A collection of thirteen individually introduced cyberpunk tales by the co-author of The Difference Engine brings readers beyond the imagined boundaries of future technology. Original.
Does God exist? Can spirituality be integrated with science? Is happiness possible? Do miracles really happen? Not only does The Visionary Window answer " yes" to all of these questions, but it skillfully combines the fields of philosophy, cosmology, religion, and psychology to form a new way of thinking about science and spirituality. Stepping beyond the classic work of prominent seventies physicist Fritjof Capra, Goswami details his own pioneering exploration of science and spirit, revealing the complete integration between modern science and spiritual traditions. Using stories and colorful examples from pop culture, Goswami addresses complex issues in language and terminology easily accessible to the lay reader. He provides quantum physics-based theory and new experimental data verifying the metaphysical truth that exists when employed in the context of a new science, science within the primacy of consciousness. With a new holistic worldview, Goswami also discusses the creativity of the body to self heal; the power of spiritual practice and how to choose a meditative path; and the five stages of spiritual growth, culminating in the ability to transcend the physical laws of nature. Readers, scientists and spiritual leaders alike will find answers to many of life’s deepest mysteries.
Two dozen tales of future shock and twisted history from an undisputed king of cyberpunk science fiction, including Nebula Award finalists “Sunken Garden” and “Dori Bangs.” Time magazine describes Bruce Sterling as “one of America’s best-known science fiction writers and perhaps the sharpest observer of our media-choked culture working today in any genre.” Sterling’s abilities are on full display in Ascendancies, a collection of speculative fiction from a world-class world-building futurist, alternate historian, and mad prophet operating at the peak of his extraordinary powers. Here are twenty-four stories that span the illustrious career of the author who, along with William Gibson and Neal Stephenson, injected the word cyberpunk into the science fiction lexicon. These tales not only traverse galaxies and employ mind-boggling technologies, they also cut back across the centuries into a richly imagined past with style and a sharp satiric edge. Sterling’s unparalleled imagination and courageous originality carry the reader into the future universe of the warring Shapers and Mechanists, rival sects of exiled humanity with radically opposed views of human augmentation. Several stories feature the questionable adventures of the footloose con man Leggy Starlitz in a somewhat-skewed and still-dangerous post–Cold War world. Sterling explores the cyberpunk trope of technology gone wild and the resultant decline of civilization with appropriate gravity, while presenting parables of strangers stuck in very strange lands in a more whimsical vein. Whether chronicling an alien’s encounter with Crusaders in disputed Palestine, depicting the discovery of the key to immortality in a nineteenth-century Times Square magic shop, or portraying bicycles and bad guys in a near-future Tennessee, Sterling’s stories are smart, surprising, genre bending, bold, and outstanding, one and all.
From the subversive to the antic, the uproarious to the disturbing, the stories of Bruce Sterling are restless, energy-filled journeys through a world running on empty--the visionary work of one of our most imaginative and insightful modern writers. They live as strangers in strange lands. In worlds that have fallen--or should have. They wage battles in wars already lost and become heroes--and sometimes martyrs--in their last-ditch efforts to preserve the dignity and individuality of humanity. A hack Indian filmmaker takes the pulse of a wounded and declining civilization--21st-century Britain. A pair of swashbuckling Silicon Valley entrepreneurs join forces to make a commercial killing--in organic underground slime and computer-generated jellyfish. A man in a Japanese city takes orders from a talking cat while pursuing a drama of danger and adventure that has become the very essence of his life. From "The Littlest Jackal", a darkly hilarious thriller of mercs and gunrunners set in Finland, to a stark vision of a post-atomic netherworld in his haunting tale "Taklamakan", Bruce Sterling once again breaks boundaries, breaks icons, and breaks rules to unleash the most dangerously provocative and intelligent science fiction being written today.
Featuring thirteen satirical short stories, a unique collection includes scientific superstars, a rock singer who is the voice of the people, and two lost souls who drive off the edge of the world and find each other. From the Paperback edition.
