have heard of Sterling and haven't read his other work, STOP right there. Read his short stories in Globalhead or A Good Old Fashioned Future. Then, decide if you are interested in reading more. If this were the first Sterling work you ever picked up, I doubt you would ever read anything more by him. You need a gentler introduction to Sterling.

Second, before you purchase this book, take a look at Sterling's Leggy Starlitz short stories. The three that I know of are: "Hollywood Kremlin" (in Globalhead), "Are you for 86?" (in Globalhead), and "The Littlest Jackal" (in A Good Old Fashioned Future). If you like those stories and want to know more, for sure read Zeitgeist - you will probably like it. Also, if you don't read the short stories, you will have a harder time figuring out all of the details in Zeitgeist - not 100% necessary but very helpful.

Leggy Starlitz is definitely one of those characters that you really love and "get" or one of those characters that you hate, you think is shallow, and you just don't understand. Personally, I think that I understand at least a little of who/what Starlitz is and (especially in the short stories), I really loved him. He's not a flat character and there is a lot about him that is not explained either in the short stories or in Zeitgeist.

That said, did I like Zeitgeist? "Yeah, no, maybe" sums it up pretty well. In case you don't know, the word zeitgeist is German for "the spirit of the times". That's the basic concept driving this book. The question is, what is time all about? How does time work? Does the millennium have any meaning at all or is it just another year?

I'm not going to pretend that I actually figured out answers to those questions by reading Zeitgeist, but it did make me think about them a lot. Honestly, I felt that I was a bit out of my depth reading this book. I could definitely tell that there were some super high level concepts that Sterling was trying to get across but I had a hard time understanding them. The main idea was something along the line of time being a narrative and about how events either "fit" the narrative or just don't make sense in it. If events don't belong in the narrative, then bad things tend to happen.

There is a great deal of depth to this novel beyond the high level plot about Starlitz managing a faux Spice Girls band. This is also the case with all of the Starlitz short stories - there's always more than meets the eye. Although that high level plot isn't half bad either, it's the behind the scenes action that I really like. And the tiny Princess Di subplot made me fall over laughing when I figured it all out.

As for the argument that this is a book about Y2K that was published a year to late... If you actually get to the end of the book and still think this, you have definitely missed the point.

Also, as for the argument that Sterling is mired in jargon and doesn't make sense... come on! It's Sterling for crying out loud. This should not be your first Bruce Sterling experience and if you've ever read anything by him, you know what to expect in terms of jargon and being "kool".

Basically, no guarantees that you will actually like this book if you buy it. I would not say that I liked it that much. It's not my favorite work of Sterling's - Heavy Weather and his short stories seem much better to me. In fact, on occasion, Sterling's style falls a little short - in the final section when we're getting closer to Y2K, the story seems to get a bit muddled... but that might be part of the point as well.

Not my favorite Sterling work, but DEFINITELY a book that I will want to re-read in six months or a year. To me, actually wanting to re-read a book is the best possible test of how worthwhile the book was to read.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Post-911, a prophetic book, January 2, 2002

By	a superintelligent shade of the color blue (minneapolis) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Zeitgeist (Mass Market Paperback)

A science fiction novel about Y2K written after Y2K? No, i think the real mystical power of this book came into play in our post-911 world, where the reality of the "culture war" became apparent even to ignorant, self-centered Americans. Can you think of any other novels that mention Osama bin Laden by name?

Personally, i think this is Sterling's best work in years. The self-referentiality and magical realism aspects are hard for many people to grasp (judging from other reviews), but if you're familiar with French semiotics and Spanish language magical novels, it is much easier. And really, magical realism and self-referentiality is as good a lens to view our world of constant surveillance, mass marketing, and millenial change as anything anyone else has to offer in the marketplace of ideas.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bruce Sterling's Stylishly Hip View Of The Millenium, June 8, 2001

By	John Kwok (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Bruce Sterling's latest novel is perhaps his funniest. It is also the first with a contemporary setting, though some of the plot qualifies as marginal science fiction. Leggy Starlitz, the wily protagonist in several of Sterling's short stories, is the manager of a Spice Girls group. Here he is just as wily, and stylishly hip. This hilarious rollercoaster of a tale stops in Cyprus, Turkey, New Mexico, and Hawaii. Although it is still not quite as accomplished a work of fiction as his acclaimed "Schisimatrix", "Heavy Weather" and "Holy Fire", it shows him writing almost at the peak of his powers. I find it a vast improvement over his disappointing "Distraction". Long time admirers of Bruce Sterling's work won't be disappointed. And others in search of a funny tale set at the dawn of the new millenium will also be quite pleased.