Islands in the Net Islands in the Net

Islands in the Net

    • 2.7 • 10 Ratings
    • $7.99

Publisher Description

In a near-future new age of corporate control, hacker mercenaries, and electronic terrorism, a public relations executive on the rise finds herself caught in the violent epicenter of a data war

Two decades into the twenty-first century, the world’s nations are becoming irrelevant. Corporations are the true global powers, with information the most valuable currency, while the smaller island nations have become sanctuaries for data pirates and terrorists. A globe-trotting PR executive for the large corporate economic democracy Rizome Industries Group, Laura Webster is present when a foreign representative is assassinated on Rizome soil during a conference for offshore data havens. Dispatched immediately on an international mission of diplomacy, Laura hopes she can make a difference in a volatile, unsteady world, but instead finds herself trapped on the front lines of rapidly escalating third-world hostilities and caught up in an inescapable net of conspiracy, terrorism, post-millennial voodoo, and electronic warfare.

During the 1980s, science fiction luminary Bruce Sterling envisioned the future . . . and hit it almost dead-on. The author who, along with William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, and Rudy Rucker, helped create and define the cyberpunk subgenre imagines a world of tomorrow in Islands in the Net that bears a striking—and disturbing—resemblance to our present-day information-age reality. Nominated for the Hugo and Locus Awards and winner of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, Sterling’s extraordinary novel is a gripping, eye-opening, and remarkably prescient science fiction classic.

“A fast-paced novel of 21st-century techno-intrigue. Recommended.” —Library Journal

“In his Islands in the Net, Bruce Sterling has written the high-tech Candide. . . . Good show.” —Roger Zelazny

“A sophisticated near-future political thriller that asks all the hard questions but dishes out no easy answers.” —Norman Spinrad Bruce Sterling is an American author and one of the founders of the cyberpunk science fiction movement. He began writing in the 1970s; his first novel, Involution Ocean, about a whaling ship in an ocean of dust, is a science fictional pastiche of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. His other works, including his series of stories and a novel, Schismatrix, set in the Shaper/Mechanist universe, often deal with computer-based technologies and genetic engineering. His five short story collections and ten novels have earned several honors: a John W. Campbell Award, two Hugo Awards, a Hayakawa’s SF Magazine Reader’s Award, and an Arthur C. Clarke Award. Sterling has also worked as a critic and journalist, writing for Metropolis, Artforum, Icon, MIT Technology Review, Time, and Newsweek, as well as InterzoneScience Fiction Eye, Cheap Truth, and Cool Tools. He edits Beyond the Beyond, a blog hosted by Wired

Sterling is also involved in the technology and design community. In 2003 his web-only art piece, Embrace the Decay, was commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and became the most-visited piece in the museum’s digital gallery. He has taught classes in design at the Gerrit Reitveld Academie in Amsterdam, Centro in Mexico City, Fabrica in Treviso, Italy, and the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. Sterling lives in Austin, Texas; Belgrade, Serbia; and Turin, Italy. 

GENRE
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
RELEASED
2014
December 30
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
348
Pages
PUBLISHER
Open Road Media
SELLER
OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC
SIZE
3.6
MB
Drakon Drakon
2013
The Best of Michael Swanwick The Best of Michael Swanwick
2009
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Nine The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Nine
2015
Three Science Fiction Thrillers Three Science Fiction Thrillers
2017
Busted Flush Busted Flush
2008
Walkaway Walkaway
2017
The Hacker Crackdown - Law and Disorder On the Electronic Frontier The Hacker Crackdown - Law and Disorder On the Electronic Frontier
1954
The Difference Engine The Difference Engine
1991
Good Night, Moon Good Night, Moon
2011
Twelve Tomorrows – 2014 Twelve Tomorrows – 2014
2014
Schismatrix Plus Schismatrix Plus
2014
The Epic Struggle of the Internet of Things The Epic Struggle of the Internet of Things
1705
Beyond Heaven's River Beyond Heaven's River
2014
The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything and Target: Berlin! The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything and Target: Berlin!
2014
To Marry Medusa To Marry Medusa
2013
Ring Around the Sun Ring Around the Sun
2023
The Bohr Maker The Bohr Maker
2015
Out of Their Minds Out of Their Minds
2015