Bruce Sterling

Distraction

Holy Fire

Islands in the Net

Published 1989-03-01 · 348 pages

From the back cover: Laura Webster's on the fast track to success. A bright young star in a multinational conglomerate, she's living well in a post-millennial age of peace, prosperity, and profit. In an age of advanced technology, information is the world's most precious commodity. Information is power. Data is locked in computers and carefully rationed through a global communications network. Full access is a privilege held by few. Now, Laura Webster is about to be plunged into a netherworld of black-market data pirates, new-age mercenaries, high-tech voodoo... and murder.

Schismatrix

In the far future, in a solar system colonized by a strange aggregation of human cultures, Abelard Lindsay, a rogue diplomat from the Mare Serenitatis Circumlunar Corporate Republic, struggles for survival amidst powerful, advanced societies warring to control the shape of human destiny. In the complex hi tech environment known as Schismatrix, cybernetic humans (Mechanists) contend for domination against the psychologically and genetically altered Shapers, and as today's high technologies take bizarre new forms, and explosive advances in science shatter mankind into warring camps.

The Difference Engine

1855: The Industrial Revolution is in full and inexorable swing, powered by steam-driven cybernetic Engines. Charles Babbage perfects his Analytical Engine and the computer age arrives a century ahead of its time. And three extraordinary characters race toward a rendezvous with history - and the future: Sybil Gerard - dishonored woman and daughter of a Luddite agitator; Edward "Leviathan" Mallory - explorer and paleontologist; Laurence Oliphant - diplomat and spy. Their adventure begins with the discovery of a box of punched Engine cards of unknown origin and purpose.