Islands in the Net

Islands in the Net is a science fiction novel from 1988 written by the cyberpunk master himself [second only to William Gibson imho] Bruce Sterling. I found this book on a whim. I randomly typed in best cyberpunk novels on google and it showed up on a couple of lists. So I figured I'd order the book from the library and give it a shot. Risky!

This book isn't what I was expecting. The introduction starts with a woman running on the beach and tripping onto the sand, bruising herself. A walking, talking robot comes to her aid. That first impression is important. I thought the talking robot was such a great first impression. I figured the rest of the book would have science fiction elements like that. I was dead wrong. 

Now, it's not that this isn't true science fiction. It's just downplayed super hard in favor of plot and dialogue. It is, in fact, true science fiction, maybe even cyberpunk if you want to call it that. However, the science fiction aspects of this book are very minimal. Although IITN was written in '88, Bruce Sterling was actually able to predict where the technology would go. Hence drones. This is where the plot lies. 

A civilian corporation called Rizome gets involved with data pirate terrorists. They're trying to get the data pirates to come together and stop bombing each others' countries, stop stealing each others' data and money, etc. They deploy drones a lot to kill people, even causing mini genocides and such. This is a prediction of the future because today we live in a world where drones kill people every day [in the middle east]. We have a female protagonist named Laura, who's married and has a baby daughter. Laura decides to be the lead negotiator between these data pirate groups. She wants to be the 'female man', the woman who does it all, risks it all, and comes back home safely, forever changed, but a glorious welcome home, a legend. 

The plot is actually very innovative and grandiose. The whole time I was reading it I kept thinking to myself, is Sterling going to pull this one off? After all, this is my sixth Sterling novel so I know when he writes a mediocre novel [Zeitgeist]. When great science fiction writers try to write what I think of as contemporary thrillers I am not into it. Think William Gibson's All Tomorrow's Parties. I couldn't even get through ten pages of that. Anyways, I actually really like the plot here. It's cutting edge. However, the way the plot and characters work is mediocre. 

The plotting is done mostly through dialogue. One of the best things I can say about this novel is that all the 'boring narration' is actually quite exciting. I liked to see what happened next in terms of pure action. There was a dog breathing fire, a president of Singapore calling Africans the n-word on national television [which reminds me so much of the Trump White House adminstration], two years of imprisonment, Laura's best friend from college marrying her husband while she was locked up, lotion that turns white people black [and they love it, prediction of tanning] and lots of explosions, which included nude women. Sounds pretty great right? Well, it is. 

But then you notice that Sterling is making you work for all that exciting stuff. In between all the action scenes, there's tons of wooden dialogue. It's not that it's terrible writing, on the contrary this is still decent writing. But there's a sense of just riding the breeze with the dialogue. There's little if any character development throughout the entire novel until the very last twenty pages. That's only because Sterling is obliged as a writer to resolve all tension throughout the narrative.

So yes we have a great ending but it takes you 350 pages to get there. Which I find super long given that it's not very much of a science fiction story, feels so contemporary that its modern, and has wooden dialogue. I didn't care for Laura until the very last twenty pages where she has an epiphany and resolves all her problems, comes to grip with reality through much hardship. She even meets her Optimal Persona while in prison. Don't ask. It's a California thing. 

In conclusion, this book had a very inspiring idea but is poorly executed. Sometimes even the great masters of science fiction miss the mark. In fact, I should've known this wasn't that great of a book because I'd never even heard of it. When I told my dad [an old school science fiction aficionado] that I was reading it he told me that it was almost contemporary. And that's my whole problem with it. 

Worth the read only if you're a hardcore Bruce Sterling fan. Not science fiction enough. The best thing I can say about this novel is that it is very ambitious. Sometimes Sterling hits the mark spot on with the way the world works [economies, organizations, countries, mercenaries, data, etc], even today, some 40 years later. That is remarkable but doesn't justify me thinking of this as a great science fiction novel. However, this cover with the woman on the cover in the 'matrix' is pretty damn cool. Unfortunately, that only tells a small fragment of the actual story. 

Check out my other Bruce Sterling novel reviews below:
https://ofigueroamusic.blogspot.com/2019/01/schismatrix-plus.html
https://ofigueroamusic.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-difference-engine.html
https://ofigueroamusic.blogspot.com/2018/12/holy-fire.html
https://ofigueroamusic.blogspot.com/2019/02/artificial-kid.html
https://ofigueroamusic.blogspot.com/2019/01/zeitgeist.html