THE ZENITH ANGLE - Bruce Sterling

The Zenith Angle -- Bruce Sterling
A Del Rey Book, New York
(c)2004, 306 pp
ISBN: 0-345-46061-8

After the 9/11 disaster and the declaration of war on terrorism, internet and dot-com companies face a new reality -- that a major portion of the war on terrorism is actual a "cyber" war on terrorism. One of the leading researchers and developers of the internet and internet security becomes enlisted in the United States' cyber war. His work to fix a faulty spy satellite leads him to some unexpected foes and an honest-to-god death ray machine.

Bruce Sterling is one of the few writers whose work I will buy, new, in hardcover when I see it on the shelves. I generally find his work fresh and interesting, and it is always intelligent and accessible. Sterling's name is usually mentioned in conjunction with William Gibson as the leading authors of the "cyber punk" genre. I prefer Sterling's style over Gibson's.

Sadly, I think this is one of Sterling's weakest books to date. The technology described was sound, as expected with a Sterling novel, but trying to follow the main character's leaps of logic were difficult, and the relationships between the characters (which took up a major portion of the story) were muddy.

If I had read only the last 50 pages I would not have missed out on much of the back story, would have caught all the action/excitement contained in the book, and wouldn't have been any more or less confused as to who the peope were and what their associations with each other might be.

If you've never read a Bruce Sterling book, don't let this be your first, or it'll likely be your last as well.