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Visionary in Residence: Stories (Paperback)

~ (Author) "The machines broke down so much that it was comical, but the security people never laughed about that..." (more)
Key Phrases: Ribo Zombie, Magic Pumpkin, Design Team Subject (more...)

3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The 13 entries in this welcome fourth collection from postcyberpunk Sterling (Distraction) run the gamut from SF to ghost stories, but all deal with the impact of the strange, be it supernatural or scientific, on the individual. "Junk DNA" (with Rudy Rucker) deftly captures the fast-paced ethos of the 1990s, with its dot-com startups and meltdowns, as does "Code," in which a male computer geek, faced with that most troubling of all creatures, a woman, reduces our patriarchic civilization to a system he can hack. "User-Centric," told as a series of corporate e-mails among a team launching a new product, spins into something far odder as we learn what that product is. In an intriguing time-travel tale, "The Blemmye's Stratagem," an abbess and an assassin work for a man who can only be an alien. Sterling is that rare author who writes witty, humorous thought-experiments centered on great ideas. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Sterling's short stories run the gamut of sf's potential suggested by the diverse headings of this collection's sections, which include "fiction for scientists" and "the past is a future that already happened." An example of fiction for scientists is a story about talking bugs that was inspired by an entomologist's paper on firefly biology. Stories of the past as future that has happened include the ghost story "The Denial" and a semihistorical piece about the Crusades and encountering aliens, "The Blemmye's Stratagem." Sterling's work resists those oversimplified descriptions. His stories run deeper than can be accurately suggested by a phrase, into the realm of decisions yet to be made and currents of political thought that resonate with the contemporary reader. "User-Centric" is a further example; stemming from the fascination Sterling contracted, while serving as "visionary in residence" at a design school in California, for the way designers work and think, it demonstrates thinking outside the box taken about as far as it can go. Sterling is a perceptive and far-seeing storyteller, whose work features both entertaining surfaces and penetrating commentary. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Running Press (February 28, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1560258411
ISBN-13: 978-1560258414
Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #526,066 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
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Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
The machines broke down so much that it was comical, but the security people never laughed about that. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Ribo Zombie, Magic Pumpkin, Design Team Subject, Silent Master, Holy Land, Sir Roger, Revel Pullen, Roger of Edessa, Skratchy Kat, Panspecific Mycoblastula, Prince Kissy Mental, Tug Mesoglea, Kemp Kingseed, Legal Expert, San Francisco, Herbie Zoster, Private Message, Universal Ribosome, Hong Kong, Hoss Jenks, Triple Helix, Agent Portillo, Alan Turing, Blemmye's Paradise, Pumpti Therapy

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Citations (learn more)

This book cites 7 books:

Getting What You Want (Stepp Sisters, Book 1) by Kathy Love on page 100
The Life of Insects: A Novel by Victor Pelevin on page 17
Secrets About Men Every Woman Should Know by Barbara De Angelis on page 100
Secrets About Men Every Woman Should Know by Barbara De Angelis on page 100
The Rules?: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right by Ellen Fein on page 99

See all 7 books this book cites

2 books cite this book:

What is Graphic Design For? (Essential Design Handbook) by Alice Twemlow on page 28
Mad Professor: The Uncollected Short Stories of Rudy Rucker by Rudy Rucker in Back Matter

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	55% buy the item featured on this page: Visionary in Residence: Stories 3.4 out of 5 stars (9) $14.04
	16% buy Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next 50 Years 4.2 out of 5 stars (5) $11.66
	11% buy The Caryatids 2.6 out of 5 stars (17) $16.50
	10% buy Zeitgeist 3.6 out of 5 stars (19) $6.99

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Customer Reviews

9 Reviews

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3.4 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Visionary In Residence, March 24, 2006

By	sfarmer76 "sfarmer76" (Savannah, Georgia USA) - See all my reviews

Visionary in Residence is a collection that unites thirteen stories (published circa 1999-2005) by Bruce Sterling under one cover; two of these yarns also happen to be collaborations with his close friends Paul and Rudy. Audiences generally regard Sterling to be an author of science fiction, but his writing (continuing to transition into more alien forms of that genre) lately seems to congeal around disparate fields such as architecture, biology, design, environmentalism, and security.

