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Distraction Bruce Sterling 9781857989281 Books

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Distraction Bruce Sterling 9781857989281 Books

Sterling is very good at coming up with plausible (but crazy) high-tech (but chaotic) and above all *interesting* future worlds. In some previous books, he's done a good job of showing us those worlds through the eyes of someone not directly in the center of the action, someone who is (like us) at least partly tangential. (Contrast this with Vernor Vinge, say, whose hero often *is* the center of the action [overgeneralization mode off].)
In "Distraction", Sterling carries this a step too far. While the future world is interesting and full of wild and fascinating characters and phenomena, virtually all the cool stuff happens far off-camera, and we're sentenced to following around a fast-talking but basically rather clueless and shallow political operative, Oscar Valparaiso, as he wanders in and out of various artificial situations for no particular reason.
The frustrations caused by this are numerous. One glaring example: Oscar's main love interest is Greta, a top cognition scientist working in (and sometimes running) a cool government research center inside a big glass dome. At one point in the book, we discover that a neat strange cool cognitive technology has been developed. Sounds like it should all fit together? No, as it turns out the technology was developed sometime before the book started, in some other state, by scientists who used to work at Greta's lab but quit.
The only thing the tech has to do with Oscar and Greta is that it's used on them, as passive victims, near the end of the book, when Sterling seems to be grasping for enough new plot to fill out the page count. Tsk! Greta's character, and the title of the book, suggest that Sterling may have started out with some tighter idea about the technology and function of human attention and distraction; but if so the idea got abandoned somewhere along the way.
I'd love to read a book set in this world, from the viewpoint of one of the proles who travel the country in gangs living off harvested roadside weeds, or one of the people trying to put out Wyoming (which is on fire), or someone in Holland (with which the US is conducting a Cold War). Stuck with Oscar Valparaiso, I could only writhe in frustration.
Sterling fans will want to read this; I don't particularly recommend it to anyone else. Read "Schismatrix", read "Crystal Express", read "Islands in the Net", read "The Artificial Kid". If you've read all those and are dying for more Sterling, read this, but don't set your expectations for it too high...


Tags : Distraction [Bruce Sterling] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Near future Earth and a new cold war is in full swing - the Dutch Cold War. The US is a shadow of its former self and in hock to Europe,Bruce Sterling,Distraction,Orion Pub Co,1857989287,Science fiction

Distraction Bruce Sterling 9781857989281 Books Reviews

A poignant and satirical extrapolation of what America might end up as. Again as with Sterling ..better texture than plot. Really enjoyed it although a bit silly most of the time. Not going to talk about the story or plot. Read other reviews. The flaws of America all come to evolve and pass here. Not much of the goodness of the nation seems to have a future here.
I have to admit that I've read very little cyberpunk - Neuromancer comes to mind - but I generally enjoyed this book. I did find the pace a bit uneven, though. Slow going for the first 2-3 chapters, then hyperactive after that. Sterling's vision of a dystopic future is scary, because it seems all too possible. As another reviewer wrote, this book sets out to paint a picture of a near-future environment, rather than concentrating on a specific plot line.
Prepare for the future with "Distraction". Most prescient and hilarious set of possiblilities I've read; and it was written way back when....
wow
Full disclosure I put the book down after 90 pages. I'd like to tour Bruce Sterling's mind sometime; it must be one hell of a ride. But Distraction, although chock full of Sterling's usual future visions, doesn't work. By the time Oscar got around to confessing his origin to Greta I knew I'd had enough -- it just wasn't working for me. If you're looking for a compelling distraction, look elsewhere. Great ideas or not, it's still the story that matters. If you must have this book opt for the paperback and save a few bucks.
I found the future described in this book extremely fascinating, especially as it diverges from the usual run-of-the-mill SF(either you have an utopian Star-Trek future, or Cyperpunk/After-The-Bomb-kind of future).
Sterlings future is almost believable (even with some weird points, but those only make the book more fun). The book also voices thoughts on various questions of humanity today - such as what we will do if jobs for 'normal people' keep disappearing like they do, or on how Americans think vs. the way Europeans think.
It also, in an odd way, is pretty optimistic about humanity's future.
If Heinlein said 'Humanity will survive because its too tough to die', then Stirling says 'Humanity will muddle its way through, because it's too alive to die'.
PS There's also a nice love story in it (yeah ;-) that is more believable than many I have read.
Bruce Sterling is a fairly interesting writer. His vision of the future is well-thought out and he's got somewhat of a decent track record in seeing where things are going.
The downside to his writing is that he often seizes on a phrase and beats it into the ground. In this book, 'doable' and 'krewe' suffer from over over use.
The last problem is inherent in the vision of the future. The world keeps moving faster and fractionating and everyone becomes more and more self aware of their movement in the media flow, so that eventually life turns into a disjointed series of fragments of events that are analyzed and spun into the ground. Which certainly is a plausible vision of the future, but it's not terribly fun for me to read. I take that back. It is fun to read, but not for 600-some pages and not with no goal that the story is building toward, just random noodling about the future.
If this was a short story or a shorter novel it would be much more enjoyable. But it's still pretty good.
Sterling is very good at coming up with plausible (but crazy) high-tech (but chaotic) and above all *interesting* future worlds. In some previous books, he's done a good job of showing us those worlds through the eyes of someone not directly in the center of the action, someone who is (like us) at least partly tangential. (Contrast this with Vernor Vinge, say, whose hero often *is* the center of the action [overgeneralization mode off].)
In "Distraction", Sterling carries this a step too far. While the future world is interesting and full of wild and fascinating characters and phenomena, virtually all the cool stuff happens far off-camera, and we're sentenced to following around a fast-talking but basically rather clueless and shallow political operative, Oscar Valparaiso, as he wanders in and out of various artificial situations for no particular reason.
The frustrations caused by this are numerous. One glaring example Oscar's main love interest is Greta, a top cognition scientist working in (and sometimes running) a cool government research center inside a big glass dome. At one point in the book, we discover that a neat strange cool cognitive technology has been developed. Sounds like it should all fit together? No, as it turns out the technology was developed sometime before the book started, in some other state, by scientists who used to work at Greta's lab but quit.
The only thing the tech has to do with Oscar and Greta is that it's used on them, as passive victims, near the end of the book, when Sterling seems to be grasping for enough new plot to fill out the page count. Tsk! Greta's character, and the title of the book, suggest that Sterling may have started out with some tighter idea about the technology and function of human attention and distraction; but if so the idea got abandoned somewhere along the way.
I'd love to read a book set in this world, from the viewpoint of one of the proles who travel the country in gangs living off harvested roadside weeds, or one of the people trying to put out Wyoming (which is on fire), or someone in Holland (with which the US is conducting a Cold War). Stuck with Oscar Valparaiso, I could only writhe in frustration.
Sterling fans will want to read this; I don't particularly recommend it to anyone else. Read "Schismatrix", read "Crystal Express", read "Islands in the Net", read "The Artificial Kid". If you've read all those and are dying for more Sterling, read this, but don't set your expectations for it too high...