Islands in the Net by Austin-based author, Bruce Sterling. (Supposedly, besides speculative fiction, Sterling is an internet persona – I wouldn’t know, never met him.)
I recall exactly zero about the plot. I recall next to nothing about most of the book, and I had to check, Amazon lists the book as a June, 1988 publication date. I was in college, I think, at the university, first time I read the book, and I still have a fine, first edition hardback.
I’ve reread it a couple of times, and I still don’t recall much, other than some of its action was set in Texas, but that’s characteristic of Sterling’s canon, and just one more reason why I like his work.
What I do recall about that one novel, Islands in the Net?
Something from the novel, an idea, a description, a tiny bit of text, came bubbling up into my consciousness as I looked at my bookshelf, overflowing with books. I was checking the scopes, and I was looking at a particular bit I’d written for this week, and I was wondering how it would impact a certain client I know, who will be reading it. Might’ve already ingested it. Then there’s a link, and that link leads to a web journal, and from that web journal, there’s a link to a set of images taken – and uploaded – from a phone camera.
Which ties back to the novel. Much has changed, and parts of the book are dated. Some of the events and technologies didn’t go in the technical direction posited in the novel, but there has always been, in my mind, an underlying sense – to me – that the novel did grasp much about what was going to happen. Perhaps more on an allegorical level than a real level, but still, it’s there.
It’s scary to commit some kind of story like that to print, only to have it much abused later as “out of date” and “missed the boat,” but I admire that kind of absence of self-doubt. Brave.
Like writing horoscopes, huh?
Copyright 2005 by Kramer Wetzel for astrofish.net. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without prior written consent from the author.