"In Paradise," the lead story, is Sterling's strongest effort. Set amid a concourse of duty free shops, this narrative details the chance meeting of a nineteen year old Iranian beauty (Batool) and a twenty-six year old Texan plumber (Felix), and their subsequent love affair. Of course they can't converse with each other, without the help of two expensive Finnish cell phones that perform real-time translation on the fly, but that's the charm of the piece.

Second to "In Paradise," I think "The Growthing" is remarkable in terms of its overall texture. Set in a deserted Texas energy refinery that would be unrecognizable to today's industry vets, we get to share a tender vignette between biodome caretaker Milton and his teenage daughter Gretel before she's whisked away by a passing dirigible after her latest custody visit. Seems pretty tame on first read, but there are strange legal undercurrents coursing through the tale and an odd tacked on coda that offers redemption.

"Ivory Tower," is a funny squib first published in the British science weekly 'Nature.' The story revolves around ten thousand physicists self-educated by Internet, the manner in which they've leveraged their knowledge, and their formation of an academy in the Great Indian Desert. Two more 800 word pieces - "Message Found In A Bottle" and "Homo Sapiens Declared Extinct" - that are equally humorous, fill out Section Three, which is labeled as "Fiction for Scientists."

Of particular praise are the co-authored stories; The Scab's Progress (with Paul Di Filippo), and Junk DNA (with Rudy Rucker). Both of these stories are so strong that Bruce should really consider finding the time to co-author separate novels with each of these talented guys. I especially enjoyed the two female characters (Janna Gutierrez and Veruschka Zipkin) in Junk DNA, so I'd like to see them in a return outing. Two thumbs up for collaboration!

Now that I've encapsulated the weirder stories, let me tout one that's more mainstream. Code, set in the polished offices of Austin tech-startup Vintelix, finds Sterling taking us on a quirky romp after Employee #3 - a jumbo hippie coder named Louis - is found slumped over dead in his leather chair. The finding brings Van (a junior coder) closer to Julie (the receptionist) after the pair discovers LSD hidden in the unfortunate bloke's desk.

After reading The Growthing, you should probably skip ahead to Code before back-pedaling to read the hybrid "User-Centric," which begins with literary epistle (a series of emails between Engineer, Graphic Designer, Legal Expert, Marketer, Programmer, Social Anthropologist & Team Coordinator) about two hypothetical customers named "Al" and "Zelda," before morphing into a story about an oddly mismatched couple. Are these characters real people? The story leaves you wondering.

Rather than knock Bruce, I'll declare that "Luciferase" - previously published in SciFiction - seems out of character (too Disneyesque) for a Sterling story, note that I've read many of them. Talking bugs named Dolores, Peck, and Vinnie? Not really the kind of story you're likely to find podcast on EscapePod anytime soon. The trio that complete this volume ("The Necropolis of Thebes," "The Blemmye's Stratagem," "Luciferase,") while okay, won't get you stoked.

You should pick up Visionary In Residence if you're a science fiction fan. Each of Bruce's stories will transport you to interior landscapes that ripple with cheery qualities of both light and sound - places where the players struggle with unusual aspects of death or love - or quiet interludes where time itself seems to bend. The compendium reveals Sterling at his nadir. Grab some coffee, find a comfortable chair, and enjoy this eloquent softbound book.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not as "visionary" as one would wish, September 14, 2006

