Ask Bruce Sterling

This week's interview subject is author Bruce Sterling. If you've never heard of him (shame on you!) learn a little about him here or type his name into any search engine. He's an interesting dude and one of my personal favorite contemporary writers, and I feel privileged to have him with us this week. Post your questions below, as usual, and, as usual, Slashdot moderators and editors will select 10 - 15 of them, and (again as usual) Bruce's answers will appear Friday and, if he has time, he might jump into the discussion that follows the posting of his answers.

Stephenson opinion?

We're hearing lots about Neal Stephenson in the geek set these days. What's your opinion of the man, his writing style, and his choice of topics upon which to write?

Viridian Green

A lot of your work recently has been on the Viridian project - a movement dedica
ted to innovative, practical, and far-reaching responses to environmental crisis
. You've focused on the use of design and engineering to create a less destructi
ve way of living on this planet.

You're doing so in a way that seeks to avoid politics - you'll name names, but s
eem unwilling to pitch battles. Is this fatalism, or an attempt to preserve cons
ensus in a movement that includes both libertarians and communitarians? Do you b
elieve that conscientious consumerism is going to be sufficient to avert continu
ed environmental destruction? Do you believe that "local minima" of the immediat
e benefits of good design will always win in the market? Do you think lasting ch
ange will be possible without global regulation? And what do you think the most promising recent Viridian-positive developments have been?

Future William Gibson Collaboration?

I thought that The Difference Engine was one of the most offbeat and interesting takes on the cyberpunk (steampunk?) genre. Are you still in contact with William Gibson? Do you have plans to collaborate with him again?

Who have you influenced?

It is customary to ask people who their influences were. But I would like to turn that around. and ask a harder question...

Which new authors do you feel that you have most strongly influenced? What specifically makes you select them?

Thanks,
Ben

Distraction and open source

First off, did Marianne Dyson get any NASA funding to help get your T1 trunk to Siberia?
;-)

Secondly, in your most recent book titled Distraction, you base a large part of the economic demise of America on the scenario of the Chinese government making all U.S. commercial software freely available on the net. While I am not deluded about the role and importance of many commercial products, how do you think the recent rise in availability and quality of free software would affect this scenario? How much consideration, if any, did you lend to the free software movement when writing Distraction?

Keep aiming to please.

Dead Media Manifesto?

I read, some time back, a Manifesto [alamut.com] of yours dealing with dead (ie doomed or archaic or obsolete) media; it was a very interesting read.

If I'm not mistaken, the thrust of your manifesto was that a research tome on such media should be created, but since you were too swamped with projects, you hoped that people out there on the Internet who read it would come together and help to create the book themselves.

I was wondering if this has been very successful, and if so (or if not) what you have learned from the Manifesto and its consequences.

The corroded future

It seems that many modern science fiction authors see the future as a time when society gives up on "physical" community in favor of technology. (i.e ruined govt, city states, corporate martial powers, etc..) Do you see this as an amplification of the state of community in today's world, or is it simply convenient literary device?

Your opinion of collaborative writing?

Some authors consider collaborative writing projects to be rather painful and counterproductive. The Difference Engine , however, was a wonderful piece of writing and seemed to truly be a product of both your and Gibson's styles. My questions:

• Did you enjoy the challenge of working with another author, especially one with such a distinct style?
• Do you think that sci-fi is, as a genre, particularly conducive to collaborative projects? If so, why, and if not, any opinion on why they are so common?
• Do you have any advice for aspiring collaborative writers (other than the key "don't kill your partner")?

-Josh

The Pace of Technology vs. SF

Rereading Islands in the Net recently, I was struck by the observation that the humble DVD rendered some of the early scenes almost obsolete (only in a speculative sense).

With that in mind, are there any technological or cultural developments in the past few years that have caused you to rethink your speculations/predictions/opinions about the near future? If so, what are they?

Thanks for your time!

--
QDMerge [rmci.net] 0.21!

No more 'Whoa'?

Bruce-

I still remember early Cyberpunk, and then the early years of Wired, as times of being exposed to one "mind blowing" idea after another. The future, though far from Utopian, was going to be very interesting. Anymore, though, I see few ideas that make me sit back and say "Whoa...now *that* is cool."

Now, in a mundane world of spam and banner ads, the coming future doesn't seem nearly so thrilling. In trying to pinpoint the source of my apathy about new ideas, I can't quite decide if it's me, us, or you. That is, I can't decide if: (a) My personal perspective has changed, and I've learned enough that little suprises me anymore, (b) We've all gotten better at predicting the future, so little surprises any of us, or (c) You folks (the SF writers and Futurists) blew out all the great ideas in the 80s and early 90s, and we'll just have to wait awhile for the next Big Thing.

So what I'm wondering is: Have you become at all jaded about technology and its effect on society? What do you think about our current state of predicting the future? Are there any ideas, authors, etc., that you've seen recently that make you say "Whoa..."?

Reflections on a future that has arrived.

We are starting to see parts of the future that you, Mr. Gibson, and others in the cyberpunk genre have predicted come true. Items such as the Mirrorshades are closer than ever to being a reality (the recent work by IBM on body portables being an example).

Are you surprised by how much what you forecasted has or has not come true? Is there anything you thought for sure was going to happen but didn't?

And thought hindsight is often useless, in what ways would the current situation (cultural/political/technological) change the stories that you have written? Part of the trap with writing speculative fiction set in the near-future is that as the future date approaches, unless you are dead on with the predictions, the story will move into the realm of wild fantasy. John Carpenter's 'Escape from New York' serves as an example. In the end, it all comes down to the story. How well do you think your stories (and cyberpunk in general) will stand up in 20 years time?

Sterling FAQ

In case anyone's interested, there's a Sterling FAQ [well.com].

My question? Would you reconsider revisting the world of systems crackers and the like? The Hacker Crackdown was a damn good book.

The shape of future corporations

One of the things that I found most intrigueing about Islands In The Net was the corporate structure and culture of the Rizome corporation.

Recently we've seen companies with radical new business models (such as Redhat and VA Linux) hiring developers to work on whatever they want, and corporate HR departments focusing on 'recruiting from within' to minimize employee turnover. Both these trends may be extrapolated to lead to Rizome type corporations.

So here's the question: What do you currently think future business entities will look like, and what can we do to make those future entities as human-friendly as possible?
--

Death of frontiers

Bruce: I remember reading an essay by you about Burning Man a while back; you hauled your daughter along. I thought this move, besides indicating that you were an incredibly cool dad, pretty much marked the end of Burning Man as a "dangerous" underground phenomenom. Similarly, a number of different forces are transfroming the web-centric Internet into something increasingly bland. I know you're a long-time user of the Well, which is now owned by Salon, the Newsweek of the web.

Which leads me to my question. Do you think it's possible nowadays to create a sustained, independent, and transgressive community (a TAZ, if you will) without it being co-opted by society at large? Some of your old Catscan essays (particularly the one on Jules Verne [eff.org]) hint at what your response to this question would have been in the past, but I'm curious to hear what you have to say now.