From the subversive to the antic, the uproarious to the disturbing, the stories of Bruce Sterling are restless, energy-filled journeys through a world running on empty - the visionary work of one of our most imaginative and insightful modern writers.
They live as strangers in strange lands. In worlds that have fallen - or should have. They wage battles in wars already lost and become heroes - and sometimes martyrs - in their last-ditch efforts to preserve the dignity and individuality of humanity.
A hack Indian filmmaker takes the pulse of a wounded and declining civilization - 21st-century Britain. A pair of swashbuckling Silicon Valley entrepreneurs join forces to make a commercial killing - in organic underground slime and computer-generated jellyfish. A man in a Japanese city takes orders from a talking cat while pursuing a drama of danger and adventure that has become the very essence of his life. …
From the subversive to the antic, the uproarious to the disturbing, the stories of Bruce Sterling are restless, energy-filled journeys through a world running on empty - the visionary work of one of our most imaginative and insightful modern writers.
They live as strangers in strange lands. In worlds that have fallen - or should have. They wage battles in wars already lost and become heroes - and sometimes martyrs - in their last-ditch efforts to preserve the dignity and individuality of humanity.
A hack Indian filmmaker takes the pulse of a wounded and declining civilization - 21st-century Britain. A pair of swashbuckling Silicon Valley entrepreneurs join forces to make a commercial killing - in organic underground slime and computer-generated jellyfish. A man in a Japanese city takes orders from a talking cat while pursuing a drama of danger and adventure that has become the very essence of his life.
From The Littlest Jackal, a darkly hilarious thriller of mercs and gunrunners set in Finland, to a stark vision of a post-atomic netherworld in his haunting tale Taklamakan, Bruce Sterling once again breaks boundaries, breaks icons, and breaks rules to unleash the most dangerously provocative and intelligent science fiction being written today.
Contents: - Maneki Neko (1998) - Big Jelly (1994, with Rudy Rucker) - The Littlest Jackal (1996) - Sacred Cow (1993) - Deep Eddy (1993) - Bicycle Repairman (1996) - Taklamakan (1998)
Solid! Bruce Sterling's quite fun when he gets his engines going in the right direction.
The later shorts are all in the same universe and tie in together with cross-over characters; I enjoyed them immensely. That is: Deep Eddy (the concept of the Wende!), Bicycle Repairman (v good), and Taklamakan (climbing-focused sci-fi, v good).
Weakest of the collection was Sacred Cow; it didn't do anything for me.
