Distraction - Bruce Sterling
This is the typical wandering plot and loose
Sterling with just enough humor to keep you reading.
I think I don't like Sterling, even though he
lives down the road from me. Okay, well, I only barely enjoy his novels enough
to read them indiscriminately, that is, I don't read them all, and I don't read
the reviews before diving in to any particular
novel.
_Distraction_ was given to me by
a friend, and it's definitely amusing and certainly entertaining. I have to
say, it's much better than Gibson's _Pattern Recognition_ - not a good book (and
read before this blog started.)
So
there's this politico who's on tour like a rock-star (perhaps out of the hip-hop
world) and he's wealthy, smart, and might not be human... 'cause it's the future
and Brazil did some stem-cell research off the books. He's on the bus, and has
invented a construction technique - yes, he's in construction and it's tainting
his reputation. Did I mention that he doesn't consider himself human? Did I
mention that I'm likely mixing the details of two characters? Is all this
starting to sound like a cliche'? PKD themes go pulp? And yet, this is fun
confluence of ideas - of not too loose and too slow. Bruce, write tighter,
please.
Posted: Sat
- June 12, 2004 at 03:46 PM