What do you think?
Rate this book
Gothic High-Tech
THE FUTURE IS A KIND OF HISTORY THAT HASN’T HAPPENED YET
He’s the legendary Cyberpunk Guru. He roams our postmodern planet, from the polychrome tinsel of Los Angeles to the chicken-fried cyberculture of Austin… From the heretical Communist slums of gritty Belgrade to the Gothic industrial castles of artsy Torino… always whipping that slider-bar between the unthinkable and the unimaginable.
He’s a Californian design visionary. He’s an European electronic-art curator. He’s a Swiss professor of media philosophy. He’s a Prophet of Augmented Reality, even. He’s an author, journalist, editor, critic, theorist, futurist, and blogger. Obviously he’s pretty much anything that he can get his hands on.
And he never stops typing. This sixth collection of his fantastic stories is a comic arsenal of dark euphoria. It’s even weirder, harsher and more twisted than the scary decade that inspired it. Boy, that’s saying something.
If there’s one thing dear to the heart of this exotic character, one vital prize he will never, ever surrender, one stony core to his mutable, globalized being, it’s his fanatical allegiance to the radical potential of science fiction. That is the truth. Really. That is one hundred percent accurate. You could look that up on Wikipedia.
Just like some far-fetched, globe-trotting antihero from one of his own unsettling, yet darkly prophetic novels, he is… Actually, never mind who he is. Does that matter? Is that an issue for us, really? You know what? We’re all done here. Turn the page. We need to pretty much move right along.
He’s the legendary Cyberpunk Guru. He roams our postmodern planet, from the polychrome tinsel of Los Angeles to the chicken-fried cyberculture of Austin… From the heretical Communist slums of gritty Belgrade to the Gothic industrial castles of artsy Torino… always whipping that slider-bar between the unthinkable and the unimaginable.
He’s a Californian design visionary. He’s an European electronic-art curator. He’s a Swiss professor of media philosophy. He’s a Prophet of Augmented Reality, even. He’s an author, journalist, editor, critic, theorist, futurist, and blogger. Obviously he’s pretty much anything that he can get his hands on.
And he never stops typing. This sixth collection of his fantastic stories is a comic arsenal of dark euphoria. It’s even weirder, harsher and more twisted than the scary decade that inspired it. Boy, that’s saying something.
If there’s one thing dear to the heart of this exotic character, one vital prize he will never, ever surrender, one stony core to his mutable, globalized being, it’s his fanatical allegiance to the radical potential of science fiction. That is the truth. Really. That is one hundred percent accurate. You could look that up on Wikipedia.
Just like some far-fetched, globe-trotting antihero from one of his own unsettling, yet darkly prophetic novels, he is… Actually, never mind who he is. Does that matter? Is that an issue for us, really? You know what? We’re all done here. Turn the page. We need to pretty much move right along.
227 pages, Hardcover
First published December 31, 2011
2 people are currently reading
245 people want to read
About the author
Bruce Sterling
356 books1,201 followersBruce Sterling is an author, journalist, critic and a contributing editor of Wired magazine. Best known for his ten science fiction novels, he also writes short stories, book reviews, design criticism, opinion columns and introductions to books by authors ranging from Ernst Jünger to Jules Verne. His non-fiction works include The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier (1992), Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next Fifty Years (2003) and Shaping Things (2005).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
January 31, 2023
This is a fair-to-middling collection with two outstanding stories & one first-rate one. Plus some OK to good ones and two unreadable clunkers. A number are online, so you can judge those for yourself. But the 3 standouts are worth seeking out.
TOC and publication details here, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?3...
• I Saw the Best Minds of My Generations Destroyed by Google • (2006) • short-short, teaser online at https://www.newscientist.com/article/... Graffiti artists in LA, 2026, have trouble buying spray paint. Hard to think of a downside to that! 2.5 stars.
• Kiosk • (2007) • novelette. Not reread, and I didn't much care for it when it was new. A post-Soviet nanotech-printshop adventure in Croatia. 2.6 stars?
