- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: Spectra; First Edition edition (Oct 31 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0553104934
- ISBN-13: 978-0553104936
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.5 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 544 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #684,287 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
"Like Tom Clancy on PCP." That's how Bruce Sterling describes his fin-de-siècle head trip, Zeitgeist, a typically Sterling spectacle packed with verbal flash and digerati wit, along with the expected rail-gun-steady stream of well-thought-out ideas and references. His self-appraisal, as it turns out, is right on. This is a guy widely considered "another, hipper Alvin Toppler" (in the words of cyberpunk godfather John Shirley), an effortlessly intelligent master of both style and substance.
Fans will recognize Zeitgeist's antihero protagonist Leggy Starlitz from Sterling stories "Hollywood Kremlin," "Are You for 86?" and "The Littlest Jackal." The well-connected, world-class fixer is part mystic, part sleaze--sort of Uncle Enzo meets Templeton "Faceman" Peck--and his latest hustle is plying the Third World with merchandise from his all-fake, all-girl band, G-7. (Its seven talentless, Wonderbra-wearing members are known simply as the American One, the French One, the German One, etc.)
Starlitz makes use of a shady, flamboyantly weird network of state officials, bodyguards, photographers, and other assorted players to push the merchandise--action figures, lip gloss, shoes, you name it--on what one of G-7's savvier members calls the "Moslem hillbillies." But things get surreal as G-7 girls start dying, characters start explicitly referring to their purpose in the narrative, and one of Leggy's associates conspires to break G-7's most sacred rule: that the whole enterprise must end by Y2K. --Paul Hughes
From Publishers Weekly
Rife with profound ruminations on the "master narrative" of life, Sterling's newest evokes vestiges of his collaboration with William Gibson (1991's The Difference Engine) as he journeys back to 1999 to detail the escapades of Leggy Starlitz and his latest marketing triumphDthe G-7 girls. Using his international girl band to move products such as G-7 lip gloss, candies and sparkly pantyhose, Starlitz embarks on a glamorous Third World tour that skids to an abrupt halt in Turkish Cyprus. Although the dialogue riffs along energetically while Starlitz and Turkish millionaire mobster Mehmet Ozbey discuss the future of G-7, politics and life's "deepest truths," fans of Sterling's fast-paced thrillers will find little suspense or intrigue in this experimental piece. Starlitz passively steps aside, allowing Ozbey to use the band as a front for his illicit negotiations, and dutifully assumes the role of father when his lesbian ex-wife suddenly appears with his telekinetic daughter in tow. Abandoning Cyprus to conjure up his "Javanese Navajo" father (who dematerialized as a result of being too close to an atomic bomb test in the '50s), Starlitz travels to New Mexico and stages mock-Christmas festivities. When the G-7 girls begin to die, however, Starlitz returns to Cyprus to engage in another aimless battle of wits with Ozbey. Although this tragicomedy resonates with Sterling's striking prose and strong characterizations, these do little to salvage a tale that reads more like a disjointed dream than a cohesive narrative. Nevertheless, Sterling's strong following will certainly buoy the sales of this leaden sinker. (Nov. 7)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
A very good "What is Reality?" book,
By Kasey (Oklahoma) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Zeitgeist (Mass Market Paperback)
Not necessarily one of my favorite books, this one has enough "alien elements" to it to, as another reviewer said, to join the sci-fi ranks, such as the Old Masters who gave us "Rendezvous with Rama", "Childhood's End", "I,Robot", "Ringworld", "Foundation", as well as cyberpunk books like "Mona Lisa Overdrive", "Neuromancer", "Snow Crash", "Cryptonomicon", and "Cyber Hunter".
3.0 out of 5 stars
"The Spirit of the Times",
By chris banez lim "Crutchead" (Philippines) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Zeitgeist (Mass Market Paperback)
I totally have no idea that what I have in my hand is actually a sci-fi novel until I get right in the middle of it, because it was one of the rare occasions I never read the spine as it is indicated there. I also have no idea that the lead charachter Leggy Starlitz is actually the authors vehicle to several other stories of his.The story filled with political intrigue amidst the backdrop of fictional scenarios, turned to centralize its storyline with the lead charachter when the said charachter was subjected to take care of his telekenetic daughter who appeared halfway on the book. In the meantime, im still a pair of chapters short to finish it as I type away right here...
2.0 out of 5 stars
Eh.,
By Joshua Weiner (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Zeitgeist (Mass Market Paperback)
Sterling has become a complete pop culture junkie. This isn't a bad thing as he's done some excellent journalism on cultural trends but I have the feeling that his days as a novelist are at an end. I picked up Zeitgeist expecting a novel and got the feeling that he's largely using the main character as a vehicle to make his own observations about media and culture at the turn of the century. It just dosen't hold together as fiction as well. I enjoyed Holy Fire and Distraction a great deal but I think unless he removes himself from his immediate time frame with his fiction, his storylines loose their cohesion. I'm still an avid fan, I just think he should have dropped the pretense of fiction and just wrote an extended essay.
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