Bruce Sterling

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Bruce Sterling
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25 Quotations from Bruce Sterling

cryosleep n. 1983 B. Sterling Cicada Queen in Universe 13 179 She was ice-cold, sunk in some kind of alien cryosleep.
cyberpunk n. 1 1986 B. Sterling Mirrorshades Pref. p. ix But of all the labels pasted on and peeled throughout the early Eighties, one has stuck: cyberpunk.
cyberpunk n. 1 1992 B. Sterling Hacker Crackdown 146 Cyberpunk, as its label implies, had two general distinguishing features. First, its writers had a compelling interest in information technology, an interest akin to science fiction’s earlier fascination with space travel. And second, these writers were ‘punks’ with all the distinguishing features that that implies: Bohemian artiness, youth run wild, an air of deliberate rebellion, funny clothes and hair, odd politics, a fondness for abrasive rock and roll; in a word, trouble.
cyberspace n. 1992 B. Sterling Hacker Crackdown xii Since the 1960s, the world of the telephone has crossbred itself with computers and television, and though there is still no substance to cyberspace—nothing you can handle—it has a strange physicality now. It makes good sense today to talk of cyberspace as a place all its own.
cyberspace n. 1992 B. Sterling Hacker Crackdown xi-xii Cyberspace is the ‘place’ where a telephone conversation appears to occur. Not inside your actual phone, the plastic device on your desk. Not inside the other person’s phone, in some other city. The place between the phones.
cyborg n. 1985 J. Shirley & B. Sterling Unfolding in J. Clute et al. Interzone: 2nd Anthology (1987) 161 He rarely made whirring or clicking noises, and few people knew he was a cyborg.
dark fantasy n. 1986 B. Sterling Mirrorshades 34 Her work has shown wide variety, ranging through dark fantasy and horror to quirky and original science fiction.
earthling n. 1985 R. Rucker & B. Sterling Storming Cosmos in B. Sterling Globalhead (1994) 18 The dog Laika has been shot into the cosmic void. A good dog, a Russian, an Earthling.
free fall n. 1983 B. Sterling & W. Gibson Red Star, Winter Orbit in B. Sterling Mirrorshades (1986) 204 She kissed his cheek, wobbling in freefall.
hovercar n. 1986 B. Sterling & L. Shiner Mozart in Mirrorshades in B. Sterling Mirrorshades (1986) 233 Rice’s hovercar huffed along at a steady 80 mph.
manga n. 1998 B. Sterling Maneki Neko in Year’s Best SF 4 469 Tsuyoshi bought the aftershave, then stepped outside the barbershop. Nothing happened, so he bought a manga comic and waited. Finally a hairy, blond stranger in shorts, a tropical shirt, and sandals approached him.
morph v. 1 1994 B. Sterling Heavy Weather 154 The critic’s head was morphing like a barber pole on the slender pillar of her tanned and elegant neck.
posthuman n. 1985 B. Sterling Schismatrix 26 I've met many borderline posthumans in my day, but never one of you.
posthuman adj. 1985 B. Sterling Schismatrix 133 People began to speak, for the first time, of the Schismatrix—of a posthuman solar system, diverse yet unified, where tolerance would rule and every faction would have a share.
posthuman adj. 1996 B. Sterling Holy Fire 233 She drew an x-y graph with two swift strokes. ‘This bottom axis is the passage of time. And this is the increase in life expectancy. For every year that passes, posthuman life expectancy increases by about a month.’
posthumanism n. 1985 B. Sterling Schismatrix 229 Really? Posthumanism! Prigoginic levels of complexity! Fractal scales, bedrock of space-time, precontinuum ur-space! Have I got it right?
posthumanist adj. 1985 B. Sterling Schismatrix 208 ‘You know I don’t follow that post-Cataclyst line.’ ‘Posthumanist,’ Wellspring insisted. ‘Are you on the side of life, or aren’t you? If you’re not, then you’ll let the pain overwhelm you. You’ll go against Constantine and die as Nora did. Accept her death, and stay with us. The future belongs to Posthumanism, Lindsay. Not to nation-states, not to factions. It belongs to life, and life moves in clades.’ ‘I’ve heard your spiel before, Wellspring. If we embrace the loss of our humanity then it means worse differences, worse struggle, worse ware.’
posthumanity n. 1985 B. Sterling Schismatrix 231 ‘At my age,’ Lindsay said, ‘if I were human I’d already be dead.’ ‘Now you’re talking. You’re as big as your dreams. That’s what they say in C-K, right? No rules, no limits. Look at the Mechs and Shapers.’ The boy was contemptuous. ‘All the power in the world, and they’re chasing each other’s tails. Burn their wars and midget ideologies. Posthumanity’s bigger than that. [...]’
proto-cyberpunk n. 1986 B. Sterling Mirrorshades Pref. p. ix These proto-cyberpunks were briefly dubbed the Mirrorshades Group.
skiffy n. 1989 B. Sterling in SF Eye July 77/2 Many of the best new writers seem openly ashamed of their backward Skiffy nationality.
skiffy n. 1989 B. Sterling in SF Eye July 78/2 We could call this kind of fiction Novels of Postmodern Sensibility, but that looks pretty bad on a category rack, and requires an acronym besides; so for the sake of convenience and argument, we will call these books ‘slipstream.’ ‘Slipstream’ is not all that catchy a term, and if this young genre ever becomes an actual category I doubt it will use that name, which I just coined along with my friend Richard Dorsett. ‘Slipstream’ is a parody of ‘mainstream’, and nobody calls mainstream ‘mainstream’ except for us skiffy trolls.
slipstream n. 1989 B. Sterling in SF Eye July 78/2 We could call this kind of fiction Novels of Postmodern Sensibility, but that looks pretty bad on a category rack, and requires an acronym besides; so for the sake of convenience and argument, we will call these books ‘slipstream.’ ‘Slipstream’ is not all that catchy a term, and if this young genre ever becomes an actual category I doubt it will use that name, which I just coined along with my friend Richard Dorsett. ‘Slipstream’ is a parody of ‘mainstream’, and nobody calls mainstream ‘mainstream’ except for us skiffy trolls.
space gun n. 1 1992 B. Sterling Science in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction June 108/2 They might even be literally shot into orbit by Jules Vernian ‘space guns’.
viewport n. 1983 B. Sterling & W. Gibson Red Star, Winter Orbit in B. Sterling Mirrorshades (1986) 210 The viewports…were always the first to go.
warp speed n. 1992 B. Sterling Hacker Crackdown 232 In 1990, the civil libertarians of cyberspace assembled out of nowhere in particular, at warp speed.