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Zeitgeist
"Bruce Sterling" and "seminal" never seem to be too far apart. His name is one of the great peaks of cyberpunk, not least as the editor of Mirrorshades, and he is renowned in the online world for his work in writing The Hacker Crackdown. Neither can Sterling be accused of standing still, having initiated the Viridian movement. An effect of this may yet be to repeat H.G.Wells, where his fiction becomes a servant of his increasing interest in adjusting the social fabric.
Sterling's latest novel, Zeitgeist, is set in a recognisable 1999 and filled with recognisable twentieth-century character types: the hobo, the drug smuggler, the secret agent, the enforcer. In fact, its twentieth-century characteristics are at the heart of this novel. Sterling has written a requiem for a dirty, rotten century; a description of a planet gorging on its own filth, stumbling from the bizarre, to crisis, to senselessness. It is a portrait of a world in turmoil told from the perspective of Leggy Starlitz, a latter-day man of a thousand faces.
Starlitz previously appeared as a rather opaque figure in the short stories such as 'The Littlest Jackal.' He slips through the edges of an increasingly regulated world, "rewriting his own narrative" to suit the circumstances. At the start of the book, he manages G-7, an all-girl marketing troupe. The satire of a band created solely to move merchandise -- and this is no synonym for records -- could easily be lost when the pop charts seem to be full of such arrangements, but Starlitz is there as part of a bet. This doesn't work terribly well as a plot driver, but Starlitz's involvement with a Turkish pop promoter who wants to control the group lights the touchpaper, and the appearance of Starlitz's family breaks open the storyline. Involvement with his daughter deepens Starlitz's character and pushes him into much greater connection with the ordinary world.
The book is a whirlwind tour through the dominant images of late twentieth-century society and a slingshot into the potential of the twenty-first. A central idea is that after Y2K everything must change -- the new century will have different characteristics and we must adapt to survive. Starlitz's own close identification with the twentieth century seems destined to hold him back, whilst he sees his daughter as a natural denizen of the next era. To an extent, this is a reflection of Sterling's own Viridian manifesto, contrasting the dark heart of the Atomic age with the new, clear era in front of us, which will be populated by people for whom 1999 will only ever be history. His message of hope is that we can transform ourselves, but his use of a literal interpretation results in a centrepiece for the book which sounds very much as if Sokal's application of pseudo-science is accepted as reality. This is as close as the book comes to science fiction -- it is more likely to find itself marked "magic realism," or possibly even "literature."
Though slow to start, Zeitgeist has a lot to offer -- locations from Cyprus to Hawaii and Istanbul to Colorado, a glancing blow from (at?) ECHELON, and discussions on the nature of pop and the malleability of reality. Setting the book in our own world and time gives it a curious edge for an SF reader reading an SF writer -- it is framed by events recognisable from news broadcasts but already part of history. The transformations in this book must be personal, or located at the edges of consensus reality, rather than a complete inversion of society. The message floats at or near the surface and the book concentrates significantly on its own style. It is sometimes overly clever but remains taut, interesting and, occasionally, amazing. As such, Zeitgeist catches the ghost of that remarkable century we have just escaped from.
You can purchase this book at Fatbrain.
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
Cyberpunk tends to have that full-speed-ahead, throw-the-random-facts-at-you, technique that you either love or hate. But when it's set in the future, it's a lot easier, because you get to make up the facts.
In Zeitgeist you keep wondering--is this really true? Is that what Turkish Cypriot is like? What's real, what isn't? And then every once in a while you come across yet another obscure and fascinating view of something that you happen to know about it, and damned if he didn't get it right. I read my (Iranian) wife the section on the Las Irangeles pop scene and we both cracked up, because it was dead on. And likewise, the descriptions of Hawaii, where I just vacationed.
When someone sets a story in the recent past, full of so much fascinating stuff that you can't tell the fact from the fiction, you know they've got their writing act together, and this book definitely has got it.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
I'm totally with you on the "sky is falling" environmental stuff - I think there's still a lot of work to do before any rash claims can be made, and I've seen a couple of studies that suggest that global warming and increased CO2 (man-made or not) might be a GOOD thing (plants grow better, evidence of increased crop yields, feed more people with less area - that sort of thing)
So go back to his speech, and cross out all the environmental Chicken-Littleism. Read what's left.
See what I mean? Not _exactly_ the point that I was making (or fumbling towards making) but there's a lot of crossover there.
Incidently, I'm firmly in the "IP is dead" camp. Yes, it causes problems for artists. (I can sympathise with musicians et al, but I have no pity for the Big Industries they are part of)
The introduction of the automobile caused grave discomfort for the riding tack and horse-drawn-carriage industries, but laws were NOT passed to try and force people to, say, buy a saddle every time they boght a car. The widespread copying of digital data is a fact of life, hurts nothing more than a business model, and can only be stopped by gross trampling-upon of the rights of the common people - the remedy is far worse than the symptoms. The current IP laws MUST be struck down, and soon, before things get any worse.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
The central character of Zeitgeist , Leggy Starlitz, also appears in two short stories in Globalhead (Hollywood Kremlin and Are You For 86?) and one in A Good Old-Fashioned Future (The Littlest Jackal). If you hate amazon, don't follow those links.
I was a bit disappointed in the way this book tried to "explain" the character of Starlitz. In Sterling's previous short stories, he had always been portrayed in a mythic way. He was one of Sterling's most interesting creations: a modern day "Wandering Jew". We were better off thinking of him as both timeless and unchanging... after all, there will always be strife and chaos in the world. Also, anyone notice how surreal Sterling's works are getting? While Gibson took off in a more literary direction, Sterling's works just keep getting more mind blowing.
Well even though the review didn't say it I will. It is a good read.
It's not Sterling's best though. For that you'll have to go back in his career a little ways (Green Days in Brunei jumps to mind). It's still worth picking up and reading though.
My only problem with it is at times it tries to be a deep intellectual read and comes off sounding hollow. But those moments didn't last too long and you got right back into a decent story.
Just last night, I finished re-reading The Difference Engine, that Sterling co-wrote with Bill Gibson.
Earlier yesterday, I had a minor social-political epiphany, which manifested itself as a (horribly spelled) slashdot post
And now, I find this speech by M. Stirling which ties the two together.
Mostly.
Innit funny how the world works?
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Another Bruce Sterling initiative on-line is the Dead Media Project, qv. It's an attempt to write "a naturalist's field guide for the communications paleontologist." Worth taking a look.
missingmatter has a Slashdot-style interview with Bruce Sterling going on right now. There's still time to submit a question.
OK, shutting up now.
Popular Culture? Popular Culture wants a damn site that can handle some traffic. -- ska187
Damn Americans. Won't teach their people other languages, but they'll go ahead and co-opt foreign words for themselves!
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Breakfast served all day!
I didn't think The Difference Engine had much in the way of a coherent plot, but I loved it because the setting was such wonderful eye candy for my imagination. It was like reading chocolate. Or something like that. It also helped that I was listening to Jean Michel Jarre's Revolutions, the first four parts of which make for great steampunk background music.
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"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
I'm not much of a Bruce Sterling fan (or a William Gibson fan, for that matter) but I really liked their collaboration The Difference Engine, a speculative history about world where the engineering had existed to make Babbage engines a reality. It does cater to the politically correct exaggerations of Lady Ada as "the first programmer" but is generally a terrific book.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.