• The Hypersurface of This Decade • (2010) • short story, online at https://www.iconeye.com/design/featur... . Pointless noodling about an empty flat and a failed marriage. 1.6 stars
• White Fungus • (2009) • short fiction. A young architect reinvents himself in post-collapse suburban Europe. 3 stars
• The Exterminator's Want Ad • (2010) • short story, https://www.shareable.net/blog/the-ex... . Clever post-apocalypse story, another messy bad climate-change future, this one in a sadly diminished USA. And Socialism can make any bad situation worse . . . . 4 stars.
• Esoteric City • (2009) • novelette. Black magick in a future Turin! An auto executive/necromancer has revived Djosser, an Egyptian priestly engineer dead for 3,000 years. Now Djosser is taking the MC to Hell and a strange fate at his wife's birthday party. Exquisitely written, full of deliciously quotable stuff: "If your guilty heart is any heavier than a feather, they feed your entrails to the demonic hippopotamus." "How did that work out for you?" "Well, I failed," said Djosser glumly.
Whoa! 4.5 stars or better. First truly outstanding story here.
• The Parthenopean Scalpel • (2010) • short story. An assassination in Rome, bomb-making in Tuscany, a duel at a duke's estate. I could make no sense of this story, the worst Sterling story I can recall (trying to) read. DNF; 1-star.
• The Lustration • (2007) • novelette. At least as good as "Esoteric". An ancient wooden, world-spanning computer/AI on a distant exoplanet, and its strange, scaly, talkative alien caretakers. Story extends & is (sort-of) a commentary on his & Gibson's "The Difference Engine". You should read it. Both, really. 5 stars!
• Windsor Executive Solutions • (2010) • short story by Chris Nakashima-Brown and Bruce Sterling, http://futurismic.com/2010/05/04/new-... Incomprehensible to me, but something about the undead Queen Elizabeth? WTF; DNF, 1-star
• A Plain Tale from Our Hills • (2007) • short story.
https://subterraneanpress.com/magazin... A vignette from a future ruined by extreme climate change, when two women fight over a man. OK+, 2.5 stars
• The Interoperation • (2007) • novelette, https://www.technologyreview.com/s/40.... An architectural software story, and about as exciting as it sounds, though Sterling does his best. 2.5 stars.
• Black Swan • (2009) • novelette, free mp3: http://www.starshipsofa.com/blog/2016.... Not reread here, but when I read it in the Strahan Year's Best #4 (2010) I thought it was pretty good. An odd tale of tech cross-over from a parallel dimension. 3 stars?
Best review I saw online: http://strangehorizons.com/non-fictio... I noticed he called out "The Lustration" as Best in Show, too.
TOC and publication details here, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?3...
• I Saw the Best Minds of My Generations Destroyed by Google • (2006) • short-short, teaser online at https://www.newscientist.com/article/... Graffiti artists in LA, 2026, have trouble buying spray paint. Hard to think of a downside to that! 2.5 stars.
• Kiosk • (2007) • novelette. Not reread, and I didn't much care for it when it was new. A post-Soviet nanotech-printshop adventure in Croatia. 2.6 stars?
• The Hypersurface of This Decade • (2010) • short story, online at https://www.iconeye.com/design/featur... . Pointless noodling about an empty flat and a failed marriage. 1.6 stars
• White Fungus • (2009) • short fiction. A young architect reinvents himself in post-collapse suburban Europe. 3 stars
• The Exterminator's Want Ad • (2010) • short story, https://www.shareable.net/blog/the-ex... . Clever post-apocalypse story, another messy bad climate-change future, this one in a sadly diminished USA. And Socialism can make any bad situation worse . . . . 4 stars.
• Esoteric City • (2009) • novelette. Black magick in a future Turin! An auto executive/necromancer has revived Djosser, an Egyptian priestly engineer dead for 3,000 years. Now Djosser is taking the MC to Hell and a strange fate at his wife's birthday party. Exquisitely written, full of deliciously quotable stuff: "If your guilty heart is any heavier than a feather, they feed your entrails to the demonic hippopotamus." "How did that work out for you?" "Well, I failed," said Djosser glumly.