By	Michael K. Smith (Gonzales, Louisiana) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Bruce is one of those authors I always approach hesitantly. When he's good, he's very good, but when he's not, he's . . . well, not terrible, but certainly uninteresting. That goes for both his novels and his short stories. As I've noted elsewhere, he's a kick to listen to in person at a con, but his ideas and enthusiasms and social concerns don't always translate well into print. This collection of thirteen stories which first appeared in the past five or six years is divided thematically -- "Fiction for Scientists," "Design Fiction," "Architecture Fiction," etc. And there are several here that are great fun: "In Paradise" (love by means of real-time language translation in your cell phone), "Code" (boy-nerd meets girl-nerd), "The Necropolis of Thebes" (a very thoughtful look at "the old days" -- really old), and "The Denial" (actually a ghost story set in Ottoman times). One of the best, under the heading of "Ribofunk," is "Junk DNA," written with Rudy Rucker, which is about a high-tech start-up built around genomics instead of software; it's damaged, though, by the rather silly ending which makes me think Bruce simply got tired of writing it. The least-readable story, as it happens, is also about biotech -- "The Scab's Progress," with Paul Di Filippo, which made almost no sense at all to me. Also, if the author would just learn to write endings for his stories instead of just stopping his typing, I wouldn't have to keep turning the page, wondering if the rest of the story had been omitted.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great collection of stories, June 24, 2006

By	Colin P. Lindsey (Manchester, NH) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

I really enjoyed this collection of short stories from Bruce Sterling. Thematically the stories range all over the place from post-human to ancient history and ancient alternate history. The thing that ties all these stories together and made the book so great for me was that these tales reflect many of the futurist ideas posited in his non-fiction work Tomorrow Now. If you haven't read Tomorrow Now I highly recommend it, it's a five star read all the way. Frankly, even though I tend to read more fiction than non-fiction, his Tomorrow Now was one of the better reads I've undertaken this year and the quality of the prose was shockingly good. For a non-fiction work on ideas and what the future may hold it couldn't have been more engaging, easy to read, and mind-expanding.

I read this collection shortly after Tomorrow Now and it felt to me as if they were almost complementary books. The non-fiction work describes many of things we may see in the future and the way society may change with new technologies, including fascinating ideas about the future of biotechnology and the changing nature of employment and what people may wind up doing on a day-to-day basis for work. His concept of work in the future is almost hard to grasp it is so alien, yet extrapolating from the changes over the past twenty years his ideas are entirely plausible too. The short stories take these ideas and wrap them up in engaging tales exploring how these changes affect discrete individuals; the fictional accounts cover the world changes from individual perspective rather than a general societal overview. Some of the stories are better than others naturally but there are some real gems in here, including a colloboration with Rudy Rucker and two stories set in the Middle East roughly 1200 and 1400 A.D. Don't worry, they're both still sci-fi, and expand on some of the better ideas on society and culture that Sterling comes up with. This is a great book, I enjoyed it a lot, and it's well worth the money, but for an even better appreciation I recommend reading Tomorrow Now first and then this one directly after. I am so glad that I did that way.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Maybe his best collection yet.
I've grown quite tired of Sterling's novels. With the exception of the "Schismatrix" material (with I think is his masterpiece), his long-form fiction often degenerates into... Read more

Published 22 months ago by Mad Dog

3.0 out of 5 stars some interesting stories but won't drag you back for more.
This collection of short stories was somewhat disappointing.
For the most part the stories do have interesting plot points or interesting premises highlighting just how out... Read more

Published on August 23, 2007 by Thousand Names

2.0 out of 5 stars Very hit or miss
"Visionary in Residence" (modest to a fault, Bruce is) is a real mixed bag. There are two or three nifty stories here, and a bunch of forgettable stuff. Read more

Published on August 6, 2007 by Andrew Otwell

3.0 out of 5 stars Extropian Infodump
Bruce Sterling is a brilliant futurist whose novels have defined cyberpunk, and have propelled science fiction into new ultra-scientific realms. Read more

Published on January 2, 2007 by doomsdayer520

5.0 out of 5 stars Sterling Still One of Science Fiction's Best Short Story Writers
Although he remains one of my favorite writers, it's been years since I came across a Bruce Sterling book that I've felt quite enthusiastic about (Most notably his great novels... Read more

Published on June 25, 2006 by John Kwok

1.0 out of 5 stars Oh Bruce Sterling, what happened to you?
I have thoroughly enjoyed most of Sterling's past works, but this compilation of short stories was just awful. Read more

Published on May 11, 2006 by Russ B. Gibson

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