It's November 2044, an election year, and the state of the Union is a farce. The government is broke, the cities are privately owned, and the military is shaking down citizens in the streets. Washington has become a circus and no one knows that better than Oscar Valparaiso. A political spin doctor, Oscar has always made things look good. Now he wants to make a difference. But Oscar has a skeleton in his closet. His only ally: Dr. Greta Penninger, a gifted neurologist at the bleeding edge of the neural revolution. Together they're out to spread a very dangerous idea whose time has come. And so have their enemies: every technofanatic, government goon, and laptop assassin in America. Oscar and Greta might not survive to change the world, but they'll put a new spin on it. From the Paperback edition.
In 1791, shortly after the United States won its independence, George Washington personally asked Pierre Charles L’Enfant—a young French artisan turned American revolutionary soldier who gained many friends among the Founding Fathers—to design the new nation's capital. L’Enfant approached this task with unparalleled vigor and passion; however, his imperious and unyielding nature also made him many powerful enemies. After eleven months, Washington reluctantly dismissed L’Enfant from the project. Subsequently, the plan for the city was published under another name, and L’Enfant died long before it was rightfully attributed to him. Filled with incredible characters and passionate human drama, Scott W. Berg’s deft narrative account of this little-explored story in American history is a tribute to the genius of Pierre Charles L'Enfant and the enduring city that is his legacy.
Memory, morality, and immortality merge in this “haunting and lyrical triumph” from the bestselling author of Schismatrix Plus (Time). In the late twenty-first century, technology has lengthened lifespans far beyond what was once medically possible. Existence itself has become relatively easy—if boring. In this futuristic paradise, ninety-four-year-old Mia Ziemann longs for something different and undergoes a radical new treatment that restores both her body and mind to that of a twenty-year-old. After her dramatic transformation, Mia finds herself lost in an avant-garde world of passion, designer drugs, and creative expression . . . “Ideas—big ideas—lurk beneath Mia’s romp through Sterling’s delightfully imagined newly post-human Earth. Art, artifice, the pursuit of immortality, and youth and aging bounce around the story, the characters, and their conversations in imaginative, engaging fashion. . . . In the end, Holy Fire is one of the most interesting, imaginative, and subtly humorous—and relevant for it—novels the cyberpunk/post-human era has produced. . . . Holy Fire may very well be [Sterling’s] best work.” —Speculiction “An intellectual feat, it is also a treat for the spirit and the senses.” —Wired “A patented Sterling extra-special.” —Newsday “The future Sterling traces is plausible and provocative, particularly his consideration of several contrasting cultures, and of the disenfranchised who are unable to become ‘post-human.’ Those interested in serious speculative conversation set within a very strange near-future will find this much to their taste.” —Publishers Weekly
A near-future eco-thriller from the bestselling author of Schismatrix Plus and The Difference Engine. The Storm Troupers are a group of weather hackers who roam the plains of Texas and Oklahoma, hopped up on adrenaline and technology. Utilizing virtual reality, flying robots, and all-terrain vehicles, they collect data on the extreme storms ravaging an America decimated by climate change. But even their visionary leader can’t predict the danger on the horizon when a volatile new member joins their ranks and faces a trial by fire: a massive tornado unlike any the world has seen before. “A remarkable and individual sharpness of vision . . . Sterling hacks the future, and an elegant hack it is.” —Locus “Lucid and tremendously entertaining. Sterling shows once more his skills in storytelling and technospeak. A cyberpunk winner.” —Kirkus Reviews “So believable are the speculations that . . . one becomes convinced that the world must and will develop into what Sterling has predicted.” —Science Fiction Age “A very exciting coming-of-age story in a wild future America . . . What’s it got? Cyberpunk attitude, genuine humor, nanotechnology, minimal sex but some cool medications and very big weather systems.” —SFReviews.net “Brilliant . . . Fascinating . . . Exciting . . . A full complement of thrills.” —The New York Review of Science Fiction