Whoa! 4.5 stars or better. First truly outstanding story here.
• The Parthenopean Scalpel • (2010) • short story. An assassination in Rome, bomb-making in Tuscany, a duel at a duke's estate. I could make no sense of this story, the worst Sterling story I can recall (trying to) read. DNF; 1-star.
• The Lustration • (2007) • novelette. At least as good as "Esoteric". An ancient wooden, world-spanning computer/AI on a distant exoplanet, and its strange, scaly, talkative alien caretakers. Story extends & is (sort-of) a commentary on his & Gibson's "The Difference Engine". You should read it. Both, really. 5 stars!
• Windsor Executive Solutions • (2010) • short story by Chris Nakashima-Brown and Bruce Sterling, http://futurismic.com/2010/05/04/new-... Incomprehensible to me, but something about the undead Queen Elizabeth? WTF; DNF, 1-star
• A Plain Tale from Our Hills • (2007) • short story.
https://subterraneanpress.com/magazin... A vignette from a future ruined by extreme climate change, when two women fight over a man. OK+, 2.5 stars
• The Interoperation • (2007) • novelette, https://www.technologyreview.com/s/40.... An architectural software story, and about as exciting as it sounds, though Sterling does his best. 2.5 stars.
• Black Swan • (2009) • novelette, free mp3: http://www.starshipsofa.com/blog/2016.... Not reread here, but when I read it in the Strahan Year's Best #4 (2010) I thought it was pretty good. An odd tale of tech cross-over from a parallel dimension. 3 stars?
Best review I saw online: http://strangehorizons.com/non-fictio... I noticed he called out "The Lustration" as Best in Show, too.
February 7, 2017
In astronomy, a technique called Active Optics uses a dynamically warping mirror to counteract atmospheric disturbances and show clear pictures of the sky. In futurism, the same technique is owned by Bruce Sterling.
Futurity runs like a live wire through this collection. Bruce Sterling is a man trying to throw himself boldly into the future. These stories feature architects and bloggers crouching in the ruined cities of the American Midwest and Central Europe. Assassins and necromancers arrange their plots in scenic Turin and Tuscany. But there's not a lot of traditional fiction here, the well-crafted stories that you might remember from a "A Good Old Fashioned Future" are interspersed with screeds on design, governance, and sustainability, and a few of the stories take a stylized avante-garde approach to world-building that reminds me of Expressionist film. Sterling is like a man trying to build a glider as he plummets from a cliff, and there crude edges and open circuits everywhere. But the book is full of those sharp turns that Sterling specializes in, the sentence that takes some bullshit we all accept because that's the way it is, in turns it inside-out to show what's really going on.
This is a spiky, thorny book. The 12 pieces in here are nominally short fiction, or at least they don't describe the surface of our consensus reality and none of them are longer than 20 pages, but most of them aren't the kind science-fiction you'd see at a boring bookstore like B&N or the dearly departed Borders. Rather, like Bruce himself, it's an uneven mixture of Texan orneriness, California cyberdelia, and European design criticism. This is not a book for people who just want to be entertained, and it's not for people who want answers, but if you're looking to turn 2012 into a year of Transition and wind up on top at the end, this might be the book for you.
Futurity runs like a live wire through this collection. Bruce Sterling is a man trying to throw himself boldly into the future. These stories feature architects and bloggers crouching in the ruined cities of the American Midwest and Central Europe. Assassins and necromancers arrange their plots in scenic Turin and Tuscany. But there's not a lot of traditional fiction here, the well-crafted stories that you might remember from a "A Good Old Fashioned Future" are interspersed with screeds on design, governance, and sustainability, and a few of the stories take a stylized avante-garde approach to world-building that reminds me of Expressionist film. Sterling is like a man trying to build a glider as he plummets from a cliff, and there crude edges and open circuits everywhere. But the book is full of those sharp turns that Sterling specializes in, the sentence that takes some bullshit we all accept because that's the way it is, in turns it inside-out to show what's really going on.
