Comprehensive information and links about Bruce Sterling

Bruce Sterling (born April 14, 1954Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction author, best known for his novels and his seminal work on the anthology, which defined the cyberpunk genre. In 2003 he was appointed Professor at the European Graduate School where he is teaching Summer Intensive Courses on media and design. In 2005, he became "visionary in residence" at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

He is married to Serbian author and film-maker Jasmina Tesanovic.[1]

table

Writings

Sterling is, along with William Gibson, Tom Maddox, Rudy Rucker, John Shirley, Lewis Shiner and Pat Cadigan, one of the founders of the cyberpunk movement in science fiction, as well as its chief ideological promulgator, and one whose polemics on the topic earned him the nickname "Chairman Bruce". He is also one of the first organizers of Turkey City Writer's Workshop. He won Hugo Awards for the novelette "Bicycle Repairman" and the novella "Talamakan".

His first novel, , published in 1977, features the world Nullaqua where all the atmosphere is contained in a single, miles-deep crater; the story concerns a ship sailing on the ocean of dust at the bottom, which hunts creatures called dustwhales that live beneath the surface. It is a science-fictional pastiche of by Herman Melville.

In the late 1970s onwards, Sterling wrote a series of stories set in the ShaperMechanist universe: the solar system is colonised, with two major warring factions. The Mechanists use a great deal of computer-based mechanical technologies; the Shapers do genetic engineering on a massive scale. The situation is complicated by the eventual contact with alien civilizations; humanity eventually splits into many subspecies, with the implication that many of these effectively vanish from the galaxy, reminiscent of The Singularity in the works of Vernor Vinge. The Shaper

In his hometown of Austin, Texas, the author is known for an annual Christmas yard party that features digital art.

In the 1980s, Sterling edited a series of science fiction newsletters called Cheap Truth, under the alias of Vincent Omniaveritas. He wrote a column called , for the now-defunct science fiction critical magazine, SF Eye.

He has been the inspiration for two projects which can be found on the Web -

The Dead Media Project - A collection of "research notes" on dead media technologies, from Incan quipus, through Victorian phenakistoscopes, to the departed video games and home computers of the 1980s. The Project's homepage, including Sterling's original The Viridian Design Movement - his attempt to create a Green movement without his perceived self-righteousness of the current Green movement. He called his proposed design movement the Viridian movement, to signify its desire for high-tech, stylish, and ecologically sound design. The Viridian Design home page, including Sterling's www.viridiandesign.org, and helped to spawn the popular "bright green" environmental weblog Worldchanging, where many of original members of the Viridian Movement blog, including sometimes Sterling himself.

In the December 2005 issue of Wired magazine, Sterling coined the term buckyjunk. Buckyjunk refers to future, difficult-to-recycle consumer waste made of carbon nanotubes (aka buckytubes, based on buckyballs or buckminsterfullerene).

(1980) - about a young street fighter who continuously films himself using remote controlled cameras (1985) - The 23rd century solar system is divided among two human factions: the "Shapers" who are employing genetics and psychology, and the "Mechanists" who use computers and (1988) - a view of an early 21st century world apparently peaceful with delocalised, networking corporations. The protagonist, swept up in events beyond her control, finds herself in the places off the net, from a datahaven in Grenada, to a Singapore under terrorist attack, and the poorest and most disaster-struck part of Africa. (1994) - about hi-tech storm chasers in a midwest where greenhouse warming has made tornadoes far more energetic that the present day. (1996) - about a world of steadily increasing longevity, the marginalised subculture of young artists, and the nature of the posthuman mind. (1998) - a master political strategist and a genius genetic researcher find love as they fight an insane Louisiana governor for control of a high-tech scientific facility in a post-collapse United States. Winner of the 2000 Arthur C. Clarke Award. US editions: ISBN 0553104845 (hardcover), ISBN 0553576399 (paperback) (2000) - a synthetical pop group touring the Middle East in front of global crime and commerce. Introduces the concept of Major consensus narrative. (2004) - a non-SF techno-thriller (or very near-future SF, looking at some of the gimmicks) about a cyber-security expert who goes to work for the US government fighting terrorism after 9 (1992) - about the panic of law enforcers in the late 1980s about 'hackers' and the raid on Steve Jackson Games as part of Operation Sun Devil. Spectra Books, ISBN 055356370X. Reasoning that the book had a naturally time-limited commercial life, he has made the text of the book freely available via Project Gutenberg (HTML version). (2002) - a popular science approach on futurology, reflecting technology, politics and culture of the next 50 years. Readers of Sterling will recognize many issues from books like (2005Bruce Sterling is a "book about created objects", i.e. a lengthy essay about design, things and how we will move from the age of products and gizmos to the age of spimes (a Sterling neologism). The 150-pages book covers issues like "intelligent things" (spiked with RFID-tags), sustainability and fabbing. MIT Press, ISBN 0262693267."Child of the Diaspora: Bruce Sterling on JG Ballard" Bruce Sterling waxes lyrical on JG Ballard, a key influence on the cyberpunk movement