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Islands in the Net by: Bruce Sterling

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Rating: - Good build up but just ok ending

I am a fan of the Cyberpunk Genre, and came accross one of the authors whos stared it all (Bruce Sterling).

I brough this book to see what it was like in comparrison with the likes of William Gibson and Michael Marshall Smith, it compares well with them both in my opinion.

The story has pace and intrigue.

The only thing that lets it down is the ending which is a bit they all went and had cake and tea and lived happily ever after, but I recommend it as a good read nether the less.

Rating: - Still Sterling's best (so far)

Now that cyberpunk seems to mean simply 'fiction with virtual reality', it is worth looking back to when it had more depth. Sterling's best novel to date (I haven't read 'Distraction' yet), is fundamentally a serious novel of global politics disguised as a sci-fi adventure story. It has its faults, notably lack of editing and occasional lapses in characterisation, which is why I only give it 4 rather than 5 stars, but it is still refreshing to read an intelligent novel with anarcho-socialist leanings in a sub-genre which has become increasingly apolitical and irrelevant.

Rating: - Some Good ideas, but ultimately disappointing.

About 100 pages into "Islands in the Net", I was extremely interested in what was happening. By the time I got to the end of the book (around page 400), I was reading only because I had already invested so much time.

It's difficult to express exactly what went wrong with this book, but there are a few flaws that stand out in my mind :

#1) The length.

I'm not afraid of reading longer texts, but does this story really justify 400 pages? It seems like Sterling doesn't understand what is important to the progress of the story and what is simply clutter. Many scenes/locales have far too many pages and words dedicated to them. It's obvious that Sterling is good at putting a scene into words, but brevity is the soul of wit (or interesting prose. Notably, the ending was rushed and weak for a book as long as this is.

#2) The characterization is generally weak.

I found myself caring more about Sticky, the dying girl, Winston Stubbs and David (all relatively minor characters) than I did about the protaganist. Laura seemed to be more of a vehicle for the background story than the compelling character that Sterling seems to want her to be. If I'm going to be reading a person's inner dialouge for 400 pages, she better be interesting.

#3) The "resolution" of the story is not a resolution in any way.

I reached the end of the book with the feeling that I had just wasted my time reading 400 pointless pages. Nothing is really different at the end of the book than at the beginning. The same people are in control, the same stupid games are being played and none of the "action" really makes any difference.

In conclusion, I thought that this book was better than many books out there, but ultimately a failure. Sterling touches on a number of interesting ideas, locales and characters but fails to bring them together into a book that serves as anything more than entertainment. The unfortunate pacing, however, severely diminishes the entertainment value.

Rating: - Reply to lilith@dorsai.org

I found Laura, the protagonist, not at all a stock character. Certainly she was an ordinary everywoman, as intended, but this is exactly the type of character you almost never see in science fiction. She's not a technical uber-guru or a speed-freak street-warrior, but those stock types are hardly a benchmark for realism in characterization. As for the settings, I've lived most of my life in Texas, and could sense how comfortable Sterling was with Texan characters in the first few pages. While I've never been to the other settings, I found the story evocative, and especially felt like he was working from a substantial map of Singapore in his head from having spent a fair amount of time there.

Rating: - Good...but in an awkward way.

Perhaps I may be unfair in my review of Islands, for I expected something very different, but I was not as impressed by it as I thought I'd be. The book is a good and solid story of a relatively simple corporate woman thrown into a whirlwind of an international power struggle. The awkwardness lies in the editing -- it easily could have down with shaving off 75 or so pages -- for Sterling has a tendancy to too involved with details in the story that once the reading of the novel is complete, and looking back, were quite unimportant (even to backdrop, characterization, etc. -- not just plot). Another awkward point is the main character, an amazingly simple and flat character that I had a hard time caring about at all. Finally, the last awkward point is Sterling's obvious fascination with foreign countries, political struggles, etc. This can be interesting, for while most cyberpunk books put the corporate inter-fighting ahead of any political tussles, Sterling offers a glimpse of why that might come to be (ie., the rise of corporations of political structures); however, Sterling frequently gets bogged down into try to explain and display too much of these cultures he fancies.

Overall, however, the story is good, the characterization, setting, etc. are all good, and in the end, you *are* left with a solid sense of what the author intended (thoughts about world-wide changes over time...revolutions...*ideas*...sweeping political changes), and thus, the novel is effective and entertaining.

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