Zeitgeist

Rating:
Summary: Too good to be mere gonzo
Review: This book has a heart of surrealistic mysticism in the mode of Like Water For Chocolate or One Hundred Years Of Solitude. But the book's brain is almost hyper-realistic in its knowledge of the contemporary world. There are other SF writers, good writers, who dabble in surrealism but no others are so relentlessly informed.

Rating:
Summary: Less of a story, more of an essay
Review: Zeitgeist is an absolutely fascinating book. But let's face it, Sterling doesn't have half as much interest in the plot as he does in making observations of the modern world. This is pop culture, mass consumerism and culture war wrapped up in a brilliant package, but it seems a lot less like a novel than it does a series of modernistic philisophical conversations.