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Ascendancies The Best of Bruce Sterling eBook Bruce Sterling

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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.

Ascendancies The Best of Bruce Sterling eBook Bruce Sterling

The author's introduction to this collection of stories tells it all. I think anyone interested in writing a science fiction should read this introduction. It shows the artsy intelligence of the author and the roots of his unique style (turning his encyclopedic knowledge to stories) as well as his obsession with some stuff that act as hindrance to his artistic power.
Sterling might be criticized for being much into the line of literary mass-production (like Alexander Dumas, although we might enjoy many of such products). Sometimes the author goes off tangent in his rush to produce more, still his talent shows quite often, like a sun prying the clouds of popular books, with his imaginative style: "A sharp perfume arose, like coffee struck by lightning." (Deep Eddy) // "A beam crossed the horizon like the finger of God, smiting everything in its path. The sky and earth were thick with flying creatures, buzzing, tumbling, sculling." (Taklamakan).
As Sterling himself explains he loves neologism (creating new words) whose meaning can be guessed by readers, and it really adds to the exotic magic of the SF setting.
I originally ordered this collection (Kindle edition) to read the awarded long-short story "Taklamakan": Reading it could be a joy for all SF fans despite its inconsistencies in tempo (e.g. slow pace beginning and a fast pace ending) and I think it encapsulates the core of this collection with its up and down merit ... The theme can be found in many contemporary stories ...

Product details File Size 1978 KB Print Length 552 pages Publisher Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy (December 30, 2014) Publication Date December 30, 2014 Sold by  Digital Services LLC Language English ASIN B00PDDKVN0

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Ascendancies The Best of Bruce Sterling eBook Bruce Sterling Reviews

Bruce Sterling fans will find nothing new here, sadly. But the selection of his best works will be a pleasant reread. While newcomers to Sterling's works can get an excellent synopsis of why he is so highly regarded. The stories in this book originally appeared in sundry magazines, scattered over 20 or so years. The diversity of topics speaks to a versatile writing ability.

As to what is be the best story, this might not be a useful question. Readers' tastes will vary widely enough to make difficult any sort of consensus judgment. My personal favourite would be the Dinner in Audoghast, for its piognant evocation of a lost culture. It also differs strongly from the cyberpunk flavoured tales for which Sterling is renowned.
Disappointing
Great collection of stories.
We're reading this book out loud to each other. Interesting, original ideas, unusual characters.
It wasn't a not great book.
Not enough stories about the Shaper/Mechanist universe. The other stories were mediocre.
Bruce Sterling, one of the best practitioners of science fiction and every kind of writing that can be presented using the tropes of sci-fi, i.e. fantasy, finally allows us to get a glimpse of his entire range of literary creativity. The stories are unlike most of the contemporary science fiction that fill up the extremely boring volumes edited by gardner Dozois, or some of the other pretenders. They are fresh, fast, driven equally by plot & characters, and very tightly told. Sterling gives too hoots about propagation of politically correct themes through fiction, and concentrates on creating stuff that you are bound to remember as "one hell of a story". The contents of this massive collection are -

(*) Introduction by Karen Joy Fowler
(*) Foreword by Bruce Sterling

Part I The Sharper/Mechanist Stories

1) Swarm
2) Spider Rose
3) Cicada Queen
4) Sunken Gardens
5) Twenty Evocations

Part II Early Science Fiction and Fantasy

6) Green Days in Brunei
7) Dinner in Audoghast
8) The Compassionate, the Digital
9) Flowers of Edo
10) The Little Magic Shop
11) Our Neural Cherynobyl
12) We See Things Differently
13) Dori Bangs

Part III The Leggy Starlitz Stories

14) Hollywood Kremlin
15) Are You for 86?
16) The Littlest Jackal

Part IV The Chattanooga Stories

17) Deep Eddy
18) Bicycle Repairman
19) Taklamakan

Part V Later Science Fiction and Fantasy

20) The Sword of Damocles
21) Maneki Neko
22) In Paradise
23) The Blemmye's Strategem
24) Kiosk

I can try to list some of my favourties among favourites, but that would not be very good for you, the prospective reader. These are wonderful stories, and if you feel like reading them, after you have read this incompetent review, my work here would be done. Highly recommended.
The author's introduction to this collection of stories tells it all. I think anyone interested in writing a science fiction should read this introduction. It shows the artsy intelligence of the author and the roots of his unique style (turning his encyclopedic knowledge to stories) as well as his obsession with some stuff that act as hindrance to his artistic power.
Sterling might be criticized for being much into the line of literary mass-production (like Alexander Dumas, although we might enjoy many of such products). Sometimes the author goes off tangent in his rush to produce more, still his talent shows quite often, like a sun prying the clouds of popular books, with his imaginative style "A sharp perfume arose, like coffee struck by lightning." (Deep Eddy) // "A beam crossed the horizon like the finger of God, smiting everything in its path. The sky and earth were thick with flying creatures, buzzing, tumbling, sculling." (Taklamakan).
As Sterling himself explains he loves neologism (creating new words) whose meaning can be guessed by readers, and it really adds to the exotic magic of the SF setting.
I originally ordered this collection ( edition) to read the awarded long-short story "Taklamakan" Reading it could be a joy for all SF fans despite its inconsistencies in tempo (e.g. slow pace beginning and a fast pace ending) and I think it encapsulates the core of this collection with its up and down merit ... The theme can be found in many contemporary stories ...