Post-Lupin
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Post by Post-Lupin on Aug 1, 2015 9:37:39 GMT -5
Bruce Sterling is one of the best kept secrets in modern science fiction. A writer in the field for 40 years (his first sale was to Harlan Ellison for The Last Dangerous Visions in 1975!), he was an original member of the loose cohort of writers who were labelled ‘cyberpunk’ (he edited the first cyberpunk anthology, Mirrorshades). He collaborated with his long-time friend William Gibson on one of the founding steampunk novels, The Difference Engine (1990), and his work is among the more prophetic of his peers (his 1988 novel Islands In The Net especially so re. our networked, corporatized times). Sterling - known semi-affectionately as The Chairman for his forthright Texan speaking style - is also noted for his non-fiction, such as The Hacker Crackdown in 1992, which recorded the FBI paranoia about the burgeoning hacker scene, including the infamous Steve Jackson Games raid. More recently, he’s become a major influence on the internet-of-things scene; writing articles and books, even lecturing to major tech and design industry conferences. Zeitgeist (2000) is my favourite novel of Sterling’s. It's probably my main comfort-read book that isn’t by Terry Pratchett, and it’s an oddity. Like Gibson’s more recent work, Sterling pointed his sensibilities (slightly) back in time to 1999. Its protagonist is the entrepreneur, spiv and trickster Leggy Starlitz - Leggy had appeared in several earlier short stories by Sterling. (There’s even an Eternal Champion crossover, 'Even The Night' by Don Webb, a friend of Sterling’s, which has Leggy raise Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius from the dead). Leggy - fat, ugly, cheerfully corrupt but not actually evil - finds himself the manager of a band he put together for a bet - a Spice Girls rip-off called The G7, whose only purpose is to push tie-in merchandise. When The G7 tour hits Turkish Cyprus, both the local circumstances and Leggy’s past catching up with him lead to death, chaos and, oddly, hope. I love so much about this book: the sense of place (from Cyprus to Hawaii and New Mexico) and time (he nails the edgy, er, Zeitgeist of 1999), Sterling’s rich but lean prose (lines such as describing a batch of heroin as “concentrated damage”), and just how damn funny it is. (I'm especially fond of the page or so where Leggy metaphorically kicks Murakami's teeth in.) But what makes it special for me is how it handles magical-realism. My main attitude to magical-realism as a genre is it’s what happens when litfic writers do fantasy but can’t be bothered with creating an internally coherent magic system. Sterling’s magic system in Zeitgeist is completely coherent… it’s basically applied postmodernism. In Zeitgeist, reality is entirely the pomo consensus narrative; Leggy, and a very few others, know this and use that knowledge to hack reality at the base code level. This, of course, has its drawbacks. There is a semi-sequel, Love Is Strange (2012), which pushes the magical-realism much further. Not as much fun, I think. I’ll say no more. Hope you enjoy it. If anyone has trouble finding a copy, let me lend you a completely legal ebook, at this link (.epub and .mobi format). And if you do like it, my second-favourite is his 1998 near-future political comedy Distraction. |
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on Aug 2, 2015 22:47:14 GMT -5
TL; DR interaction with Post-Lupin. Yeah, I'm hitting this one in a coupla weeks. I loved Schismatrix when I read it ca. 1991. I was barreling down the cyberpunk highway after blasting through all of the then published works of Gibson, so I caught a ride with Sterling. Tried Islands in the Net. Didn't like it. Got to the Difference Engine around 1994. Love me some Babbage, especially since the software/hardware/games joint at the mall around then was named Babbage's - now GameStop. That you reference Leggy resurrecting Ye Olde Jerry Cornelius has put this on The List (Unfortunately, I am unable to correctly find the Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia reference for added laffz). |
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Post by Celebith on Aug 3, 2015 1:14:30 GMT -5
Sterling - known semi-affectionately as The Chairman for his forthright Texan speaking style - is also noted for his non-fiction, such as The Hacker Crackdown in 1992, which recorded the FBI paranoia about the burgeoning hacker scene, including the infamous Steve Jackson Games raid. More recently, he’s become a major influence on the internet-of-things scene; writing articles and books, even lecturing to major tech and design industry conferences. Until they lost the rights to the domain, my primary email address was on SJG's 'Illuminati Online' io.com servers. I had it from around '91, mostly so I could access all of their playtest files, but it was handy, and short. I felt a tremendous sense of loss when, after almost 20 years with that address, it was ganked out from under me. |