This is a spiky, thorny book. The 12 pieces in here are nominally short fiction, or at least they don't describe the surface of our consensus reality and none of them are longer than 20 pages, but most of them aren't the kind science-fiction you'd see at a boring bookstore like B&N or the dearly departed Borders. Rather, like Bruce himself, it's an uneven mixture of Texan orneriness, California cyberdelia, and European design criticism. This is not a book for people who just want to be entertained, and it's not for people who want answers, but if you're looking to turn 2012 into a year of Transition and wind up on top at the end, this might be the book for you.
October 8, 2013
All in all this book is comprised of mostly shit with some really good stories. The good stories being: Esoteric City, The Parthenopean Scalpel, The Interoperation, and Black Swan. There were some mediocre ones, and all the rest is utter garbage. The structure of the bad stories was just not needed and it was very distracting. It is amazing how some of the stories were spot on and very good yet the same author could come up the most confusing gibberish in other stories. Maybe if the story was longer with proper character development it would have been different, but since most sotries were from the first person and seemed almost autobiographical, it was like the character assumed we knew all about him already. Below is a summary of each story. There may be spoilers, but since each story was mostly only 20 pages or less, it is not ruining much.
I. Favela Chic
I Saw the Best Minds of My Generation Destroyed by Google
Very fast whirlwind of a story. It is over before you really get a feel for what is going on, but I think Google has taken over all of society and therefore there is no future for people because society has an empty spot and teens just fill the gaps as needed.
Kiosk
The longest story in the book. It follows one man, Borislav, through his life of kiosk ownership. A prominent figure in the neighborhood who always had items for sale, one day someone comes in a buys up everything. A new tech comes into play that eventually leads to a Third Transition, some weird government reprisal and then the story ends with him in a place in life where I am not sure is any different from when he began.
The Hyperspace of This Decade
Written as a blog entry, the author of this post rambles on about how technology advances are changing the world. He has an apartment completely unfurnished save for some raw material. He gets a delivery of a fabrikator and then sets off to work fabbing all of his stuff.
White Fungus
White Fungus is not quite city, not quite rural farmland. All the buildings are white limestone. Main character is an architect in collapsed society. One lady comes in swiftly, keeps to herself, and fixes things in the night. She leaves him with a surprise of futurity.
The Exterminator's Want Ad
Nonviolent prisoner in an old mansion learning social skills in order to reintegrate into society. Puts an ad for an intern for his exterminator business cuz it is the only thing he wants to do that keeps him alone. Story is mostly about who he is and that despite his profile, he is not a bad guy.
II. Dark Euphoria
Esoteric City
Finally a proper story. A necromancer from Turin who is also a big time automotive exec is lead thru hell with a guide similar to the Dante/Virgil relationship. While going thru the updated hell, he finds out he has a meeting with Satan. He goes back to the land of the living, at his wife's birthday to confront the beast.
The Parthenopean Scalpel
Set back in an Italy being oppressed and challenged, one man is poised to make history and assassinate the Minister. He is undercut and ends up fleeing to Tuscany where he meets up with a mangled Count of R-. He grows affection for the Count's sister and when a new General from Austria comes to town, a fight of honor ensues leaving the assassin with a different career ahead of him.
The Lustration
A society of reptilian humanoids that live on a world with a great machine computer built out of tree wood. Circuits, components, pulses all conceived and practiced with wood. This great machine is sending signals out to all the other planets. One person is ummoned by a super secret fraternity to discuss plans going forward about what should be done.
III. Gothic High-Tech
Windsor Executive Solutions
What a stupid story about a somewhat interesting concept. Told all in text messages, news reports, spam email, and transcripts. Centering around Great Britain, Prince Harry leads a guerilla force of revolutionaries, the Queen is dead but doesnt want to die, and a bunch of other concepts that could be interesting but were never explain enough to mean anything. What a waste of pages and ideas.
A Plain Tale From Our Hills
Did not get this one at all. A short story about a future where the population is dwindling and thus the government takes action to promote liasons which bear children. A wife loses her husband only to regain him from the "old tribe elder."
