Distraction - Bruce Sterling [0]
BRUCE STERLING
HOLY FIRE
“A HAUNTING AND LYRICAL TRIUMPH.”
—Time
“HOLY FIRE IS A BOOK MADE ENTIRELY OF IDEAS … BIG, FAT, JUICY TECHNOLOGICAL EXTRAPOLATIONS, PRESENTED WITH FLAIR AND ENTHUSIASM. AN INTELLECTUAL FEAT, IT IS ALSO A TREAT FOR THE SPIRIT AND THE SENSES.”
—Wired
“A PATENTED STERLING EXTRA-SPECIAL.”
—Newsday
“STERLING IS THE BEST AT SERIOUSLY TRYING TO PREDICT FUTURE TRENDS. IN HOLY FIRE HE HAS COMBINED HIS PREDICTIVE TALENT WITH A SYMPATHETIC AND COMPLEX HEROINE WHO CAN BLEND THE OLD AND THE NEW.”
—The Denver Post
“THE SOCIAL DIMENSION IS HIS BAILIWICK, AND WHILE STERLING HAS ALWAYS HAD A SENSE OF HUMOR, PARTICULARLY IN HIS STORIES, HE’S NEVER WRITTEN ANYTHING WITH THE SATIRICAL ZING AND LAFF RELIEF OF THE FIRST 70 OR SO PAGES. INDEED, NOT MANY HAVE—THIS ENGLISH-HONORS BOY WILL TAKE IT OVER ANY NATHANAEL WEST OR EVELYN WAUGH HE KNOWS.”
—The Village Voice
HEAVY WEATHER
“BRILLIANT … FASCINATING …
EXCITING … A FULL COMPLEMENT OF THRILLS.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“A REMARKABLE AND INDIVIDUAL SHARPNESS OF VISION … STERLING HACKS THE FUTURE, AND AN ELEGANT HACK IT IS.”
—Locus
“SO BELIEVABLE ARE THE SPECULATIONS THAT … ONE BECOMES CONVINCED THAT THE WORLD MUST AND WILL DEVELOP INTO WHAT STERLING HAS PREDICTED.”
—Science Fiction Age
“SHARP … INTRIGUING … A NEAR-FUTURE THRILLER.”
—Publishers Weekly
THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE
(with William Gibson)
“BREATHTAKING.”
—The New York Times
“BURSTING WITH THE KIND OF DEMENTED SPECULATION AND OBSESSIVE DETAILING THAT HAS MADE BOTH GIBSON’S AND STERLING’S WORK STAND OUT.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“HIGHLY IMAGINATIVE … [A] SPLENDID EFFORT.”
—Chicago Tribune
“SMARTLY PLOTTED, WONDERFULLY CRAFTED, AND WRITTEN WITH SLY LITERARY WIT … SPINS MARVELOUSLY AND RUNS LIKE A DREAM.”
—Entertainment Weekly
ALSO BY BRUCE STERLING
Novels
THE ARTIFICIAL KID
THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE
(WITH WILLIAM GIBSON)
HEAVY WEATHER
INVOLUTION OCEAN
ISLANDS IN THE NET
SCHISMATRIX
HOLY FIRE
Stories
CRYSTAL EXPRESS
GLOBALHEAD
Nonfiction
THE HACKER CRACKDOWN:
LAW AND DISORDER ON THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER
Editor
MIRRORSHADES: THE CYBERPUNK
ANTHOLOGY
This edition contains the complete text
of the original hardcover edition.
NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.
DISTRACTION
A Bantam Spectra Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam hardcover edition / December 1998
Bantam mass market edition / October 1999
SPECTRA and the portrayal of a boxed “s” are trademarks of Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1998 by Bruce Sterling.
Library of Congress Catalog Number: 98-20791
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address: Bantam Books.
eISBN: 978-0-307-79678-3
Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.
v3.1
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
About the Author
1
For the fifty-first time (according to his laptop), Oscar studied the riot video from Worcester. This eight-minute chunk of jerky footage was Oscar’s current favorite object of professional meditation. It was a set of grainy photos, taken by a security camera in Massachusetts.
The press called this event “the Worcester riot of May Day ‘42.” This May Day event did not deserve the term “riot” in Oscar’s professional opinion, because although it was extremely destructive, there was nothing riotous about it.
The first security shots showed a typical Massachusetts street crowd, people walking