Islands in the Net

Sterling, Bruce. Islands in the Net. New York: Arbor, 1988. New York: Ace-Berkley, 1989.

Near-future political thriller telling the adventures of Laura Day Webster, an associate of Rizome (sic) Industries Group, yuppified hippies trying to be rhizomes in the high-tech data Net that has almost covered the Earth, a community in a world of corporations. Correctly compared by Roger Zelazny to Candide (blurb, Ace edn.): like Candide (1759), Laura is more acted upon than active in her adventures, but the cyberpunk world of the novel will hardly allow rhizomes—let alone a garden of one's own to cultivate. Cf. and emphatically contrast the cyberpunk works of W. Gibson, cited above in this Category.

RDE, correction, 12Aug19