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Post-Lupin
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Post by Post-Lupin on Aug 3, 2015 5:00:44 GMT -5
TL; DR interaction with Post-Lupin. Yeah, I'm hitting this one in a coupla weeks. I loved Schismatrix when I read it ca. 1991. I was barreling down the cyberpunk highway after blasting through all of the then published works of Gibson, so I caught a ride with Sterling. Tried Islands in the Net. Didn't like it. Got to the Difference Engine around 1994. Love me some Babbage, especially since the software/hardware/games joint at the mall around then was named Babbage's - now GameStop. That you reference Leggy resurrecting Ye Olde Jerry Cornelius has put this on The List (Unfortunately, I am unable to correctly find the Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia reference for added laffz). Of later Sterling; Heavy Weather is about climate change - part cyberpunk & part early solarpunk (and the book they should have filmed instead of making Twister), Distraction is his near-future political comedy, Holy Fire is about youth in a time of healthy old people controlling all the real power, The Caryatids (my least fave) is also on climate-change (I refuse to use cli-fi as a term). There's also The Zenith Angle - modernish comedy of political manners in American weapons tech firms - which is OK. |
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Post-Lupin
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Post by Post-Lupin on Aug 3, 2015 5:02:08 GMT -5
Sterling - known semi-affectionately as The Chairman for his forthright Texan speaking style - is also noted for his non-fiction, such as The Hacker Crackdown in 1992, which recorded the FBI paranoia about the burgeoning hacker scene, including the infamous Steve Jackson Games raid. More recently, he’s become a major influence on the internet-of-things scene; writing articles and books, even lecturing to major tech and design industry conferences. Until they lost the rights to the domain, my primary email address was on SJG's 'Illuminati Online' io.com servers. I had it from around '91, mostly so I could access all of their playtest files, but it was handy, and short. I felt a tremendous sense of loss when, after almost 20 years with that address, it was ganked out from under me. I have several SJG Illuminati pins, used to be friends with the bloke who wrote most of GURPS The Laundry. |
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heroboy
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Post by heroboy on Aug 4, 2015 13:15:35 GMT -5
So even though Bruce Sterling should be completely in my wheelhouse, I have avoided his work since I was really turned off of The Difference Engine. At the time, William Gibson was my favourite author, and I was salivating to read whatever he put out next, but truthfully, his collaboration with Bruce Sterling just really bored me, and I just never came around to reading anything by Sterling. I think a lot of the problem was that while I was into what Babbage and Lovelace were doing in a mathematical sense, I really had no clue what was going on in that time historically.
Anyways, I have picked up a copy of Zeitgeist and have started in on it. Reading some reviews say that you should probably read some of Leggy's short stories first to see what he is about before reading the novel, though I'm pretty confident that I can wing it.
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Post-Lupin
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Post by Post-Lupin on Aug 4, 2015 15:38:08 GMT -5
So even though Bruce Sterling should be completely in my wheelhouse, I have avoided his work since I was really turned off of The Difference Engine. At the time, William Gibson was my favourite author, and I was salivating to read whatever he put out next, but truthfully, his collaboration with Bruce Sterling just really bored me, and I just never came around to reading anything by Sterling. I think a lot of the problem was that while I was into what Babbage and Lovelace were doing in a mathematical sense, I really had no clue what was going on in that time historically. Anyways, I have picked up a copy of Zeitgeist and have started in on it. Reading some reviews say that you should probably read some of Leggy's short stories first to see what he is about before reading the novel, though I'm pretty confident that I can wing it. Previous stories get a mention, but they're not required. They are all pretty funny, though. |
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Post by Dr. Dastardly on Sept 8, 2015 10:04:32 GMT -5
I finished this over the weekend, and I felt...ambivalent. I agree with most of what you said up top, Lupes: the Murakami bit was funny, and I like how he interacts with postmodernism. I like cyberpunk, generally, or anyway I liked Necromancer. It's brisk and funny.