The Interoperation
A former architect in the future realized he was better suited to recycle buildings than design them. When faced with a new job by his father in law who was using extremely outdated design software, he goes to town trying to make all the old and new interoperate. In the process he becomes a genius designer himself and sets the industry ablaze.
Black Swan
A man from an alternate universe has a laptop that can transport him to any one of 32 different verses. He feeds one man ideas and secrets from his other verses to make this world better. When they end up going for a ride together, and a mishap occurs, the man being fed information decides to take the reigns and live to his potential.
I. Favela Chic
I Saw the Best Minds of My Generation Destroyed by Google
Very fast whirlwind of a story. It is over before you really get a feel for what is going on, but I think Google has taken over all of society and therefore there is no future for people because society has an empty spot and teens just fill the gaps as needed.
Kiosk
The longest story in the book. It follows one man, Borislav, through his life of kiosk ownership. A prominent figure in the neighborhood who always had items for sale, one day someone comes in a buys up everything. A new tech comes into play that eventually leads to a Third Transition, some weird government reprisal and then the story ends with him in a place in life where I am not sure is any different from when he began.
The Hyperspace of This Decade
Written as a blog entry, the author of this post rambles on about how technology advances are changing the world. He has an apartment completely unfurnished save for some raw material. He gets a delivery of a fabrikator and then sets off to work fabbing all of his stuff.
White Fungus
White Fungus is not quite city, not quite rural farmland. All the buildings are white limestone. Main character is an architect in collapsed society. One lady comes in swiftly, keeps to herself, and fixes things in the night. She leaves him with a surprise of futurity.
The Exterminator's Want Ad
Nonviolent prisoner in an old mansion learning social skills in order to reintegrate into society. Puts an ad for an intern for his exterminator business cuz it is the only thing he wants to do that keeps him alone. Story is mostly about who he is and that despite his profile, he is not a bad guy.
II. Dark Euphoria
Esoteric City
Finally a proper story. A necromancer from Turin who is also a big time automotive exec is lead thru hell with a guide similar to the Dante/Virgil relationship. While going thru the updated hell, he finds out he has a meeting with Satan. He goes back to the land of the living, at his wife's birthday to confront the beast.
The Parthenopean Scalpel
Set back in an Italy being oppressed and challenged, one man is poised to make history and assassinate the Minister. He is undercut and ends up fleeing to Tuscany where he meets up with a mangled Count of R-. He grows affection for the Count's sister and when a new General from Austria comes to town, a fight of honor ensues leaving the assassin with a different career ahead of him.
The Lustration
A society of reptilian humanoids that live on a world with a great machine computer built out of tree wood. Circuits, components, pulses all conceived and practiced with wood. This great machine is sending signals out to all the other planets. One person is ummoned by a super secret fraternity to discuss plans going forward about what should be done.
III. Gothic High-Tech
Windsor Executive Solutions
What a stupid story about a somewhat interesting concept. Told all in text messages, news reports, spam email, and transcripts. Centering around Great Britain, Prince Harry leads a guerilla force of revolutionaries, the Queen is dead but doesnt want to die, and a bunch of other concepts that could be interesting but were never explain enough to mean anything. What a waste of pages and ideas.
A Plain Tale From Our Hills
Did not get this one at all. A short story about a future where the population is dwindling and thus the government takes action to promote liasons which bear children. A wife loses her husband only to regain him from the "old tribe elder."
The Interoperation
A former architect in the future realized he was better suited to recycle buildings than design them. When faced with a new job by his father in law who was using extremely outdated design software, he goes to town trying to make all the old and new interoperate. In the process he becomes a genius designer himself and sets the industry ablaze.
Black Swan
A man from an alternate universe has a laptop that can transport him to any one of 32 different verses. He feeds one man ideas and secrets from his other verses to make this world better. When they end up going for a ride together, and a mishap occurs, the man being fed information decides to take the reigns and live to his potential.
April 1, 2013
This is a group of 12 short stories that will make you think.
I know when you read you want to relax and escape. But Sterling’s stories grab you by the neck and just won’t let go.
The tales in this book are deep, as in you need to pay attention, they are dark, which is why you bought it, and they are exercise, as in your brain gets a work out and you know it.
