Subject: Postview: "Crystal Express" by Bruce Sterling

From: [email-masked] (p-m agapow)
Date: 19 Dec 1996 17:00:38 GMT

"Crystal Express" by Bruce Sterling
		A Postview, copyright 1996 p-m agapow

A short story collection including: "Swarm," in which a trade ambassador has
to deal with a complex and very alien species; "Spider Rose," in which an
ancient pilot dealing with the same aliens finds herself with an extremely
odd deal; "Green Days in Brunei," in which an engineer struggles with a
backward but wealthy kingdom; "Dinner in Audoghast," where, in an ancient
and renown African trade city, a group of learned men grow irritated over a
prophet's foretellings.

I found Sterling's second and most recent collection "Globalhead" something
of a disappointment.  It seemed like the deep structure of the stories had
been sacrificed for the superficial details and that much effort was spent
for little result.  The stereotyping of Moslems and Russians was also
unpleasant.  Looking back at his first collection tends to reinforce this
view, with some of the symptoms of later malaise being visible.

But there's a lot that's good here, very good. There are four Shaper/
Mechanist stories set in a decaying solar system beset by fighting between
the biology-crazy Shapers and the engineering maestro Mechanists that
haven't dated a bit in the more than 10 years since publication.  Perhaps
one day short shelf-life will be recognised as trait of cyberpunk.
Although I am not as charmed by "Green Days in Brunei" as many people were,
it is a genial story and the accompanying SF pieces are energetic and
gritty.  The story "Spook" about an saboteur is particularly fun:

	"You want me to destabilize them.  Make their paradigm
	 untenable.  Provoke the kind of cognitive dissonance
	 that will cause them to crumble from within."

Oddly, Greg Egan's "Chaff" bears a strong resemblance to this story.

Finally four fantasy pieces give Sterling the opportunity to wax lyrical
over intricate historical and cultural details.  But here, as opposed to
similar and weaker parts of "Globalhead," there is more than just the
details. There's variety and a story to carry it along.

The Shaper/Mechanist stories are likely to crop up again in the soon to be
released "Schismatrix Plus," but even if you read that the remainder of the
pieces in here come highly recommended.  [***/interesting] and boutique beer
on the Sid and Nancy scale.

%A Bruce Sterling
%B Crystal Express
%I Ace
%C New York
%D 1990
%G ISBN 0-441-12423-2
%P 278pp
%O paperback, Aus$13.95

paul-michael agapow ([email-masked]), La Trobe Uni, Infocalypse
[archived at http://www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~agapow/Postviews/]