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Book Review: Globalhead (Sterling)

This is a short story collection of 13 independent, yet typically Bruce Sterling stories. Lots of neat ideas here - genetic manipulation gone awry to create intelligent animals, the impact of life-extending drugs on society, cold war Russian scientists doing advanced brain-manipulation experiments, RU-486 smugglers, alternate histories involving rock critics and cartoonists. The best stories show Sterling's gift at thinking about the social and cultural impacts of these steps beyond where things are now. The least effective stories for me were the ones that seemed to lack focus (Jim and Irene and THe Sword of Damocles, especially) and didn't provide any meaningful resolution. These stories were written between 1987 and 1992, and it is amazing to see how most of the topics are still meaningful today. Former Russian republics, Afghanistan, genetics, Islam, advances in neurobiology, Lester Bangs - lots of dealing with topics that came to mainstream attention much later. I think his short story work helps him find some of the themes and topics that he decided to address in more depth in his novels

Speaking of which, I really should catch up on some of his more recent work. This book helped remind me how much I enjoy reading his work.