Not a book to pick up and quickly polish off a story or two while listening to the news, this is a book that DEMANDS your full attention when reading it. Vital and developed but flawed characters. Situations you may or may not recognize. A fast pace that keeps you on your toes.
Not an easy read at times but an investment in your higher intelligence. Go ahead, take a chance, and buy this book.
Recommended
I know when you read you want to relax and escape. But Sterling’s stories grab you by the neck and just won’t let go.
The tales in this book are deep, as in you need to pay attention, they are dark, which is why you bought it, and they are exercise, as in your brain gets a work out and you know it.
Not a book to pick up and quickly polish off a story or two while listening to the news, this is a book that DEMANDS your full attention when reading it. Vital and developed but flawed characters. Situations you may or may not recognize. A fast pace that keeps you on your toes.
Not an easy read at times but an investment in your higher intelligence. Go ahead, take a chance, and buy this book.
Recommended
July 30, 2020
This book was hard to read. Some of the stories were interesting but I had a hard time figuring out what was going on. I think the best part of the book was in the story Esoteric City. In the story the main character is taken down to hell to meet Satan, and with all the horrific things he is witnessing in hell, the thing he freaks out about is that The Devil speaks in iambic pentameter. That made me laugh out loud.
June 16, 2017
Liked this, but got tired of the over-the-topness. Seems like each story had to overwhelm the previous one. I wouldn't have minded a little understatement here and there.
October 10, 2018
Gorgeous.
August 7, 2012
I've always enjoyed Sterling's work because he is cutting-edge when it comes to SF ideas and the implications of new tech. This book of short stories continues that trend. Sterling's stories deal with new tech and new ideas--3-D fabricators, social media, alternate histories, and multiple universes among others.
His characters in these stories are trying to make sense of the new ideas, or developing new ways of using them. His settings are mostly in near-future Earth, especially Europe, so I'd guess he has spent a lot of time there--in Italy, the Baltics, Poland, and other somewhat off-the-grid places.
If you're looking for interesting characters, well-developed settings, and thoughtful "if this goes on" ideas, this is a book of stories that you will enjoy.
May 14, 2012
A mix of presents and futures. A mix of "gothic hi-tech", "favela chic", and "dark euphoria". A great mix of shorts that slip in and out of near future, far future, alt-present, all-of-the-above. Criticism of art and tech. Fantasy horror via clean energy politics. The writing process (hiding). Dante. European. Chat transcripts. Nigerian spam copied and pasted from his inbox. Wooden planets. Cannibalism. Coffee houses. Oulipo. Deconstruction as a life strategy. And more!
January 18, 2015
I've been a Bruce Sterling fan since Schismatrix first came out. He has evolved over time and is one of the few individual authors I know, often writing about style, architectural SF, and the seamy future underside (loved his character Leggy Starlitz (international arms dealer and hustler of a Middle European girl band).
This collection of short stories from 2011 is no different sparkling with innovation both social and technical.
This collection of short stories from 2011 is no different sparkling with innovation both social and technical.
March 26, 2012
I tried to read it. Sterling was one of my favorite authors in the 80's and 90's. I kept picking it up, reading a few pages, and putting it down again. Finally I just gave up. It makes me kind of sad, because I had high expectations. Oh well, on to the next book on my list...
April 6, 2012
This is an excellent collection of thought-provoking stories, each with its own message concerning a future problem, usually caused by technology. It's full of wit, sly observations and intelligent debate.
http://opionator.wordpress.com/2012/0...
http://opionator.wordpress.com/2012/0...
June 2, 2012
Meh. Ninety percent of these stories left me cold. This isn't the first collection of short stories by an author I admire that seems like they were drudged from the bottom of the pile, but I sure hope it's the last.
July 25, 2012
Especially liked the story "Esoteric City", in which the entrance to Hell in Turin "urged the abandonment of all hope in fourteen official European Union languages." Lots of interesting ideas.
January 29, 2013
Anthology of Bruce Sterling science-fiction short stories. Such cool stuff. I felt like I was one step into the future.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews