Subject: Heavy Weather (review)

From: [email-masked] (Stefan E. Jones)
Date: 3 Oct 1994 14:56:02 -0500

Heavy Weather
By Bruce Sterling
It's 2031, and the Earth is in shabby shape.  The economies of the worl
have been disrupted by private electronic currencies, drug-resistant
plagues ravage every country, and the Greenhouse Effect has disrupted
climates and weather around the globe.  The U.S., intact but battered by
political crises and loss of arable land to drought, turns away from the
future and watches television.

In a depopulated West Texas, the Troupe, a gang of high-tech nomadic
meteorologists, chases tornadoes across the weed choked landscape.
Their leader, charismatic mathematician Jerry Mulcahy, hopes to gather
enough data to predict the Big One; a massive, possibly _permanent_ killer
tornado he believes will strike the Midwest.  Enter Alex Unger, tubercular 
scion and brother to Jerry's lover and partner, Janey.  Alex, kidnapped
from a sleazy Mexican clinic after a "lung enema," tries to fit into the
Troupe and find reasons to stay alive; Janey wonders whether her career
plans can survive her relationship with Jerry; Jerry singlemindedly drives
the Troupe with its rendezvous with destiny, in the heart of the tornado
equivalent of a Richter 9.0 earthquake.

_Heavy Weather_ is oddly low keyed and narrow of focus for a Bruce 
Sterling story.  It's about tough people coming to terms with bad weather,
bleak landscapes, hard times and a crumbling society.  The heroes can't
save the world; indeed, it' debatable whether they can save themselves.
The story holds together nicely until just before the end, when it takes an
odd turn and concludes on an ambiguous, halfheartedly optimistic note.
I'm far from disappointed with _Heavy Weather_.  The Troupe's encounters
with storms are hair raisingly evocative, and the carefully extrapolated
technology is wonderfully imagined.  But some elements -- like Jerry's 
evil brother Leo and his creepy friends -- seem grafted on, perhaps to
fulfill a need for villains with a human face.  And one of the characters
has a change of heart that's puzzling and suspiciously, well, _wholesome_.
Fans of Sterling's unparalleled ability to weave chillingly realistic near
future scenarios won't want to miss _Heavy Weather_.  As a novel, it
leaves something to be desired.

Stefan Jones