But I didn't care for how he handled magic, really; while I totally understand that it's "applied postmodernism" (nicely said, hoss), it feels too scattershot to work for me. It doesn't feel coherent.
And in general, the book felt like a sawed-off idea shotgun: different ideas on every page, but none completely focused or thought out. It felt helter-skelter. I had a hard time grabbing on to the story.
The low point for me was the bit when they went off the grid to find Leggy's dad; it was, like, one plot shift too many at that point. What was even the point?
This was basically a three-star deal for me: fine, not great.
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Post-Lupin
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Post by Post-Lupin on Sept 9, 2015 9:28:53 GMT -5
I finished this over the weekend, and I felt...ambivalent. I agree with most of what you said up top, Lupes: the Murakami bit was funny, and I like how he interacts with postmodernism. I like cyberpunk, generally, or anyway I liked Necromancer. It's brisk and funny. But I didn't care for how he handled magic, really; while I totally understand that it's "applied postmodernism" (nicely said, hoss), it feels too scattershot to work for me. It doesn't feel coherent. And in general, the book felt like a sawed-off idea shotgun: different ideas on every page, but none completely focused or thought out. It felt helter-skelter. I had a hard time grabbing on to the story. The low point for me was the bit when they went off the grid to find Leggy's dad; it was, like, one plot shift too many at that point. What was even the point? This was basically a three-star deal for me: fine, not great. At least you gave it a fair crack of the whip! I agree about the scattershot aspect: it's like a lot of the Chairman's talks too - throwing up the ideas that are crossing his mind onto the page (something another favourite - Warren Ellis - has a habit of). But I'll defend the PoMo magic to the death (partly because I've used whole chunks of it in my own praxis). Also worth noting that a very similar Bond Altar appears in Charlie Stross's 'The Jennifer Morgue'. |
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on Sept 19, 2015 0:10:40 GMT -5
On page 193. Past the Murakami takedown. Brill. Great book, so far. Require some explanation about internally coherent system of magic. Re. Pugs and his concerns that novel disjunctive and hodge-podge when Ozbey takes over G7: Master narrative lost. Structure of book reflects such. That my deux centimes. The big idea is that there are no big ideas anymore. Consensus reality fragments in 21st century creating chasms of chaos. Some prescient and hilarious observations from Sterling. "Golden Age of Surveillance"; forecast of bin Laden. Thanks for the nom, Post-Lupin! |
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Post-Lupin
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Post by Post-Lupin on Sept 19, 2015 6:32:55 GMT -5
On page 193. Past the Murakami takedown. Brill. Great book, so far. Require some explanation about internally coherent system of magic. Re. Pugs and his concerns that novel disjunctive and hodge-podge when Ozbey takes over G7: Master narrative lost. Structure of book reflects such. That my deux centimes. The big idea is that there are no big ideas anymore. Consensus reality fragments in 21st century creating chasms of chaos. Some prescient and hilarious observations from Sterling. "Golden Age of Surveillance"; forecast of bin Laden. Thanks for the nom, Post-Lupin! Glad someone you liked it! Ozbey only wins that round because Leggy concedes the field, due to the family issue. As for the coherent magic: essentially it works on the one-two combo of Crowley's 'magick is a disease of language' and Burroughs' 'language is a virus', with poststructuralism as the equivalent of, say Kabbalistic model. Sometimes I have this fun thought of what would happen if Leggy went up against a French mage of this system, because of a scene you might not have reached yet. Won't say more until you've finished... |
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on Oct 2, 2015 12:22:37 GMT -5
