Product Description

Bruce Sterling, one of the founding fathers of the cyberpunk genre, now presents a novel of vivid imagination and invention that proves his talent for creating brilliant speculative fiction is sharper than ever. Forty years from now, Earth's climate has been drastically changed by the greenhouse effect. Tornadoes of almost unimaginable force roam the open spaces of Texas. And on their trail are the Storm Troupers: a ragtag band of computer experts and atmospheric scientists who live to hack heavy weather -- to document it and spread the information as far as the digital networks will stretch, using virtual reality to explore the eye of the storm. Although it's incredibly addictive, this is no game. The Troupers' computer models suggest that soon an "F-6" will strike -- a tornado of an intensity that exceeds any existing scale; a storm so devastating that it may never stop. And they're going to be there when all hell breaks loose.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #382440 in Books
• Published on: 1995-12-01
• Released on: 1995-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780553572926
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
Why hack computers when you can hack nature? Sterling's Storm Troupe lives in a post-greenhouse world ravaged by monster storms and finds itself hacking the ultimate storm: the F-6 tornado. No one in the Troupe, not even it's brilliant, driven leader, guesses the real nature of the F-6 or the shadowy forces unleashed in its twisting fury. Not until it is too late...

From Publishers Weekly
Cyberpunk prophet Sterling, whose last book was a nonfiction exploration of computer hackers and the law (The Hacker Crackdown), returns to SF with a near-future thriller. In 2031, the world suffers from "heavy weather"-tornadoes and typhoons caused by a runaway greenhouse effect. While most people wisely try to avoid the storms, one group of counterculture techno-enthusiasts calling themselves the Storm Troupe chases them through the badlands of Texas and Oklahoma. Led by the visionary scientist Jerry Mulcahey, the Troupe studies the storms with an array of high-tech equipment, trying to document what Mulcahey believes is coming soon-a superstorm, the "F-6," a tornado far more powerful than any ever seen and which might even prove unstoppable, a perpetual violent disturbance ravaging the landscape. When Mulcahey's lover, Juanita ("Jane") Unger, drags her brother Alex (who suffers from some strange disease as well as an irritating anomie) from an illegal Mexican clinic back to the Troupe's camp, tensions are ignited among the Troupers. But those plot threads are abruptly dropped when the F-6 hits, and the Troupe pulls together to fight the elements. Some similarities between this book and Sterling's previous fiction are evident: the Troupe uses the word "hack" as computer users do, saying they "hack" heavy weather, and they've got a similar case of technophilia, but it lacks the scope and the big, innovative ideas that gave novels like Islands in the Net their power. This one has some sharp moments and intriguing characters, but it never offers that exciting sense of vision.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
A dying young man and his renegade sister find acceptance and meaning in the company of the Storm Troupers, a nomad band of computer hackers and atmospheric researchers who spend their days and nights chasing and documenting the frequent tornadoes that rampage across the Texas landscape. One of cyberpunk's most gifted authors, Sterling (Islands in the Net, Ace Bks., 1989) creates a drama of real world and virtual adventure set against the stark landscape of postgreenhouse America. Along with John Barnes's Mother of Storms (LJ 6/15/94), this high-tech disaster novel should appeal to a wide readership.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Human Science Fiction
Sterling is one of the few current cyberpunk/scifi writers who seems to work with real characters rather than new ideas. Despite an occasionally messy plot point, this book delivers some of the most interesting speculative fiction around. The German-Mexican brother sister pair-- Jane and Alex-- are full and complex people and rather than simply acting out some kind of mythic archetype they move in this futurescape the way you'd expect real people to move. The sense of scene is also rich and full, with the cultural details full of verisimilitude. Perhaps not my favorite Sterling, but still a great read.

A very good spin on Cyberpunk
Bruce Sterling took the familar sub-genre of Cyberpunk and carried it to new terrain, literally. The story takes place primarily in West Texas and up Tornado Alley, with a smattering of Mexico for the really dark side of living. Most of Cyberpunk takes place on the West Coast or Asia. The setting changes the whole ambience of the book. Instead of the slick, fast, all mirror feel of typical cyberpunk fare, we have a more paced and linguistically clever piece of writing.

Sterling does go a little overboard with the F-6; the anticipation is built up so much that when he finally describes it, the disappointment is palpable. Words simply fail to capture the idea of such a colossal event.

However, this book is about people, and how they are dealing with a world in climatic catastrophe. Consequently, the characters are rich and the dialogue is textured. The characters are not ginger-bread people, each is noticeably different from one another. Many very clever lines from this book and some astute insights as to the nature of modern American thought.

hack this storm
Weather challenged everyone before the 20th century: if you lived in Kansas, how did you know what weather was coming toward you over the plains? Naturalists developed anemometers, wind vanes, barometers, rain gauges, and thermometers to collect measurements over time of the weather at particular locations. In the early 19th century, statisticians sought to interpolate among enormous numbers of measurements of wind speed and direction, humidity, temperature, barometric pressure, and rainfall to figure out what the atmosphere plans for us in terms of weather. Only when we distributed accurate clocks along railroad routes could meteorologists integrate this data into weather maps that showed the development and decay of weather systems over time and geographic space. In the 20th century, with aircraft, more complex statistics, and computers, we developed measurements and models of weather systems in 3-dimensions. (See, for example, James Fleming's Meteorology in America.)

The protagonists of Heavy Weather use nothing as handy as a thermometer, but rather a combination of modern and futurist tools, most of which require developing a personal knack to master. In addition to supplying a story, the extreme weather of the southern plains also serves as a metaphor for stormy relationships and the battle that one protagonist, Alex, wages with his own body, whose mysterious debility has seemed to control his life's purpose until he chooses to focus on helping his sister's troupe of roving weather hackers to understand the region. Medicine employs instruments much like those used to measure weather, but that reduce Alex's body to a mapped system that then does not respond to therapies as doctors project.

This is a complex book, gratifyingly over the top in areas, and mundane in some aspects of character development. Sterling's novels show that he is intent on examining basic interpersonal relationships, such as parent-child, lovers, siblings, colleagues, and civil society in extreme settings. As with all his books, his protagonists are heroes who are less than heroes, sometimes improbably sweet or strong.

In light of the mysterious, powerful weather on the U.S. Gulf Coast this fall, I especially recommend this book. As I listen on the radio and TV to the reasons that the public and officials give for not acting appropriately in the face of enormous risk, I think about the 500-year transition much of the world has made away from a mystical and toward a science-based understanding of "why things happen." Clearly, the science of hurricanes has not been heard by many of those who are most at risk of losing life and property, as well as by many of those most favored by position or education and bearing an enormous responsibility, as experts, to act to promote public safety.

Four stars only because I wish this Sterling book were longer, with more development of his settings and technologies. It might be a characteristic of the cyberpunk label that intriguing terms get plopped in the text with little explication, their meaning derived from narrative context. However, many of these terms stick like burrs and travel with me into conversations; they are very pithy. I can't complete the metaphor of comparing extreme weather to the characters because that would give away too much. Suffice it to say that there's an end to every storm.