“It had never occurred to the lords of the consumer society that consumerism as a political philosophy might one day manifest the grave systemic instabilities that Communism had. But as those instabilities multiplied, the country had cracked. Civil society shriveled in the pitiless reign of cash. As the last public spaces were privatized, it became harder and harder for American culture to breathe. Not only were people broke, but they were taunted to madness by commercials, and pitilessly surveilled by privacy-invading hucksters. An ever more aggressive consumer-outreach apparatus caused large numbers of people to simply abandon their official identities. It was no longer any fun to be an American citizen. Bankruptcies multiplied beyond all reason, becoming a kind of commercial apostasy. Tax dodging became a spectator sport. The American people simply ceased to behave.” ( )

This book was written in the 1990's but it seems more relevant to today than the first time I read it when it came out. It depicts the world of 2043 or 30 years from now. The Federal government is paralyzed by politics and indecision, permanently in a state of emergency. Louisiana has been devastated by floods and the whole country by unemployment (up around 33% not 8% but still. There is a huge disparity in wealth to the point that the only people with jobs work as private "krewes" of personal servants to rich people. People aren't starving in the streets and it is not Armageddon, it is just a country where nothing seems to be able to get done. WASPs are a minority. All these issues seem to be relevant to today's political scene except magnified. The book follows an unusual political consultant with a "personal background issue" and how he tries to single-handedly turn the country around by using various people he encounters, sometimes to their breaking limit. It is all amusing and well thought out. Sterling isn't a magic profit, he just extends statistics and trends out 50 years from when he wrote the book and follows where they are leading. It is a scary place, and more and more real each day. ( )

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3488524.html

set in a crumbling USA of 2044, whose protagonist is a political operator who switches from electoral campaigning to protecting his lover's laboratory. Some parts of the setting now seem eerily prescient.

We get taken into the depths of the politics of Sterling's future America, with weak governance (Senator, Governors, President), armed militias (mostly benign), a vat-born hero, and self-funded scientific breakthroughs. It's funny and fast-paced, and has more owners on both Goodreads and LibraryThing than the other two put together. But I felt that of the three, it is the most superficial and has aged least well. Sterling was of course the apostle of cyberpunk, and the fact that this book actually has a coherent plot and interesting (if not always sympathetic) characters set it apart from some others in that genre. ( )

A distraction...but only just. ( )

Fun and strange. ( )