Leggy IS the Zeitgeist. His father, blown out of time at first - or therabouts - atom bomb explosion, has, to me, a funny pop culture reference to Navajo Joe - the Spaghetti Western that put Burt Reynolds on his arc to fame . His daughter is the next gen. Gotta wonder how old Sterling's daughters were when he wrote this. Dr. Dastardly, Starlitz has to get to his dad to revive his chances of influencing the future with his will; his child. Humor in the fact that Zenobia already knows her Grandad well highlights the shagginess Sterling took us on to get there. The final "fight" with Ozbey was some Fleming-ish grandeur with a "snail mail" upending by Leggy's freight service. The Bond Altar is Ozbey's secret training lair, right, Post-Lupin? Oh yeah, loved the Wiesel revivification. Carrying the corpse of Diana around; falling prey to its decay; then snapping back into action with the sight of Gonca. At my hotel in Guangzhou - shortly after I finished Zeitgeist, I retrieved a copy of Murakami's Dance Dance Dance. Read about 20 pages. Left it in the library. Not my cuppa. |
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Post-Lupin
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Post by Post-Lupin on Oct 2, 2015 12:55:00 GMT -5
The Bond Altar is Ozbey's secret training lair, right, Post-Lupin? Nah, it's in the back of Ozbey's sports car. Well worth comparing the Bind Altar idea here with the one in Charlie Stross's The Jennifer Morgue. |
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heroboy
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Post by heroboy on Oct 9, 2015 12:32:27 GMT -5
So I finally got around to reading Zeitgeist, and I really enjoyed it. Definitely a very breezy read with lots fun plot hooks and crazy characters. The only problem I had was that I had to picture Ozbey as Dr. Mehmet Oz, which I have to assume was a freak coincidence in naming.
Starlitz is an interesting guy, just trying to do his own thing while running scams, kind of like a more money hungry version of Dirk Gently, though he writes his own narrative instead of randomly falling into others'.
A couple of things I wasn't sure of while reading the book though. Is Grandpa Joe's whole family a clan narrative changing wizards, or is that a power that manifested after the nuke? Also, since Zeta was able to be photographed at the end, does this mean she's dialing back her powers, or just getting away from Starlitz's particular strain of being the least grounded person in the world.
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Post-Lupin
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Post by Post-Lupin on Oct 10, 2015 13:58:36 GMT -5
Is Grandpa Joe's whole family a clan narrative changing wizards, or is that a power that manifested after the nuke? Also, since Zeta was able to be photographed at the end, does this mean she's dialing back her powers, or just getting away from Starlitz's particular strain of being the least grounded person in the world.
I don't know! It does imply Grandpa Joe's clan has this power, certainly. Zeta is indeed dialling down her powers (you find in a single paragraph in 'Love Is Strange' that she's visible in the public eye, at least). I really wish Bruce would do a full-blown sequel, preferably set during the '08 financial meltdown. |
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on Oct 10, 2015 18:30:36 GMT -5
heroboy, I too thought of Dr. Oz re. name coherence. I don't see the family as wizards. They are materialized Jungian collective consciousness. Bouncing out of linear time physically, a la superhero storyline Joe, inherits the manifestation of the Jungian to guide culture. Zeta materializes because her will is ascendant. Leggy fades and Ozbey fails by the same measure. Applied Post-modernism is the decryption and interdiction of reality and how the Russian kid cracks into the Zeitgeist stream. His nihilistic interpretation allows his influence to both wax and wane.
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on Oct 17, 2015 22:13:32 GMT -5
Will Rock The Kasbah be our filmed version of this book?
How does a new bell sound? Jung!
EDIT: Woof! That was a bad pun.
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on Nov 22, 2016 16:38:06 GMT -5
Post-Lupin, so we're living in the Ozbey timeline then?
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