- Hardcover: 448 pages
- Publisher: Spectra (Dec 1 1998)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0553104845
- ISBN-13: 978-0553104844
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16 x 3.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 680 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,775,135 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
It's the year 2044, and America has gone to hell. A disenfranchised U.S. Air Force base has turned to highway robbery in order to pay the bills. Vast chunks of the population live nomadic lives fueled by cheap transportation and even cheaper computer power. Warfare has shifted from the battlefield to the global networks, and China holds the information edge over all comers. Global warming is raising sea level, which in turn is drowning coastal cities. And the U.S. government has become nearly meaningless. This is the world that Oscar Valparaiso would have been born into, if he'd actually been born instead of being grown in vitro by black market baby dealers. Oscar's bizarre genetic history (even he's not sure how much of him is actually human) hasn't prevented him from running one of the most successful senatorial races in history, getting his man elected by a whopping majority. But Oscar has put himself out of a job, since he'd only be a liability to his boss in Washington due to his problematic background. Instead, Oscar finds himself shuffled off to the Collaboratory, a Big Science pork barrel project that's run half by corruption and half by scientific breakthroughs. At first it seems to be a lose-lose proposition for Oscar, but soon he has his "krewe" whipped into shape and ready to take control of events. Now if only he can straighten out his love life and solve a worldwide crisis that no one else knows exists. --Craig E. Engler
From Publishers Weekly
It's 2044 A.D. and America has gone to the dogs. The federal government is broke and, with 16 political parties fighting for power, things aren't likely to improve soon. The Air Force, short on funding, is setting up roadblocks to shake down citizens and disguising its tactics as a bake sale. The governor of Louisiana, Green Huey, is engaging in illegal genetic research and has set up his own private biker army. The newly elected president of the U.S., Leonard Two Feathers, is considering a declaration of war against the Netherlands, a country that finds itself half under water due to global warming. Trying desperately to hold things together is Oscar Valparaiso, political consultant and spin doctor extraordinaire, who has just engineered the election of a new liberal senator for the state of Massachusetts, only to discover that his boss suffers from severe bipolar disorder. Looking for a new challenge, Oscar takes a job with the U.S. Senate Science Committee. His first assignment is to investigate the scandal-ridden Collaboratory, a gigantic, spaceshiplike federal lab in East Texas. Oscar, himself the result of an illegal Colombian cloning experiment, immediately falls head over heels for a gawky but brilliant young Nobel laureate, with whom he sets out to save both the lab and the nation from Green Huey. In his latest novel (after Holy Fire), Sterling once again proves himself the reigning master of near-future political SF. This is a powerful and, at times, very funny novel that should add significantly to Sterling's already considerable reputation.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
It's okay,
By Ward Mesick (Bear, DE) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Distraction (Mass Market Paperback)
The story here is decent but not exactly what it's pitched as. To read the description would lead you to believe that you're going to read a book about two people trying to change a corrupt, lost America. But by the time you finish, it's obvious that the story is more about two people who are caught up in their own bubble and have not really made an effort to fix America. Instead they have played a bunch of "dangerous" games with a few politicians and some crazies who have dropped out of society becuase there are just not jobs left.I was also constantly mystified at how everyone reacts to Oscar in this story. Every single character he comes across just stares in amazement at his skills to think and plan quickly and to get the upper hand. That is fine and all except that he never actually earns this respect. At no point in the story did he have a thought that was really that original or dashing. Sure, he can talk quick but lots of people can do that. There were no ideas he put forward that the reader couldn't see coming. Perhaps the moral of the lesson is that in the future everyone will be so slow that a "normal" thinker by our standards will be nearly super-human. But the one thing this book has going for it is that it has a sharp, believable future. If we don't fix our system now, it is not difficult to see the America painted here as a reality. That vision of the future alone does make this worth reading and saved the book from some serious issues that I had with it.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A work of precision intensity and intelligence,
By
This review is from: Distraction (Mass Market Paperback)
Bruce Sterling addresses every major topic of our time. It is a transformational futurists view of the social impact that biotechnology, nanotech, and a global network may have. The sheer number of concepts that have been intertwined and projected into the future are staggering. It is a massive vision, and yet it is told simply and with a sensitivity for suspense and overall appeal.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Near Future Sci-Fi,
By A Customer
This review is from: Distraction (Mass Market Paperback)
Sterling does it again with this book, prescient and witty. It tells the tale of two people stuck in a civil war of sorts between the old world and the new. It is a great read if you are into "Emergence Theory," as you watch the city of Buna unfold.
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