by Bruce Sterling

Gustaf Erikson What happens if the amount of carbon dioxide in atmosphere is doubled? Nobody really knows, but you can be sure it won't be the same as before... In "Heavy Weather", Bruce Sterling's latest novel but one, this is what has happened. It is a world going literally to pieces, where old "defeated" diseases have mutated into new and resistant forms, where enormous tornadoes devastate the country and crush everything in their path. In north Texas, the Storm Troupe, a fanatical group of weather scientists, have made it their mission to seek out and document the hydrogen bomb of this turbulent atmosphere: the F6, a storm which could become the Earth's Great Red Spot, a permanent vortex rendering most of the US uninhabitable. "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore..."

Sterling's novel has some very good ideas, and should become the template for coming "near-future" stories. But perhaps he should put a bit more effort into the plot. The happy end feels tacked on, almost as if the book had been shown for a test audience, as in Hollywood films. And having said that, the book would probably make a great movie, even if most of the background would be lost. "Heavy Weather" is part of a trend in science fiction where technological pessimism is the predominant theme. Instead of seeing technology as something that is always beneficial, it is seen as a force which advances the inevitable decay of society. Another example would be William Gibson's "Virtual Light" or Jeff Noon's excellent "Vurt". Everyone who dismisses SF as escapistic technofetishism should read these novels. They don't give any solutions, but by pointing to the writing on the wall they show us where we might end up, if we're not careful.

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